saga 43 – Page 2 – Sail Pandora

Return of a classic for the Pandora clan

April 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Prior to sailing big boats (larger just actually, not BIG like the .001% boys), Brenda and I traveled for vacation to Lake Clear in the Adirondacks as I had with my parents for many years. During the many summers at Lake Clear, near Saranac, I fell in love with the sweet lines of the classic Adirondack Guide Boat, a style of pulling boat designed for hunting guides to take their customers (sports) out on the lakes in the area to hunt and fish. It was important for me to find a good boat supply store who are reliable and provide quality products. Due to the fact that the many lakes were close to one another and yet required frequent portages or “carries” where the guide would have to carry the boat from one lake some distance over land to the next launch area, these boats had to be very light so that they were manageable and easy to handle. While traditionally built out of wood, many of the modern day versions of these boats are built in kevlar, again to ensure that they are as light as possible.

Years ago, nearly 30 actually, I purchased a bare kevlar hull of a 16′ guide boat and finished it myself. The decks, fore and aft, and side rails are made of a combination of cherry, ash and walnut and the seats are caned. I even got ash blanks and made my own 8′ oars or sweeps, to match the design. The hull shape was taken from a wonderful boat Ghost built by a well known boat builder, Durant back in the 1800s and now in the collection of the Adirondack Museum in Tupper Lake which can be found, who would have ever guessed, in the Adirondacks.

Once we got into cruising Long Island Sound, the guide boat went into storage hung up high in my parent’s garage and for the last few years jammed under our front porch. As our new home is just one mile from the Connecticut River, we will once again be able to use our guide boat and for the first time since our boys were toddlers. Now our boys are 26 and 28 years old so it’s been a lot of years since the boat has touched water.

As you can imagine, after so many years in storage, the guide boat was pretty nasty looking as is witnessed by this shot. The under porch storage was very tight and while protected from much of the weather, it was a pretty humid place. Fortunately, the wood chucks that live under the porch hadn’t “chucked wood” or damaged the boat in any way. I did find some leaves tucked up under one of the decks that looked like a comfortable nest, perhaps for some mice.

Pretty nasty but there is beauty in there somewhere.After a bit of scrubbing, beauty… Actually, a lot of elbow grease on this baby.

As I mentioned, walnut and cherry decks. Oh, if it wasn’t clear, this wasn’t a kit, just a bare hull and a pile of locally purchased lumber. Not bad for a beginner. I must have been in my late 20s when I finished her. Amazingly, the varnish hasn’t been touched in all the subsequent years. Nice when you can keep a boat out of the weather.

No, I didn’t weave the cane seats. They are machine woven. CHEATER, CHEATER!!! Yes, don’t be too tough on me, we all make compromises. I was even able to fine hardware true to the original design of Ghost. It’s great to have nice hardware on a great boat. GOD is in the details as is the case in all of life. What amazing lines this boat has. She really moves through the water.

One thing that this boat has in common with our SAGA 43 Pandora, is a fine entry. They both move through the water very easily. Straight on you can really see how this boat would track on the water. Like a knife…Fine, really fine…No, I won’t be distracted from Pandora this summer but what better way to kill a few hours on the CT River than aboard a classic guide boat. There’s even a caned seat back (alas, packed for the move and not shown) for Brenda to lounge against, parasol in hand as we head out on the river.

Perhaps we will want to avoid the whole “dead deer in the bottom of the boat thing” as is in the case here.

No, and I am confident that Brenda will be good deal more attractive and a lot less smelly than the guy who is a passenger in this classic photo from Guide Boats.com. There’s a lot of great information here on the history of this unique North American craft.

In about a week we will be moving out of our NJ home and will be able to begin enjoying this great boat again after what seems like a lifetime ago. So much to look forward to.

A trail of breadcrumbs for Pandora

February 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment

As we prepare for our trip south next fall, a key need is for our family to be able to follow us and our position along the way. In the past sharing such information required equipment that was expensive or, at the very least, complicated. However, with the advent of more sophisticated satellite technology, it appears that there are now systems available that enable us to set things up in a way so that our friends (and random blog readers) to follow us as we make our way south. To say that we are in Charleston is nice, but for me it would be totally choice for someone to be able to look at a map online and see exactly where we are any day or any time of day, for that matter. And as we move along the map will display a trail of bread crumbs to show where we have been.

Yesterday I called Henry Marx the owner at Landfall Navigation, a group that sells all sorts of boating safety equipment. Henry is very knowledgeable and I expected that he would have something to say about this topic. Yes, he’s never shy about saying what he thinks. Today he responded with a note suggesting that the DeLorme inReach unit might do what we are looking for. As a side note, Henry doesn’t stock the product as he specializes in safety products and does not want to take the chance that his customers will confuse this product with an EPIRB which is a critical safety device for the sort of sailing that we are planning. Yes Henry, Pandora has one of those units aboard and happily, we have never had to activate it. And yes, the batteries are up to date and it is properly registered.

The system works off of the Irdidium system of geosynchronous orbit satellites. (I’ll bet you didn’t think that I could spell geosynchronous. No, I can’t but that’s what spell check is for.) I have always thought of anything associated with Iridium as being terribly expensive but this one isn’t at all. The inReach unit itself retails for about $250 and the communication plans run anywhere from $9.95 to $49.95 a month with a year commitment. The variables in these plans are related to the number of position fixes and text messages allowed per month.

The plan for us will likely be the $24.95 one as it allows unlimited position fixes and a reasonable number of text messages. A text might say something like “headed to Andros on Friday”. I understand that it also ties in with Twitter and Facebook but I don’t know exactly how that works.

In any event, in a day when we want to tell the world what we are doing every waking moment, including our trips to the bathroom, this is a great option.

This is an interesting video, sale pitch though it is, about the product.

I NEED one of these. What’s great about this is that when someone asks my mother “It’s 10:00. Do you know where your children are?”. At the very least, she will know where Pandora is and I am never far away. However, I will be sure to never take this particuar piece of equipment into the bathroom. I guess I am just not in the right generation for that.

Oh, to be young…

So, how much would you pay for a gallon of water?

January 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment

As we prepare Pandora for our trip south I am reminded once again of the adage, “when Momma be happy, EVERYBODY be happy!” As I have said many times, it’s all about keeping Brenda happy and aboard with me. These words are particularly true today as it’s her birthday. Yes, January 15th is a day that you too should have in your calendar. However, that’s another story and this post is about the cost of water.

More importantly, just how much would you pay for a gallon of water? That question certainly has many answers all of which depend on your state of mind. Questions such as… how thirsty are you, do you need a bath, or would it be a good idea if the person you are with down below took a bath? Need to wash dishes? Clothes? Each of these weighty concerns relate heavily to keeping Brenda, and to a lesser extent me happy aboard Pandora.

As we prepare Pandora for our upcoming strip to the Bahamas a big issue for us is one of having adequate water aboard. Perhaps better put, the value of a gallon of water depends on how much you carry aboard and in our case, it’s about 125 gallons. This seems like a lot but if you have to work hard, or travel great distances, to get more it’s a big deal.

Aboard Pandora we have two water tanks and we have documented that we tend to use about 15 gallons of water per day. That means with reasonable usage we can fill up about once every 8-10 days, perhaps every two weeks if we were to really conserve.

A great solution to the water supply problem is to install an RO unit, and that’s what we’ve decided to do. As I noted in a past post, we chose a Spectra unit and I will begin installing it in the next few weeks. Setting aside cost, this is one complex unit. Besides the obvious technology that makes the system work, there are a LOT OF PARTS. This sucker is complicated. The instructions that came with it urged me to do a complete inventory upon delivery. Here you go, a complete inventory…

Yes, it does look like it would be expensive. But, more importantly, back to the question about cost. When you purchase a 12oz bottle of “designer” water for $2.00, that translates to roughly $20.00 per gallon. Put it that way and it makes a $4.00 per gallon gasoline seem like a bargain and perhaps it is.

So, how much is a gallon of water worth? In the Bahamas you can purchase water for about $.25/gal but that assumes that you can bring the boat to the dock or are willing to schlep the water by the bucket full from shore in your dink, something that I did last summer in Maine multiple times per week. Given the cost of the unit I purchased it will take nearly 25,000 gallons of water to break even on making verses purchasing water. At 15 gal per day it will take 1,600 days to use that much water. Since we will be aboard Pandora for about 180 days in 2012, that means that we will break even on the purchase in about 10 years. But wait, there’s more…

These calculations don’t even count the cost of maintenance of the unit or the cost of the energy to run it, not an insignificant amount.

So, how much would you pay for a gallon of water? If you compare the RO unit and the cost of those bottled waters that you get, I will actually break even on the unit in 3,000 gallons. However, I find it hard to imagine pouring countless 12oz bottles of water over my head to rinse off after a hot day. Decadent you say?

Perhaps better put is to repeat J.P. Morgan’s quip when asked how much it cost to maintain his yacht when he said, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it” Can I afford to use RO water aboard Pandora? Who knows, but it’s safe to say “when Momma be happy…”

The value of a happy wife with that “just showered feeling”? Bring it on.