Paying it forward and the layup from Hell…
Over the years, more times than I can count, cruisers have gone out of their way to help as Brenda and I ventured further afield, cruising new areas. When we went “international” with visits to the Bahamas, Cuba and most recently, the eastern Caribbean, this help became more important than ever with fellow cruisers always willing to lend a hand or offer advice.
Our first real contact with the cruising community was at Gams, events, put on by the Seven Seas Cruising Association, SSCA, in 2012 on our first trip down the ICW. Among the first of these events was at the SSCA Melbourne Gam in FL where we met many cruisers, some of whom remain fast friends to this day.
Along the way we have been given great advice on how to prepare for for travels to far away places, lent cars, helped with laundry, shopping and were guests at their homes and yacht clubs. Others spent months traveling with us, “buddy boating” along the way, as we learned the ways of living aboard for extended periods.
Among the most memorable for us are Harry and Melinda of Sea Schell and Bill and Maureen of Kalunamoo. Both couples stayed close as we made our first trip down the ICW, crossed the Gulf Stream and explored the Bahamas in 2012 and 2013. Here’s Brenda on a beach, shortly after our arrival in the Bahamas, near Nassau with Harry and Bill.
Before crossing to the Bahamas, where we cruised with both couples for much of that first season, while we were waiting in Ft Lauderdale for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas, they treated Brenda to a much needed celebration on her birthday. She was feeling more than a bit homesick and it really cheered her up. 
With all the help and nurturing that we have received over the years from the cruising community, I have felt compelled to do what I can to “pay it forward”. The idea of “doing to others as they have done to you” is nothing new, but in many ways, it is perhaps one of the things that what makes the community of people who live on small boats so special as so many that we have met over the years clearly feel the same way. In the SSCA, this is called “leaving a clean wake”.
When Brenda and I headed south back in 2012 for our first “big kid” trip down the ICW and on to the Bahamas, we were very touched by all of the help we received as we came in contact with some of the most generous people we had ever met.
Based on this experience I decided, more than seven years ago, that I would host, with the hope of my fellow SSCA member George, what became an annual Gam in Essex CT for cruisers at the Essex Yacht Club. I also decided to sign up as an SSCA Cruising Station Host and more recently, port officer for the Ocean Cruising Club, again to help members of those two groups when they visited Essex.
A few years ago I also joined the board of the Salty Dawg Sailing Association and worked out all the details for an annual arrival of the rally fleet in Antigua. I now serve as Port Captain for the fleet’s arrival every November when perhaps more than 60 cruising boats will make landfall at the island.
I have also spent considerable time giving talks and writing for various publications, all with the hope that I can inspire those who might be thinking of “casting off the dock lines” to do just that and head out. In my way I continue to try and help others as others have inspired us over the years, to try and pay it forward.
Fast forward the seven years since our first Gam in Essex and last weekend George and I hosted our Open Blue Water Boat weekend, the biggest yet. This year’s event was a bit different as we decided to include, in addition to SSCA, members of the Ocean Cruising Club and Salty Dawg Sailing Association. We also narrowed our focus to blue water sailing with a bit of “where to go” thrown in to round out the mix.
We had nearly 100, a capacity crowd. It was great. 
Sailors came from all over by land and sea, with about 20 boats and crew arriving by boat. I thought it would be fun to display a selection of “well traveled boats” so that attendees could see, first hand, the types of boats that make long ocean treks. I selected six representative, well traveled, boats to be on the docks, open for tours and it turned out to be a great idea. Unfortunately Pandora, also a great cruising and blue water boat, wasn’t on display as the canvas guy, after months of promises, had still not installed the headliner, to my extreme distress.
However, we had some great boats on display including Misto, arriving in Essex less than a month after completing a 2 1/2 year circumnavigation beginning and ending in St Lucia. She’s a great example of a modern catamaran, so popular with the cruising set these days. 
I was particularly intrigued with this lovely Joshua 40, painted in the red signature color of the original Joshua that Bernard Moitessier made famous for being perhaps the fastest boat in the Golden Globe around the world alone, non-stop race back in 1968. I say “probably” the fastest as he decided, when he neared the end of the race, to drop out and just go around again. Many boats of the “Joshua” design were launched along the way and this one, Petronella, is particularly well kept and likely more fully fitted out with all sorts of modern equipment than Bernard’s Joshua.
This catamaran, Angel Louise, owned by the current president of SSCA, has a lot of blue water miles under her keel and some unique accomplishments having completed the “great loop” on the waterways of both the US and Western Europe. 
The US great loop is an interesting inland trip and there is a group, the America’s Great Loop Cruiser’s Association, dedicated to this effort, once again proving that if you are not a member of at least one association, you are not trying hard enough. They call themselves, fittingly, Loopers. While very little of this voyage qualifies as blue water, it is impressive, never the less. 
I had never heard of the western Europe loop. It’s too, is quite a trek, with a good deal of blue water sailing thrown in. 
With modern cruising boats growing in scale every year, I was thrilled to have this little gem, Entr’acte, on the dock for tours. Her owners have cruised far and wide, with thousands of blue water miles to show for their nearly 20 years aboard. 
She’s beautifully fitted out for long distance cruising and there’s even an aft cabin for some privacy, something that is in short supply on a 25′ boat. 
Co-owner Ed, looks like he’s enjoying all the attention and there was a great deal of interest in his charming and beautifully outfitted yacht indeed. 
As has been the case for several years now, weather router Chris Parker made the trip up from FL, presenting on both Saturday and Sunday. He was, as always, a great speaker, making the complex topic of weather understandable with careful explanations. I particularly liked his presentation, “how to think like a weather router” and was glad to have him with us again. 
And when I say “with us” that’s also because he stayed at our home and did his Monday morning broadcast from my home office. After hearing him on the radio so many times over the years, I was tickled to have him stay with us again. And, I “ain’t lyin”, as there’s proof, a photo of me and Brenda on our wedding day up on the shelf to prove that he was there.
We were also thrilled to have the USCG with us including a helicopter rescue pilot Lt, Kate Dacimo, who shared some fascinating stories of rescues that she has participated in. 
We were also treated to a visit by a 29′ rescue boat and crew that offered tours. They seemed much less anxious about us boarding them than we are about them greeting us with “permission to come aboard”. And, we learned that they NEVER take off their boots.
As an interesting side note, this little 29′ cutter cost a cool $4,000,000. I wonder how much their toilet seat cost?
It was great to hear about their experiences, first hand. 
I wonder how often the have to break out the gun that goes on that stand in the bow. 
We had plenty of sessions over the two days, and I won’t try to recap them all but there was lots of give and take with “experts” from the audience sharing their years of knowledge. 
We were even treated to a live Winslow life-raft deployment demo. One of the boats at our event came complete with their growing family who willingly volunteered to be “rescued”. It was so much fun to watch the three of them pull the cord and “pop” the raft on the lawn. Love the shades.
While all three sponsoring associations were well represented, OCC wins the prize with the largest burgee. I had to stand on our deck for Brenda to properly photograph it. Yesterday I put it in the mail to it’s next stop, the OCC New England Cruise. As of the end of the season, the “great flag” will have been on display at nearly a dozen events with Essex just number two on the list.
All and all, the weekend was a terrific success and I now find myself wondering what to do about next year as George and I are pretty pooped and don’t think that we really want to do the whole thing over again, all by ourselves. Wana run an event? We’ll tell you how it’s done.
In past years, I only gave myself one week or so after the event before I started to look for speakers for the next year. Not this time. I’m going to focus on getting Pandora completed and ready to cruise.
Unfortunately, due to the endless delays from the canvas guy who is supposed to be renewing the headliner, I was not able to put Pandora on display at the event and it pained me to have so many at the meeting ask where she was. With all the delays, it was only last week that she finally splashed, sans headliner and far from complete.
My friend Gerry, when hearing about my travails, made this observation, “…it appears the “Layup from Hell” may be ending soon, I feel your pain.”
So, there you have it, one more installment of me working hard to “pay it forward” and now that Pandora is back in the water I can focus on paying the bills.
Yesterday the canvas guy finally showed up to begin the install. Wish me luck, I’ll need it.
Maine beckons and none too soon.
There have been so many projects and new “stuff” since she was last in the water. The mast and new standing rigging (last fall) is all set up and ready to step when she splashes. As the owner of the mast to the right from a J30 said to me, “that’s a mast and a half, you’ve got there.” I agree.
Her cushions and area rugs are clean and ready. I was grossed out to see the nasty dirt that was sucked out of them and equally amazed with how bright and new they look. 
It took a surprising amount of time to do this seemingly simple job. That’s a lot of parts. 
The unbelievably frustrating and painful mast step fix is done and back in place. That’s if a lowly step can be beautiful, this one is. Well, it’s beautiful to me given the months of sweat that went into the effort of summoning the nerve to do it, removing the screws, cleaning up and refinishing and putting it back in place. 
Look simple? Lest you forget, dear reader, this is what I started with. 
All the old halogen and fluorescent fixtures are gone, panels recovered with new vinyl and fixtures replaced with LED lights and lovely LED white/red dome lighting. I expect that these lights will be somewhat brighter. That little detail should be a big hit with Brenda who has long suffered with poor lighting while attempting to do delicate hand work in the evenings. Below, two of the nearly 20 new lights.
We will be warm and toasty while we are under power, on those evening passages in the fall and while we are in Maine this summer, compliments of our new engine driven heater. 
Brenda will love her potty again with her shiny new evacuation pump, one of the three pumps that it takes to run her potty. Who would have guessed that a potty needs three motors?
Dining aboard will be just a bit more civilized with our newly varnished dining table. 
And there should be fewer, I hope none, drips below as I have pulled and re-bedded just about everything that went “drip in the night” and a few that didn’t, just to be sure. 
And, speaking of drips, the newly installed drip-less prop shaft seal, all blue and shiny and newly “restored” CV joint, to the right. That CV joint was a big job, let me tell you. And that’s saying something as my contribution in getting it done was limited to writing a check, ditto for the seal. 
I really tried to address every little detail to make Pandora ready to be her best, down to polishing the plexi hatch panels. If it’s possible to see beauty in a flat piece of plastic, these are worthy now.
And even the tiny details of putting plastic shims under the ends of the solar panels to be sure that they are perfectly level did not escape my attention. No more aft drooping solar panels for Pandora. Yes, I know, her stainless needs polishing. I’ll get to it soon, I promise.
And, of course, who could forget newly renewed caulk on the dodger windows. And that took several years for me to even build up the nerve to tackle. It wasn’t easy but less daunting than I had feared. 
And, I even found a way to re-use the old dimmer switch holders, the only way I was able to fit a “round peg (dimmer) into a square hole”, in the bulkhead. Pretty nifty, if you ask me. They took a lot longer to do than their humble looks, would suggest. And, they even have a lovely colored ring around the button, green, blue or orange, depending on which state the lights are in, on, off or dimmed. So, exciting? To me they are.
New chaps, engine cover and seat, in matching grey, of course. 
And, speaking of matching, who can forget Pandora’s new “clothes”, a lovely grey paint job. If you follow this blog, you will recall that I really beat the “color thing” to death, with
Oh, so many things to obsess about, my specialty.
Alas, all is not lost as Pandora looks great. Isn’t she shiny? You can even see my little truck reflected in her so shiny paint.
Ok, I’ve admitted it, I have done plenty of obsessing about getting Pandora just right” and with nearly a year to think about what needed to be done, there was ample time to obsess about every little thing. While “obsessing” perhaps overstates the point, I have also found myself wondering, for the past few months, no make that the past year, as Pandora’s “to do” list continued to grow, is when does spring commissioning becomes a refit.
First I took the aluminum step to a welder who filled the old holes. 
Then I ground them flush. They didn’t look pretty at all and there was some electrolysis from the stainless bolts that had not been properly bedded against the aluminum. 
As I could not get the old bolts out, I had no idea about how thick the mast step was. First I marked the step to be sure that I could drill the new holes as close to the old bolts as possible and yet not too close to the edge of the step casting.
I marked the spots where the old bolts were and drilled as close to them as I dared and “dry fitted” the bolts in place. Everything fit. Good to go…
One of the problems with the old stainless bolts and why they corroded so badly, is that they had not been properly bedded to insulate them from the aluminum in the step. Stainless is a more “noble” metal, and when you attach two different types of metal, the one that is “less noble” looses. In this case, the stainless bolts won and the aluminum corroded badly. That is caused by a mild electric current that flows between two dissimilar metals. The result of this is a process of “electrolysis” that causes a lot of corrosion to both metals, especially with aluminum, which it did.
After that, I’ll drill new holes adjacent to the old bolts that have been cut flush with the step. Even though the remains of the old bolts are still in place, the rigger says that this is a perfectly fine approach as the bulk of the pressure is downward and only a small amount of shear force. I’ll be sure to install the new bolts with some sort of release agent or caulking like Life Seal, which is what the rigger recommends if I want the step to be removable in the future. Additionally, I’ll spray a thick lubricant/sealer like 
I am optimistic that he will be able to do it this coming week when the all important Memorial Day Weekend will be history. For now, Pandora’s salon looks like a construction zone. 
Or should I say storage container? 
I am also renewing the caulk around the large tempered glass windows in the dodger. I was able to dig the old caulk out with a tool that I made from an old metal file. I heated up the narrow end with a torch, bent it 90 degrees and ground it to a sharp edge. 
It worked well to remove the old caulking but it still looks messy. 
And, with something like 30′ of caulk to renew, it’s a big project. It took hours for me to clean out all the old caulk. I should have actually taken the windows out completely but I didn’t have the nerve so I’ll just renew the exposed caulk for now and try something more severe when things decay further, down the road. 
As far as what to use to replace the caulk, I spoke to someone who specializes in renewing hatches on boats and he recommended Sika 295 caulking along with a special primer and a cleaner to prepare the surface. The primer was nearly $100 for a one pint can. I hope it works. The caulk is made for industrial use, specifically for glazing and sticks much better when it is put on a surface that is well prepared. Or, so I am told…
However, it looks pretty good now and I am going to call it done, even though there are a few dust specs here and there. I used gloss Epifanes, varnish, the best you can buy. Great stuff and quite a shine, if you ask me. 
So, there’s a lot left to do but I am making progress, slowly but surely and am finally feeling like I can make it toward launching on a timeline assuming that the canvas guy finishes the headliner.
Well, there’s lots to do and that doesn’t even get me to the point of preparing for the run to Antigua in November.
I am not sure if everything is clear but at least things are beginning to come into focus. Let’s hope that the canvas guy can fit me in or all this will seem more like wishful thinking than a plan.
Not too long ago, it looked like this and I felt like there was no need to rush. 
And, speaking of spring, I participated in another tradition at the Essex Yacht Club a few weeks ago, the burning of the socks. The idea is to get rid of those old socks, the ones you won’t need when it’s warm outside.
So, here I am, nearly in the second half of May and there’s plenty still to do to get Pandora ready.
That didn’t seem to be a terribly daunting project except that the entire engine needed to be removed to get at the gear box. It’s all rebuilt now and looks as good as new. 
That circa 1962 engine, well it didn’t turn out to be very happy and that it’s issues went way beyond the gear problem. Indeed, it gets worse. “While we’re at it and the engine is out of the car, let’s check everything and see what else needs attention”, says the mechanic. And, he did and found that the cam shaft was worn and it also needed a valve job. Ugg…
The head, now removed as you can see from the photo above, turned out to need love so off to a machine shop it went for a valve job. As luck would have it, they discovered that the head had a number of cracks. Not good, I thought, wondering how many “boat dollars” would be siphoned off to the MG.
There were engines everywhere I looked, in various states of disassembly along with some really shiny newly rebuilt engines. Perhaps my favorite, all ready for the owner to pick it up, was a beautiful 12 cylinder red monster, on the right, from an antique fire engine. Awesome! 
So, I loaded my sad little cracked MG engine head into the car and off I went to that special place that heals sick engine heads in MA.
Amazingly, he agreed to fix the head in a few hours and instructed me to head to a local mall for lunch and to return at 12:30. I did and returned just in time to watch him finish up the repair.
After filing the inserts flush, he used a pneumatic “tapper” to peen the metal in even more securely. I was exacting work.
And, all of this very precise work was in great contrast to a chaotic riot of stuff everywhere I looked. 
When he was confident that the cracks were filled and secure, he took multiple clamps, metal wedges and temporary gaskets to cover each of the cooling chamber openings in the head so that he could pressure test the casting and be absolutely certain that his repairs were perfect. It was hard to follow with his quick movements but it was clear that he knew exactly what he was doing.
He turned up the pressure to see if it held. 
While the head was pressurized, he applied a liberal coating of WD40 to check for bubbles of escaping air from problems in the head casting. There were none. As expected…
The whole process took about an hour and was fascinating. It surely demonstrated that it pays to have work done by someone that does this sort of thing every day and in Frank’s case, all day, every day.