Coriolis Effect: Sunday Morning the Begining:Chapter 1

The beginning of the next sailing chapter ! Part 1

Baltimore Harbor

As we sit in Baltimore Harbor I find myself thinking of the past year and the changes I have seen with this vessel as well as with my own life. I have let this blog page go Idle over the past year or so. For whatever the reason I have decided that it is time to get back to writing again. What I will try and do is to paint a picture of the past year from coming aboard in Fort Lauderdale, the challenging time we had sailing her to Maine and the refit process that she underwent at the Front Street Shipyard

In Belfast .

From the time I left the Palawan to run the Oyster 82 Darling I found myself in a funk with regard to writing. Although I enjoyed my time in Charleston SC over the winter of 2012 the move to the Oyster did not work out as was planned and I found myself trying the freelance delivery market as an alternative to full time aboard one vessel. This in the beginning seemed promising as a way to keep myself busy and also have a bit of a normal life ashore. I met some great people in the process and had the opportunity to sail and drive some very interesting boats. Nonetheless there was something missing not having a boat of my own to command. There was never any attachment to the vessels as the time aboard was short. A couple of the boats were very special to me and the relationship with the owners still stands today. For this I am very happy to have had this experience. Getting aboard a strange boat and taking it over the horizon is certainly not without it’s own challenges. During this time I did over 15 different boats and sailed from Florida to Maine and many points in between. I even found myself dabbling with the dark side (power boats).

Transition after delivery to Maine

I remember transiting across Block Island Sound aboard the Transition. I was doing a delivery from Long Island to Thomaston Me. This boat was what I would call a Resto Mod. That is a acronym used in the car world for cars that are modified and customized into what are essentially hot rods. This boat as boats would go is definitely a hot rod. Muscle Boat is what I started to call it. The boat was an East Bay 54 that had been extended to 60 ft with the addition of a large aft platform deck as well as the extension of the hull. The engine room was gutted and her engines were removed and replaced with two 1100 HP C-18 Cats. Great detail and craft was performed by the Guys at Lyman Morse Boat building in this project. To say the least this boat was special. So here we were in a full blown gale. Wind out of the SW howling at a sustained 30+. Seas were running upwards of 8 to 10 feet. Transition was running at an exciting but very comfortable 25 knots and doing a bit of surfing. I remember making the comment “ I guy could get used to this”. I had a couple of more experiences with this vessel and enjoyed the time with her. Her owner was a very interesting man of who I still today have a relationship with.

Sailing is still and always will be the focus of my work in this regard. Which brings me to coming aboard this vessel. At that time she was named Pegasus 2. I was at the time being considered for a position aboard a different yacht. I received a call from a friend in the business. He suggested I call who is my current boss.

He was considering a boat that was in Ft Lauderdale. He asked me if I would on his behalf go to Fort Lauderdale and inspect the vessel and to work with the port captain in learning what I could about the boat. As it would turn out this is a boat I had history with going back to 2003 when I worked at the Hinckley Co. At that time she was called “Irishman”. I was involved with this boat during a refit she had started at the Hinckley Yard in Portsmouth RI.

During my first week in Ft Lauderdale I spent my time crawling in and out of the bilge of the boat observing the different systems and their condition. What was most impressive was the condition of her aluminum structure. This boat was built in Sturgeon Bay Wisconsin by Palmer Johnson Yachts. Having spent many years in this wonderful community watching these beautiful sailing boats being built I was enthused to say the least about this opportunity. On the surface the boat appeared to be in relatively good condition.

Sea Trial off of Fort Lauderdale

The following week we would sea trial and have the boat surveyed. I had the opportunity to shadow the surveyor as he went thru the process of evaluating the boat. Much was learned and a decision was made to go forward with the purchase. A couple of days later I found myself in command of a PJ 92 foot Alden Ketch.

I had made arrangements for my former mate Joe Brown to join me on the boat and to pick up where we left off on the Palawan. Joe flew down to Ft Lauderdale and we began the process of preparing the vessel for the transit north. The first plan was to sail to Baltimore where we are today. We did not have much time from the closing to our departure. The boss was anxious to get underway and to sail and enjoy his new boat.

Getting the dingy ready for sea

We began to prepare the Pegasus 2 for the trip to Maine. Getting the dingy aboard using the mizzen was a bit of a challenge. This we would address later during the refit.

The Plan was to sail to Baltimore MD where the owner has his primary home. We would stay in Baltimore for a few weeks and then would sail to Maine. To say that the boat had some issues was an understatement and we struggled with constant systems failures.

The trip from Fort Lauderdale for the most part was quite pleasant as for the weather. Although we did not see much wind until we were off of the Virginia coast. We were mostly running on the Mercedes. We did have for better part of a day the boat steaming along with a reef in the Main and Mizzen at 10+ knots. This passage was actually quite fast. We were able to complete the trip in 4 days 6 hours dock to dock.

Nice sailing off the coast of VA.

The house bank battery system, which consisted of 10-8 D Gel Cell batteries was junk. As it would turn out we had at best when silent 10 volts. The only way we could keep the DC Electrical system working was to have the Gen set running and the AC chargers working full time. I was very concerned about the balance of the trip to Maine and the condition of these batteries. I flew a couple of techs down from Maine to evaluate our situation. We came to the conclusion that it was not safe to operate the boat with the batteries as they were.

Doing a temp re wire of Batteries

We had plans to replace this system with all new during the upcoming refit. We did not want to get into this while we were in Baltimore.

I suggested to the tech aboard the idea of shutting down all of the batteries and to replace and re wire four new 8D Lead Acids in the system to get us to Maine. This turned out to be a good plan as we would run the Gens to keep the batteries up but at least they would not fail us and we would have the power we needed to run the sails.

With the new batteries installed we left Baltimore with the Boss his wife and their two West Highland Terriers aboard for the trip to Maine. The first leg of the trip would take us to New York City.

The New World Trade Ctr. in the distance

We arrived off of Sandy Hook in the late morning the next day. We did the city transit and found ourselves docked at City Island. Two friends of the boss joined us that evening to sail to Maine . The next morning we were greeted with a very brisk NW Wind blowing 25 knots. As we started our passage thru Long Island Sound we were for the first time really sailing this vessel.

Ripping up Long Island Sound

We essentially covered the length of the sound in a day. We went from City Island to Stonington CT in 10 hours. A very respectable passage to say the least. At times she was making 12 knots on a nice broad reach. I believe it was during this passage that I began to bond with this boat. She is very exciting to sail in a breeze.

We spent the night in Stonington and the next day continued on to Newport RI.

From Newport RI we sailed to New Bedford and spent a couple of days there waiting out some nasty weather. From New Bedford we would sail over night across the Gulf of Maine where we would park the boat in one of the Boss’s Favorite Anchorages.

The Basin Casco Bay

From Casco Bay we would sail to Rockland Maine where the boss the wife and the dogs would fly home in his plane.

Boarding the plane

Rockland Harbor

Joe Brown and I would spend a couple of more days in Rockland before we would complete the trip to Belfast and the Front Street Shipyard. We would spend close to a month on the dock at the shipyard before we would be hauled and put in the shop for the winter. The facility at the Front Street Shipyard was for the most part brand new. They built this shipyard and had it up and running in just over a year. They had a number of projects that were being completed and would delay our haul out.

It became a priority to get us out as there was a tropical storm bearing down on New England. What would become Hurricane Sandy moved us up to being hauled out and put on the hard for the storm. That meant removal of the rig and the process would begin. The beginning of November would find us at last in the barn.

Haulout

In the next part I will get into the refit and what we accomplished during our year in Belfast. The year in Belfast would be a very interesting and in many ways a very delightful surprise for me personally.