Why is there water coming out of our cabinets???
We overfilled the water tanks and water came out of the vent hose which is nicely positioned in the cabinets right above the brand new stereo we just installed. When I looked over and saw our new radio hidden behind a waterfall I was extremely confused.
How many grommets does it take to secure a windlass cover?
The boat originally had 5, but Jonny determined that the best answer was 12. We can be assured that our new windlass cover will not be lost overboard. Ever. (n.b. the cover for our entire mainsail only has 8 grommets.)
How many hundreds of dollars of epoxy and hundreds of hours of time does it take to build and fiberglass wooden water tanks??
Roughly $1200 and 300 hours. We are now thoroughly convinced without one shred of doubt that we should have never torn apart our steel water tanks and we should have hired a welder instead.
Is it possible to start your engine with your arm and an errant wrench?
Yes. Jon freaked out when he was laying on top of the engine, working on the fuel filter, when he unexpectedly received a painful burn and the engine started cranking underneath him. Thereby accidentally discovering how to short the starter solenoid.
Why is water squeezing up from between our floorboards when we walk around?
Jury hasn’t yet returned a verdict on this one. Most likely explanation is a defective foot pump. No matter what, I can tell you this: it will require at least three more trips to the chandlery, approximately $1000 in unforeseen expenses, two gallons of epoxy, 300 rubber gloves, two days of sanding, and a whole lot of work we didn’t anticipate.
It was 1 AM, and I’d been working for 17 straight hours on our damn water tanks. The hose we’d bought was inflexible yet annoyingly curvy, and slightly larger than our old hose, making it extremely difficult to shove it onto the fittings. One fitting that was supposed to attach to the water inlet hose was so tight that I spent 20 minutes, splayed out on the floor, with my arms scrunched into a tight crevice between the water tank and a bulkhead, struggling, pushing, pulling, leverlng, to no avail. Swearing seemed to be called for.
All I wanted was to get one step closer to finishing our new water tanks, a battle that by then was stretching into its third week. By now the project was so consuming that I was forgetting to eat meals. Even though we were now so close to the end, I still felt defeated and resigned to failure. “I can’t do it,” I said to Matt, and I’m not sure if I meant this particular hose fitting or the entire god-forsaken sailboat fixer-upper nightmare I’d gotten myself into.
Matt had showed up at 8:00 that morning, chomping at the bit to do some work after too long away from the boat. July 4th was only a few days away, and we figured that if we wanted to take friends sailing around the Bay to watch the fireworks, we’d have to wrap up the watertank project at long last. While some might call this overly optimistic, I prefer to think of it as inspirationally motivating. Matt called it stressful. He was going to make a go at it though.
I stared at the water inlet hose with disdain, then turned to Matt. He’d gotten the hose on the other tank attached somehow. How? He shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, mine was a bitch also.” I had put this type of hose on many other fittings, but every other time I’d always had more room to twist the hose around the fitting, following the grooves of the hose, and greatly helping it along. How could I twist it now in such a small space? Ah! An epipheny! Detach the fitting from the tank, connect the hose on the fitting, then reconnect the fitting with the hose on it. It almost worked… except for the enormous kinks that ended up in the hose. So I tried again, kinking the hose in the opposite direction before starting. Success! By 3 AM I was screwing on the last hose-clamp, meaning the water tanks were completely fitted.
Before calling it a night, Matt and I had a beer. We didn’t say much; we mostly just looked at the water tanks, which were shiny and waterproof and strong and at long last permanently bolted in place. We knew that after 19 hours, just as much or more work was still needed to be done to sail by the 4th. But beneath the exhaustion and frustration there was still a moment of satisfaction. The god-forsaken sailboat fixer-upper nightmare seemed, at least, an inspired god-forsaken sailboat fixer-upper nightmare.
I’m here! After months and months of anticipation, I’m at the boat, eager and excited, a teenager at prom. It’s especially exciting, because for months I’d been listening to Matt and Jonny talk about everything they were doing with the boat, and I felt so left out, missing great adventures and stories, and wanting so desperately to be there. It was agony; but no more. The first night in Emeryville, Matt filled me in on some projects that I could get started on. We needed to create lifelines, he said, by lashing skinny lines around thicker lines. We needed to remove the ineffective and messy sound insulation in the engine room, probably by using a putty knife. Also, the old resin in the bottom of the bilge needed to be chipped smooth; for this Matt recommended a wood chisel. Easy enough, I thought: lashing, putty knife, wood chisel. No problem.
The next morning, I sprung awake at 7:30, earlier than I get up when working during the school year. I went looking through the tool bin for the various equipment Matt mentioned. Lashing: check. Putty knife: check. Wood chisel… huh. I found about 5 chisels but none of them was a wood chisel. So I put that off, and busied myself taking off the sound insulation. I finished that by 11:00, had lunch, and then wrapped up my last little bit of schoolwork, and submitted my stundents’ final grades. I met Matt back at the boat that evening and he asked what I had managed to accomplish. “I took off all the sound insulation, and started looking at the lashings, but I couldn’t find any wood chisels.” Matt seemed confused, and glanced down at our array of tools. “What are you talking about,” he said, while picking up a chisel and showing it to me, “there’s four of them right here.” I grabbed the tool from his hand and inspected the chisel more closely. “This is made of metal!” I sputtered. “You said a wood chisel!” Matt just laughed and laughed, and I’ve laughed at myself quite frequently since. Oh well, I suppose someone has to do stupid goofs like this.
First it was the cushions. Now it’s getting the boat across the border.
We’d planned, months ago, to have Syzygy trucked up to San Francisco in mid March, during Jon’s spring break. Before Jon bought plane tickets to Mexico, I talked to Jazmin, at Marina San Carlos. She told me that the wacky spring tides were too low, preventing us from getting Syzygy out of the water until April 9th. (We later heard stories of other boats scraping against the bottom and getting stuck, right at the launch ramp.) So we rescheduled our trucking for April 14th, and pushed back Jon’s visit to April 25th. Since trucking Syzygy from San Carlos to San Francisco takes a week, we expected Syzygy to be here, well, now.
Then Jazmin quit (or got fired), and things got shuffled around.
Melissa, our new contact, assured me our plans were still on track.
Then Melissa sent me this email: — I am writing you regarding a situation we are having from the past couple of weeks. For the moment we are not able to cross a boat thru the border because, we need a number to import your boat back to the US. Customs told us it would take 10 days, to get this number, and the time has passed for about 1 month. They deny to give us the number and we are trying to figure it out what are we going to do regarding this situation. I had not sent you any e-mail, because I supposed this would be a matter of at least 15 days, but now it is out of my hands. For the moment I have 5 boats waiting to be ship to US, and I believe this would affect your date to be truck to Tucson. I already talked to your US Carrier and he told me it won’t be a problem at all. Believe we are trying to do the best we can to put everything on its place. I hope to hear very soon from you. —
That’s why people don’t buy sailboats in Mexico…
As I began pulling my hair out, we discussed a) complaining to our congressmen/senators; b) calling Customs ourselves; and c) whether or not Syzygy would be here by April 25th, when Jon was scheduled to arrive.
Then I talked to Melissa, and she told me she could ship the boat on Friday, April 18th. Two weeks, ago, in Mexico, she told me (in person), that things were looking good, and that it would happen on April 17th. Hair-pulling slowed down.
Then, according to Melissa, another boat got delayed at the border, and there were problems getting their oversize truck permit, so we got pushed back to Monday the 21st (since customs is closed on the weekend.) The only benefit: $400 off our trucking bill. Hair-pulling picked up.
Melissa called me on Monday morning with news of another delay. Apparently truck drivers in Nogales are protesting lengthy customs inspections (which take a few hours) thereby lengthening customs inspections for everyone, and delaying the delivery of Syzygy at least another day, if not more. Hair-pulling continued.
By today (Tuesday) at noon, Melissa hadn’t called, so I knew things weren’t looking good. She called at 1pm, and told me that Syzygy wouldn’t head north until Thursday (and that she’d deduct another $200 from the tab). That’s not good news for us; Jon’ll be lucky if he even sees the boat, and, at any rate, I’ll be bald by then.
Boat news has been a roller coaster lately: up, down, up, down, up, down.
It started when I stopped by the Emeryville Marina two weeks ago, and found a slip for us. I’m not much of a believer in omens, but I took it as a sign when the skies cleared and a double rainbow came out just as I rolled in on my bike. I was drenched, and my glasses were all foggy/drippy, but I was smiling. I could imagine Syzygy, sitting there in the rippling water, with a view of the whole of San Francisco bay — From Mt. Tamalpais to the Golden Gate Bridge to the city to Treasure Island to the Bay Bridge. It would be perfect.
Don, the harbormaster, and I chatted for a bit about details — he told me I’d have to get a $300,000 insurance policy to keep our boat there, and gave me a phone number of an insurance agent to call.
So I called. The conversation didn’t go so well. Wait; calling it a conversation isn’t quite fair. It was more of an insurance agent’s interrogation:
-Have you ever owned a boat before? No, hmmm. And how long have you been sailing? OK. Where’s the sailboat? It’s in Mexico? I see.. And how many people own the boat? Hmmm… that makes it difficult…
The result: the agent told me he wouldn’t be able to insure us. I hung up, exasperated. If we couldn’t get insurance, we wouldn’t be able to put the boat in the marina. If we couldn’t put the boat in the marina, we wouldn’t be able to go sailing. If we couldn’t go sailing, what’d we buy a sailboat for??
Before my head began to spin too much, I tried calling another insurance agent. This conversation went better:
Q: have you ever been denied coverage? A: no Q: have you been in any motor vehicle accidents, or made any claims, in the last 3 years? A: no Q: is your driver’s license in California? A: yes. Q: how many years of sailing experience do you have? A: well, um, i went to sailing camp when i was like 12, and, um, sailed a bit off the coast of maine, and in Boston, here and there… so, uh, i guess 10 years. Q: what’s the largest boat you’ve ever operated? A: um… 43 feet. Q: has matt ever been denied coverage? A: no Q: has matt been in any motor vehicle accidents, or made any claims, in the last 3 years? A: no Q: is matt’s driver’s license in California? A: yes. Q: how many years of sailing experience does matt have? A: i’d say, uh, 3 years. Q: has jon ever been denied coverage? A: no Q: has jon been in any motor vehicle accidents, or made any claims, in the last 3 years? A: no Q: is jon’s driver’s license in California? A: no, it’s in Colorado Q: how many years of sailing experience does jon have? A: i’d say, uh, 3 years. Q: OK. sounds good. A: Really? Really! Great! Q: Looks like… we can underwrite your boat for $265/year A: Wow! We’ll take it!
So, the agent said, since the boat is in Mexico, they couldn’t insure it yet. Once we get it here, then they’d be able sell me an insurance plan. Fear not, the agent assured me — the rate would still be available two months hence.
Greatly relieved, I emailed Jon and Matt the good news. Everything was coming together — I found a company that could truck the boat up to San Francisco, a slip in one of the best marinas around, and an agent who could insure us as soon as we got here.
Of course, I still hadn’t figured out the pattern, and didn’t realize what would follow Up, Down, Up…
Three days later, a letter arrived, from the insurance company. “Thank you for your interest,” it began — an auspicious start for a form letter. “Unfortunately, your request for coverage does not not fit within the underwriting limits… due to lack of experience and the vessel being kept outside the continental United States.”
Let me be plain: I freaked out. I called back, and explained that while our boat is currently in Mexico, it wouldn’t be for long, and besides, we only wanted to insure it while it’s in the states, anyway.
OK, the agent said. It looks like that’ll cost $550/year. I tried calling, and haggling them back down to $265, but have had little luck so far. I’m not even sure if it’s worth complaining about.
Meanwhile, I’d been emailing Jazmin, at the trucking company, trying to schedule our boat delivery. (*We’d originally wanted to sail Syzygy up to San Francisco, but the logistics are a nightmare: time, currents, winds, the North Pacific swell, money, and boat repairs are all working against us.) Jon has only a week off from teaching at the end of March, so we’d been planning to spend that time in San Carlos, one last time, preparing the boat for its expensive overland journey.
So I emailed Jazmin, and told her we’d like to haul Syzygy out of the water on March 26th.
Her response:
“I was checking the tide and we won’t have enough water to haul out until April 9th at 7 pm. If we haul out that day, we can transport on April 14th.”
This was very bad news. I forwarded the email to Jon, and he left me a voicemail later that day:
“I am officially demoralized… and completely fucking hate our sailboat right now. Goddamnit. Why did we buy a boat down in Mexico. Fucking shit!”
So now it’s just Matt and I, headed down to Mexico in early April, to prep the boat for a very expensive (another bit of bad news) journey to San Francisco.
At any rate, a few days later, Jon called with better news: the last of our parts had arrived. Actually, this was sort of bad news, because we’d ordered $4,000 dollars of assorted boat parts (wire rigging, running rigging, a toilet, hoses, turnbuckles, etc.) almost two months ago, and had hoped to have it within a couple of weeks. We should have known that shipping a pallet would be complicated, or at least slow. But, Jon called, and he was proud to report, at long last, that every little thing we’d paid for was accounted for. He told Matt that he only had one more box to open up.
So he opened up the box to find… fluorescent pink lashing line. (It was supposed to be grey.) Jon laughed, while Matt expressed his fervent position on the matter, which is: there will be no pink lines on any boat Matt’s sailing.
Well, they must have sent us the wrong color line, Matt said. Well, um, no, Jon countered. It looks like we gave them the wrong part number.
My own feeling: when all is said and done, if we successfully a) truck the boat to San Francisco; b) put the boat in a slip; c) find someone willing to insure it; d) re-rig it without killing ourselves; and e) have a few laughs along the way, it’ll be the least of my concerns what color the friggin’ lifelines are.
