Wish me luck and hope for good weather

[Concordia...41]

It doesn't seem right to ask for prayers for good weather when there are so many folks in real need, but I'm leaving in the am for Annapolis. :D

Crewing on Hunter's brand new 50' center cockpit deluxe flagship with all the bells and whistles - including but not limited to a hot tub, walk-in closet, and 3 flat-screen TVs :)

Yeah, the hot tub may not be too practical, especially through a tack :eek:, but the walk in closet gets my vote!

I'd of announced it sooner, but: a) I didn't want to jinx it, and b) it wasn't really definite until a couple of days ago when they got really desperate for delivery crew... :rolleyes:

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b8d708b3127ccec56e9622afdb00000040O08BYtG7lsxbg9 vPhA/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b8d708b3127ccec56f52a88f7f00000040O08BYtG7lsxbg9 vPhA/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

I know ithe boat isn't everybody's cup of tea, but having never been to Annapolis or the Chesapeake, it's a wonderful experience for me. Plus it's another 850 miles under my sailing belt.

Now about that good weather...

[htom]

Best wishes!

[Hwyl]

Fair winds (looked you should have light South Westerlies until Thursday) I wish I was on board too (hope those furlers work).

You're early for the show.

[John B]

Just thinking about you Margo.. wondering where you were on the concordia thread.

Good luck and good weather.:D

edit. oh , I see you found it.

[Thad]

Good luck! Have fun! How much draft?

[Tar Devil]

Have fun, Margo!!

[switters]

fair winds, we expect to see lots of pics.

[Concordia...41]

You're early for the show.

The goal is to be there some time this weekend. The boats move in on Tuesday.

Draft? Well, that's a good question. The day the truck arrived was fraught with issues, and I didn't see it come in so don't know if it's a shoal draft or full (5'6" and 7' respectively).

I really did try to catch it on the way in as SARAH's new boom hitched a ride over on the truck... ;)

[Michael s/v Sannyasin]

dang... fill that hot tub, buy a few bottles of cheap champagne and damn the torpedos....

Have a great time sweetheart!

[S/V Laura Ellen]

Good luck Margo and I'll talk to the guy upstairs about the weather.

It's nice to see you jumping in and be willing to rough it at sea just to help a sailing colleague.:D

[John B]

At the risk of a hijack.. hot tub?

seriously ?

[C. Ross]

Saw it at boat show. IIRC steering cockpit is plumbed, and converts to hot tub in port.

Enough ribbing for a while about bourgeois powerboating.

Good luck, fair weather and above all enjoy Annapolis. It's especially beautiful in the autumn.

[Concordia...41]

At the risk of a hijack.. hot tub?

seriously ?

It's actually a garden tub in the aft cabin. Surely Waione has one ;):p

[John B]

Waione doesn't even have a sink. Riada has a shower but we're too scared to use it. Jump o/board instead.

[Chris Coose]

Have fun.
You are going from where to where in 850 miles?

[BrianW]

Sounds like a great trip. Seems like the wrong time of year for a sail, but what do I know about the east coast. :)

[Mrleft8]

Actually this is the best time of year for sailing....
BUT.... TO THE POINT..... I get locked up in a stinking weirdass looney bin hospital room with a Mexican drug mule who's balloons are popping in his intestines, a deranged 90 y/o icecream shop owner who thinks he's in Milwaulkee, a psychotic nurse, located right outside the nurses station so there isn't a moment's peace and quiet for 5 days..... AND THE BOSS GETS TO GO SAILING!!??? Something int right here I tell ya...

[Rich VanValkenburg]

There's a big cold front that just moved through here and dropped temperatures about 15 degrees last night. Some rain in it, too. I hope you'll be lucky enough that it won't mess up your trip.

[TimH]

Waione doesn't even have a sink. Riada has a shower but we're too scared to use it. Jump o/board instead.

Classic!! :D:D

[Hughman]

I'd buy you a beer at McGarveys, if you'll take me along...

Oh, and watch out for the Navy. They've been locked up for months!

[Michael s/v Sannyasin]

Charts look pretty good for the next 96 hours, so, I'll bet it is a nice trip. Have fun (if you are able to read this).

[nedL]

Margo, now don't go & break one of Warren's new toys!:D Best wishes & I hope you have a great time! :)

[J. Dillon]

Fair winds and smooth seas. :D

JD

[Tylerdurden]

Sounds like fun. Be safe.

[Plover]

I don't know if your gone or not now, But I do wish you the very best of luck! Dress very warm!!! It's damn cold out there!
Your boat is going to be jealous.
Paul

[Concordia...41]

Well, I'm back (obviously :p)

Back in St. Augustine actually.

We made Annapolis (which is actually 701 miles :rolleyes:) Saturday morning. We had a couple of days of contributing to the Annapolis economy and the income of several bartenders. :rolleyes:

We got the boat all dolled up yesterday, and they moved it in for the show this morning.

All in all a wonderful trip. We had a little weather a couple of nights (20-25 mph on the nose, but nothing major), and boy do I have a hot tub story for you!!!!! :D

Edited to add:

Hugh, it is safe to say that Margo isn't going back to McGarveys :o :o, and to be honest there's some folks there that think my name is June ...

[Michael s/v Sannyasin]

OK, well, I for one am just dying to hear that hot tub story :-) So, do tell!

[Concordia...41]

Sorry for the delay. It's starting to fade, but part of the rest of the story...

Doing an offshore delivery is one thing. Doing it on a brand new just launched a couple of weeks ago brand new model is another.

The best comparison I can make is if you were having your daughter's wedding at your house in three days and you've just spent multiple months and hundreds of thousands of dollars remodeling and there's still dozens of hours of work to go, you've got painters and plumbers and landscapers running around. Half of what you wanted to get done isn't done the forcast is for rain, your wife is yelling at you, your daughter is in tears, and it's 7 am.

Really, you can't imagine the level of stress or the level of work going on right up and until the moment we left.

As an example, on the Friday review by the sales team, chiefs, primary indians, and muckety muck folks it was decided that the cabin sole wasn't what they wanted to do.

So Saturday an entirely new cabin sole was cut and three men drove over from Alachua on Sunday and replaced every square inch (forward cabin, salon, aft cabin, etc.)

Then there are nice things like a new boom vang that got bent by FedEx...

And gosh knows a bazillion miles of wire and thousands of dollars worth of instruments are all going to work without any bugs...

I'm not naming any names because most things aren't really anybody's fault. Manufacturer A designs or supplies a product based on a request for "Y" but before it gets delivered (much less installed) dimensions / needs change so now the item needs to fit "Y.2" But since something is already shipped and it's too late to do much, three people spend most of a day trying to make it work, while another half dozen offer opinions and suggestions.

It is a constantly moving target.

But back to the trip. We got off the dock Tuesday a couple of hours later than the goal and made it a few hundred yards down the river before we pulled in to fix something.

Turns out this was my fault as Monday night when I was stowing the provisions I was worried about leaving something on so when I left the boat I turned of every single breaker I could find - including a subpanel under the nav station that had some electronic things that were designed to stay on... :o

I don't recall if we made the 11 or 11:30 bridge, but we finally escaped the clutches of St. Augustine and the electronic demons.

We had a nice sail up the coast with winds varying from 8-10 to 25ish. Motorsailed (100+ hp Yanmar) most of the way either to maintain speed with the wind was down or to keep things steady when things picked up.

I think it was Cruising World's Herb McCormick who said the cardinal rule of a delivery skipper is 'thou shalt not make less than 7 knots.'

At any rate, Herb was supposed to be our 4th crew, but the powers that be sent him elsewhere, so three of us ran the boat north.

It was a good trip with my boss spending most of his waking hours going over every inch of the boat. Watching the sails, the rigging, the electronics, the systems, how easy/hard it was to go forward on the deck / move about below, etc.

Early on he had concerns about the thru-hull for the hot tub drain and how the system was plumbed. It was one of a multiple item "Watch" list. We suspected a problem, but it wasn't until Friday night when we were going up the Chesapeak that it manifested itself.

I don't know what part of the middle of the night it was, but I went off watch and made my way to the aft cabin.

The berth is a queen (maybe king) on centerline, so to sleep in any kind of weather my system was to remove the six dozen pillows, which revealed a nice athwarthships berth if I crammed myself between the two nightstand/shelves at the headboard...

So I'm down there. The weather is starting to pick up. We're blasting up the Chesapeak. It's NNE@22 with higher gusts and it's midnight or so. We've been out for four days and I, for one, am tired and cold.

For some reason the courtesy lights weren't on and I had a pillow over the ultra-bright stereo face so it was pitch dark in the cabin.

And I hear: "Splat"

Hummmm????

"Splat"

Ah yes, the distinctive sound of WATER!

So I proceed to try (in the dark) to figure out which one of the two overhead, four cabin side, or two hull ports aren't shut tight... :eek:

I made my way around the acre of cabin feeling (did I mention I don't want to turn a light on) all of the boat's orafices...

"Splat"

All the openings are dry, but my socks are wet. :confused:

About the time I break down and flip on the main cabin lights it hits me... the hot tub is "self-filling"

Sure as $hit! I flip up the mattress and there's several gallons of the Chesapeake sloshing around (and out) of the hot tub! :D

Not much we can do about it. We tried to get the tub stopper to stay down, but it's designed to keep water in. Not water out... Bottom line - the boat's not in danger. I just tucked up the comforter and got all the fancy pillows out of the way and went to sleep.

"Splat."

So... Sorry to disappoint anyone waiting on any juicy hot tub tales. ;)

It is safe to say that the hot tub plumbing and thru-hull went from the "watch list" to the "you will fix this now list" there's also a couple of poor saps in R&D that are probably still working on extracting my skipper's size 13 shoe from their neither reigions... :eek:

[Hwyl]

Glad you are home safe Margo. Great story. My minimum speed is usually more like 4.5 knots (got to conserve that fuel), but I do motor if I have the fuel, the owners would rather pay for 24 hours of motoring, than my daily rate.

I also have a host of stories about going offshore in boats that are meant to be stationary at night. Might turn it into an article one of these fine days.

I have no deliveries South booked as yet (aaargh)

[Captain Blight]

I have no deliveries South booked as yet (aaargh)Pray think of me when you do, my good man.

Margo, good call and thanks for being awake and alert. Not everybody can do that and it's a credit to you that you were able to be, and to identify and isolate a problem. Kudos.