5/15/99 | Getting things together

climbing the learning curve

A little experience goes a long way. The second time through the Eastport draw bridge was a much more relaxed affair than the first, even though there were two other boats coming through with us. Our return trip later that day threw in four other boats going up Spa Creek with us, two crossing in the other direction, and a crosswind at the bridge, but we had no problems at all. We've gotten a lot better at leaving and at coming into our slip, too. It seems to work best when Britt deals with the bow and ignores the stern, and I do vice versa; that way each of us is concerned with only half a boat at a time. When we leave our slip, we use the lines to position ourselves so the stern is even with the rear pilings. From that spot it's pretty easy to back out without hitting anything. Coming back, I try to time our speed and deceleration such that we coast to a near-stop in that same staging position, so I can easily reach out and grab the stern lines from the cockpit, and make them fast with enough slack so that Britt can pull us forward with the bow lines to our normal berthed position.

We're also getting a better feel for sailing Windom. In 20 knots of wind, we need to keep the sails only partly rolled out (i.e., reefed) to avoid sailing "on our ear", but our speed is still pretty good. In fact, we usually manage to (slowly) overtake other boats of similar size. The one thing we have difficulty with is tacking. When we turn across the wind, we almost stall out before picking up speed again. We just need to work on our technique.

checking it twice

We've been spending the past week making a list that reads like a sailor's letter to Santa. Several of the boating supply stores here have told us that if we buy a lot at once, they'll give us a better deal, so we're compiling a list of stuff we need. This includes things like additional batteries (they list for more than $600 each, and we need two!), a heavy duty alternator (nearly a grand), a battery monitor, and an alternator regulator; a teak cockpit table and propane grill; a couple hundred feet of anchor chain, a couple hundred feet of anchor and dock line, and a windlass (a very big-ticket item); and all the cables and wires and switches and fuses and fasteners and hoses needed to hook these up. The bottom line is somewhat scary, but we knew we needed to buy these things when we selected this fairly un-equipped boat. This gives us the opportunity to buy what we really want, rather than what the previous owner wanted; to get the latest and greatest technology; and to learn all about it by installing it ourselves. At least, that's what we keep telling ourselves!

A few other large purchases loom on the horizon. The refrigeration systems we are most interested in aren't carried by any of the general marine supply houses, so once we settle on one, we need to buy it directly from the manufacturer. Ditto on the Apex dinghy we've picked out (although they'll take our old dinghy, which was the right size for the former owner's solo sailing but not big enough for two, in partial trade. Too bad they don't have a used model of the one we want). We still haven't decided on the outboard that will power it, but it's going to be expensive.

We have just ordered another piece of pricy gear -- a new propeller. The standard fixed blade prop whines like a spoiled child under sail; the drag is no doubt costing us speed, and the noise is obnoxious. The Maxprop we are getting is a feathering propeller, so it collapses to a more streamlined shape when we're sailing. It will also be easier to control backing under power (and I need all the help I can get!)

Making the list has forced us to be realistic about our plans. If we were to buy everything we might conceivably need for an offshore passage to Tahiti, we'd be installing it all summer and never get a chance to actually go sailing. And since we aren't really planning to go to Tahiti soon -- and may never go at all -- it doesn't make sense to spend the time and money yet on things we don't need for our first six-month plan of gunkholing in the Bay and some coastal cruising north.

The question of what we need and what we don't is not so easy to answer. In talking with other cruising couples, we frequently got diametrically opposed opinions. "Couldn't live without radar," says one, and "Never used the radar," says the other. (We're holding off until we feel like we need it.) We don't really need the new propeller, but it will be nice; same goes for the grill and cockpit table. We can do without a microwave, a watermaker, and an SSB radio, at least for now.

Last time we were in West Marine I leafed through several books advocating a much more minimalist approach. The Cost Conscious Cruiser, Sailing on a Small Income, Cruising 101 all push the "you don't need all that stuff" message. In one way, I agree; I kind of like the idea of a small sailing dinghy rather than an outboard, and I think it's more important to learn good navigation and piloting skills than to rely solely on whizbang instruments. But, no refrigerator?  Aie. Living with only an icebox for the past month has not turned me into a believer, sorry.

(On the other hand, e.g. the couple who wrote Cruising 101 bought their boat for about 5% of what we spent. Smaller budgets dictate a closer scrutiny of expenses, and if you don't have several thousand dollars to spend on refrigeration, you make do with ice. It's clear that, as I've read many times on rec.boats.cruising and in magazine articles and websites, "cruising costs exactly as much as you spend on it.")

wired for sound

One "frivolous" purchase we just made was a car stereo. We've been listening to NPR on a dinky pocket AM/FM/shortwave, but that's just not adequate for music, and of course we'd like to listen to our CD collection. Waterproof "boat stereos" exist, but they're really only needed for cockpit installation; Belowdecks as one reference said, "if a stereo can handle a pothole at 55 mph, it can handle being in a boat." So we went to Circuit City, where a 16-year old boy showed us all the AM/FM/CD units in our price range, helped us determine what features we wanted, assisted us in picking out the perfect system for our needs, and then cheerfully told us it was out of stock. So were our second and third choices, and fourth, and fifth. We repeated the drill at Best Buy. Finally we said, "Ok, what do you have in stock?" They had a Clarion RDX555D, so that's what we got.

The tough part was in figuring out what to do about an antenna, and wiring the whole mess behind the scenes. Fortunately, the easiest way to pass wires across the boat (so we can have a speaker on each side) goes just under the cabin sole, at the top of the bilge access area, right by the mast, which is already wired with a VHF antenna. We got a VHF/FM splitter and some coax cable; Britt drilled a few more holes behind the cabin seating storage areas, and we pulled the wire through, using the access panels he'd cut to run the bilge pump hoses and wiring a few weeks ago.

At the moment, the boat looks like a tornado hit it. To access the places where we want to pull wires, we need to pull off all the cushions and storage area covers, and then empty the storage areas so we can reach inside and drill holes and pull wires. The problem is that there just aren't enough places to put everything! Right now the forward head has a stack of books on the toilet lid, and there are pillows in the sink. But after Britt finishes cutting the hole in the cabinet, we'll set out our speakers, plug in the wires, clean up the mess, and listen to tunes.