Tubed !

In what the statistics confirm has been the rainiest June / July since 1959, we FINALLY had a weekend with no rain and a friend of the former owner came to help us install a new propeller shaft tube.  (Confession: he did the work and we fed him sandwiches and beer.)  It looks great and the polyester tube is more marine-friendly than the stainless steel mix that was rusted and pitted.  If you're wondering why we changed the tube, see The Naked Truth Parts I and II.

Prop shaft tube: before and after.

Of course, if everything went smoothly, this would all cease to be fun, right?  Luckily for us, there are a couple of glitches to keep things interesting.  When he took the rubber stuffing box (in French “joint Volvo”) off the shaft, he saw that it was quite worn and suggested that we change it.  He didn’t have a spare one with him so we now have to scout around to find one (early attempts this morning suggest this will not be so straightforward, either).  He also had to cut away the rusted bolts on the gear box to liberate the shaft, and didn’t have spare bolts of the right size to replace them. 

Needed: bolts for gearbox (left) and a volvo joint (right).

Once we have located all the missing parts, we can put everything together and write a big DONE next to this job in the maintenance log.  But neither of us feels confident enough to install the Volvo joint ourselves since this is a critical element that keeps water from gushing into the boat through the propeller shaft tube.  The instructions sound simple enough but we’ve never seen it done before, so we’ll call in reinforcements for this one.

We also learned a valuable lesson, one which you may very well find bleeding obvious, but as the saying goes, “one experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions.”  When you take a circular saw to the hull of a boat, fine dust goes everywhere.  We had been warned and put plastic covering in the work area.  This is useful for catching about 50% of what flies, and the rest you just have to vacuum up afterwards.  Here’s what we learned:  a vacuum cleaner intended for regular home use just isn’t up to this kind of task.  After about 45 minutes of vacuuming with my hot pink Electrolux home-edition, it began making an angry, high-pitched whine, became very hot, and gave up the ghost with a big dusty belch.

So before making the rounds of the ship chandler’s to look for missing parts, we went to the hardware store and bought a manly man’s wet-dry shop vac for the boat (it’s yellow and black) and took my little pink machine to be repaired.  Now, we may have our dim moments, but we knew that we shouldn’t admit that we were using it to suck up polyester resin fiberglass boat hull dust.  In the parking lot of the repair shop, we prepared our story.  We would simply tell them that it was plaster dust from a small home repair job. 

“Plaster dust ?!  It says clearly in your instructions that the machine isn’t to be used with ash or fine dust. I’m afraid your warranty won’t cover this.”  At that moment, my American instincts kicked in and I began planning how I could fight them on this by pointing out that their instructions said nothing about polyester resin fiberglass boat hull dust.  But while I was scheming, I also heard something in the background that sounded like “…it will cost more to repair than to buy a new one” and saw the flash of defeat and resignation already on Patrick’s face.

My hot pink electrolux (R.I.P.) and the new shop vac.

Reviewing the day’s events over beer later in the evening, my assessment was that the day had been a rather poopey one.  Patrick, a born optimist, just announced with a smile, “we’re less stupid now than when we woke up this morning.” 

Addendum:  A few days after this post, Patrick took our little pink Electrolux back to the appliance store to ask them how to get into the motor compartment so he could try cleaning it himself.  A different guy was at the help desk and suggested sending it to the shop and asking them for an estimate of how much it would cost to clean and repair.  A couple of days later, we get a call to come and pick it up.  Twenty-eight euros, thoroughly cleaned and with a new filter.  What do you get when you combine a ruthlessly positive attitude with tenacity and luck?  Patrick, that’s what !  Drives me banoonoos sometimes, but gotta love him !

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Rainy Afternoons and Rudder Angles

Here is a tale about how a simple mathematical musing can uncover daunting new tasks requiring skills you don’t have to fix a problem you never suspected.

It all started rather innocently, as these things always do, when I was looking for things to do on the boat while waiting for the rain to stop.  I remembered that one of my books on sail trim suggested calculating the rudder angle while the boat was in dry dock, and this sounded like a great rainy-day activity.  As we say back home, “you may as well dance when it’s too wet to plough.”  Now admittedly, it is difficult to liken rudder angle calculations to dancing even by the most enthusiastic math nerd, but I was happy to find something that felt like a useful task on such a dreary day.  And, truth be told, it sounded like fun.

When you are under sail, you set and trim the sails according to the wind direction and the direction you want to go.  On a well-trimmed and well-balanced boat, the rudder stays more or less straight, in line with the boat.  Joshua Slocum’s Spray was a boat that was so well-balanced that he could simply tie a rope to the tiller to keep it centered and let her go for days at a time without adjustments (in steady winds, of course).  This was quite a feat in the days before auto-pilots, and was a major factor contributing to his successful solo-circumnavigation of the globe. 

When it is necessary to hold the rudder at an angle to maintain your bearing, it means that your sails are not well-trimmed.  Beyond a certain angle, the flow of the water against an angled rudder turns your rudder into a brake.  This is bad, and depending on the expert you consult, occurs between 6° and 9°.

Most boat steering wheels will have the center point marked so that you know when the rudder is straight.  Now the trick is to mark the point corresponding to 6° of rudder angle on either side the center mark to know when you are braking and need to re-trim the sails. 

If the rudder could turn 360°, the radius of that circle is the distance from the central pivot point (the rudder stock) to the trailing edge of the rudder.  On Spray, this distance is 37 cm.  Of course everyone remembers that the circumference of a circle is calculated using the equation:  c = 2 π r    (confession: I googled it.)  At MIT, where the sports teams were rarely the school’s strongest point, there was a cheer to amuse the crowd: “Cosine! Secant! Tangent! Sine! 3 point 1 4 1 5 9 ! ” so it’s easy for me to remember the value of π.  For my rudder with a radius (r) of 37 cm, this gives a circumference of 232 cm for 360°, and by a simple ratio calculation, the 6° of rudder angle I seek is located 3.9 cm from the center position.

With numbers in hand, we moved to the practical-application step.  With Patrick up top at the wheel and me beneath the rudder (no dummy, me… he got rained on while I was protected underneath the boat), I measured off 3.9 cm on either side of the center point and had him slowly turn the wheel until the rudder was lined up with my marks.  We did this a couple of times in each direction and he marked the 6° points on the wheel with a marker. 

“How’s it look?” I shouted up to Patrick.  The response was the worrisome French expression “Ooh laaa…”.  This is not to be confused with better known “Ooh la la” which is generally a happy expression of appreciation.  “Ooh laaa” is most appropriately translated as “uh oh” or, in certain cases such as this, “oh shit”.

I climbed up on deck and looked at the two marks on the wheel.  They were not symmetric from the center.  By a long shot.  One was a full 10 cm further away from the center than the other.  “Ooh laaa” indeed.  This was a clear indication of something we knew already but had not fully appreciated:  there was considerable play in the wheel.  When we took the boat out for a test sail, we noticed that there was some play, but it didn’t seem particularly bothersome.  Clearly, after lifting the boat out of the water a second time and 2 months in dry dock with various assaults inflicted on the rudder, the play had increased significantly. 

Back at home, I looked up how to stiffen up a limp steering wheel.  The forums all suggested it was something that could be done easily, but this sort of statement always leaves me a bit queasy.  The next day on the boat, we took advantage of a brief visit from the head mechanic to ask him what he thought about the situation.  He spun the wheel slowly, watching the quadrant rotate from side to side and pointed out that most of the play seemed to be coming from the rotator pin connecting the quadrant to the steering chains (rotule, in French; see photo).

The rotator pin connected to the steering quadrant.

This reminded me that Antoine, the boat’s previous owner, had left us a spare rotator pin in case we needed to change it.  The mechanic assured us that it was a simple affair to remove the old one and attach the new one.  When he had gone, Patrick, emboldened, started looking more closely at the situation and rapidly ran up against the first hurdle:  he didn’t have the right size of wrenches. 

As with so many things that we attempt to do on the boat, my simple “mark 6° of rudder angle on the wheel” has now become:

•  Buy new set of wrenches.
• Mark the current position of the rotator pin and bolts.
• Remove the damaged rotator pin and install the new one.
• Test the play in the wheel; if acceptable, proceed to next step; if not, turn the bolt on the connecting pin by 2 turns to tighten the chains; repeat as necessary
• …and then, mark 6° of rudder angle on the wheel.

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Bricolage Update

In honor of the upcoming 14^th of July French National Holiday, I would like to take this opportunity to pay homage to the French language for giving us the word “bricolage”.  In English, this is translated as “Do it Yourself” but I have to say I find this phrase rather inadequate to describe what actually happens when you repair, install, or build things. And bricolage can be turned into the verb “bricoler” (breek-o-lay) to describe the act of doing the work, while telling someone that you are “DIY-ing” just doesn’t have the same elegance. 

So here is a bricolage update with our recent successes, mixed-successes, and set-backs.

Our non-standard flexible faucet tubes.

Repaired galley sink leaks.  We thought all we would have to do is to block off the hot water intake line.  There’s no hot water, but the faucet mixer opens the hot water intake line and allows cold water to flow out … all over the floor.  But the flexible tubes for the hot and cold water are not standard sizes for Europe.  After 3 visits to various plumbing stores, one very nice man led us to a back room and ripped the tubes off an old sink they had sitting around.  He just gave them to us... said he couldn't sell them because they weren't standard.  Perfect fit.  Another fitting that was in bad shape was nowhere to be found in the hardware stores.  We finally found something that did the trick in our local garden center. 

Passed electrical cables for windlass.  We found out that we didn’t need to buy a new battery for the windlass after all (see post “The Learning Curve Blues”) but can instead use the service batteries (2 x 100 Ah batteries in parallel) which are even closer and easier to reach for the cabling. Passed electrical cables from the chain locker to the battery and from the chain locker to the cockpit locker for a control button near the throttle.

New cables installed (looking down).

Installed new electrical cables between the service park batteries.  Found out that the cables connecting the two service park batteries are not sufficient for a big electrical draw (such as needed for a windlass) to pass between the two.  Bought new cable, ripped out the old, passed the new under the floorboards.  

GPS antenna installed.

Installed new GPS antenna.  More cables passed, from the chart table controls to the locker behind the head where we installed the antenna to keep it out of harm’s way.  Gets kick-ass reception there, too.

Repaired two hatches that had minor leaks.  We noticed some small leaks around two hatch covers, and when we unscrewed the covers, we noticed that there were wads of paper towels strategically placed to catch any drips. We decided to replace the paper towels with spray foam insulation. The insulation expands and forms a lovely effect like snow sliding off a roof, which then hardens, allowing you to cut it to the form you need.  

Foam insulation around hatch cover.

New super-hold hair mousse discovery.

Unfortunately, one of the globs became so heavy that it started falling towards the floor.  I raced to catch it with a paper towel.  Turning around proudly to show Patrick my catch, he says “Ohhhh noooo… your HAIR !”  What about my hair?   


A quick look in the mirror showed a big blob of insulation across my forehead.  My attempts to remove this “cotton candy super glue” with towels and acetone only met with limited success and the residue turned rapidly to hard plastic. 

Collateral damage, hatch job.

Back at home, after repeated failures with various oils and solvents, I was reduced to pulling hair out of the plastic globs strand-by-strand.  Most just broke off, and I had to use a razor blade to separate the worst of the lot.  It took a ½ bottle of white wine to deaden the pain after all the hair pulling.

It'll fade, right?

Repaired dings in gel coat.  We learned that with an electrical sander, you get a nice smooth finish after patching dings in the gel coat.  The problem is that I didn’t have the right color of blue gel coat, so I used white, with the idea of painting it afterwards.  But I didn’t have the right color of paint either, so I mixed two blues to get something close.  After reading the forums on this, I’m told that all of this will peel and crack in a very short time anyway, so I’ve decided not to stress over the bad color match.  Sigh.

Eye splice + needle-and-palm whipping on devil's claw.

Made eye splice for devil’s claw.  Bought a sort of devil’s claw, which is used to reduce the strain on the windlass by hooking into one of the links and transfering the strain to a cleat on deck.  But you have to attach the metal claw to a polyamide / nylon line by making an eye-splice and wrapping any loose ends with needle-and-palm whippings.  After a few false starts, my Seamanship 101 and 102 classes from Texas A&M came flooding back to me and it turned out okay.  (Don’t look too close, though).   

Set up / programmed the new portable VHF radio.

Replaced the lock on the companionway door.  It’s a good fit, but we still need to “bricoler” something to eliminate a gap.

Set up new computer.  The problem is that the graphics card for this operating system has been known to have big problems with the navigation software we wanted to use.  We’ll test this using a friend’s software before buying it ourselves.  But we have to wait for that friend to get back from sailing in the Caribbean.

Twiddled thumbs over propeller shaft work.  The work on the propeller shaft is a major setback.  The friend-of-a-friend who has agreed to help us can only help us on the weekends when it doesn’t rain. It was just announced that this June was the rainiest June since 1959, and July doesn’t look much better.  We wondered if maybe the boatyard would be able to work faster, since they would be able to work any day it didn’t rain.  We asked what their workload was like at the moment, and they announced that the guy who was scheduled to work in July and August has just run off to Mexico with his girlfriend and did not say anything about coming back.  This will also push back the work on the chain locker needed before we can install the windlass. Sigh.  Back to square one.

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Hull Work

The next few posts will show the gradual transformations of different parts of Spray’s anatomy that have occurred over the last couple of weeks. 

Today’s feature: The Hull.

The hull was water/sand blasted to remove what was left of 20 years of bottom paint. 

Bare, with rust spots already starting on the iron keel.

The iron keel was treated with 4 layers of epoxy (AC20, red). 

Red epoxy on the keel.

An epoxy primer was put on the hull, followed by application of a mastic epoxy putty (enduit) where needed to fill in any pits.  Silicone mastic was put around all the through-hulls, and 2 layers of epoxy undercoat finished off the prep work (SC20 epoxy undercoat, light tan).

Epoxy undercoat on the hull.

The keel, before and after scrape, epoxy, and new seal.

Finally, a coat of new bottom paint (dark blue) was added.  We had to do this in 2 steps; paint around the supports, have the boatyard move the supports, then paint over the spots.   

Blue with tan spots.

1st layer of bottom paint DONE.

The 2^nd will be added a few days before Spray goes in the water.  

We used a hard matrix bottom paint for this first layer, but in coming years, we will switch to erodible matrix. 

In fact, we were just informed yesterday that it will be increasingly difficult to put any bottom paint on the boat in the coming years because of environmental issues and the need to have specially-equipped boatyards to perform the work.   

Many sailors are now moving to the Oceo-Protect system, which is supposed to last anywhere from 5-10 years.  But like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, “I’ll think about that tomorrow”.          

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Wither SSB ?

One of my favourite finds during our recent inventory of Spray was the Sony 7600 single sideband radio receiver.  When I was a kid, my sister and I became amateur “ham” radio operators (Kentucky hams, we used to call ourselves).  We spent many happy evenings eavesdropping on conversations, news and music from around the world, dreaming of the travels and adventures we would have.    

A shiny new Sony 7600 (the one I want...)

Despite the many miraculous technological advances of the past 30 years, shortwave radio is still the best way for global cruisers to have news and information from just about anywhere on the planet.  Some AM/FM radio stations can be picked up along the coast for 50-75 miles.  Beyond that, if you want to stay in touch with what’s going on in the world, you have to rely on signals bounced off the ionosphere, which is shortwave or World Band Radio.  During a brief stroll along the dial (“dial” is what older folks call the seek tuning button) you can stumble onto a mix of traditional music from Southeast Asia, a documentary about maple syrup harvesting from Canada, and dire warnings from doomsday cults broadcasting from….well, they never really say. 

You may be asking yourself how useful (or indeed, desirable) it would be to have the ability to listen to, say, classic Chinese opera while at sea.  But you would be ignoring the fact that a SSB radio not only captures radio broadcasts, it also provides access to all-important weather and navigation information at sea beyond the reach of the marine VHF radio.  Combined with a computer and a good antenna, you can obtain both text and graphic weather data anywhere in the world.  Add a transmitter, and you are wired to participate in the global village. 

There are many radio nets established especially for cruisers by amateur radio operators around the major cruising destinations of the world (or more specifically, major cruising destinations of the world where old hams go to retire, which is to say, predominantly in areas with warm turquoise waters, palm trees, plastic flip-flops, and little fruity drinks with umbrellas … hmmmm, I wonder if I have to be 65 to join them ?).  These nets provide local sailing and port information, reports of piracy, queries from worried families about late arrivals, general gossip, and message relays.  They broadcast at a fixed time every day, providing a great source of entertainment, a bit like Garrison Keillor’s “Lake Woebegone Days” on the high seas.

What breaks my heart is that SSB is now most often labelled as “not dead yet”.  The satellite phone and the ability to connect to the internet from anywhere on the globe is rapidly undermining radio services.  On 31 December 2011, Radio France International announced that it would no longer broadcast offshore weather reports on short wave, depriving French sailors of one of their only sources of offshore weather news from a human voice.  An informal poll on Sail the World suggested, however, that the howl of protest was mostly an elderly one, with younger sailors greeting the news of the terminated broadcast with “so what?” 

While it is tempting at this juncture to dive into the sociological ramifications of this finding, I think I would prefer to avoid the debate altogether and just install both a SSB system and a satellite phone on Spray.  But I sure hope those radio net communities are still around when I’m ready to settle down and plant my toes in the warm sand somewhere.  And a final word to the younger generation of sailors who remain stubbornly insensible to the human connection:  when the robots rise up to enslave and kill us all*, the only place that will be safe is on a boat surrounded by salt water, and you can be sure that all us survivors will be coordinating our efforts via good old shortwave radio. 

(* for a survival guide, see Daniel Wilson’s “How toSurvive a Robot Uprising: Tips for Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion.”)

Addendum:  After being mercilessly teased by my former colleagues for my naïveté regarding a robot’s ability to operate in salt water, I humbly admit that this was an inexcusable oversight on my part.  After having worked for more than 10 years coordinating bits of the Global Ocean Observing System, I should have immediately thought of the Argo and Glider programmes, which are based on autonomous or remotely-operated floats.  In my own defence, to call them robots at this point is a BIT of an exaggeration.  Nevertheless, I did take this opportunity to remind my friends working on Argo that it is not too early to be thinking about a global “kill switch” for those little buggers.

For a list of maritime radio nets around the world, check out the Noonsite Communications pages.  http://www.noonsite.com/General/Communications

Also on Noonsite, read “The Essential Role of HF/SSB Radio in Ocean Cruising” by Allan Riches.  http://www.noonsite.com/Members/val/R2012-06-02-2

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The Learning Curve Blues

We knew that reconditioning and outfitting a 20 year old boat, even one in excellent condition, would involve a steep learning curve.  But what we didn’t realize is that the learning curve is, in fact, multiple curves that keep cropping up relentlessly.  It reminds us of running a trail marathon, where you grunt your way up a major hill and experience relief and elation on reaching the top…only to have your gaze settle on the rest of the trail in front of you, which rolls up and over numerous other hills that stretch out as far as the eye can see.   

We were just beginning to get comfortable with all the epoxies, catalysers, and putties one needs to patch up a boat, and gaining confidence in our own abilities to repair things.  After having refurbished an old house together, I learned once again to appreciate Patrick’s DIY skills.  He doesn’t always do things in what I would consider to be the most logical manner, but when he’s finished with something, it’s both solid and aesthetically pleasing.  When we drew up our “To Do” list, we made mental notes about who we would ask for advice or help with each task.  Slowly we’ve begun to realize with a certain timid pride that we can tackle many of them ourselves.

But our relief and elation at our new-found independence was short-lived as new challenges arose this week.  On our Maintenance Log is a seemingly simple task:  have an electric windlass installed.  While this is no simple operation, we would be paying someone else to do it, which I thought meant that this task would require little intervention on our part.  Pay money, cross something off the list, right ? 

The chain locker

So we met with the electrician to discuss the installation of said windlass. First, he terrified us with suggestions of cutting into the forward cabin and shortening it by several feet to improve the slope of the chain locker (“You guys don’t intend for anyone to actually sleep here, right?”).  After he saw our pale faces, he looked around at several other boats in the yard and found a solution that didn’t involve major alterations.  We will have to cut the chain locker hatch in half and stratify the forward part to have a solid base for the windlass, but that should be the only modification needed.

To test the placement of the windlass and the clearance for the anchor and chain, we lowered the anchor over the side and noticed that the anchor arm pitches upwards and hits the genoa furler as it goes over the davit (or comes up).  Two options were presented: either we manually put the anchor into position on the davit to avoid hitting the furler or we extend the davit a bit.   

The next problem was that even once the anchor is beyond the davit, the anchor blade tends to bang into the prow, which argues for extending the davit.  Since the prow also already has some dings that need repair (probably from hauling up the anchor with the chain raking against the prow), it was also suggested that a metal plate protecting the prow would be a good idea.

We next went inside to look at the battery for the motor that will be used to power the windlass.  Long story short: It’s too small. We have to buy a new one.

That simple task “have electric windlass installed” is now:

• Cut the chain locker hatch in half and stratify the forward section
• Buy and install an extension for the davit
• Buy and install a metal plate to protect the prow
• Buy and install a new battery
• … and then “have electric windlass installed”. 

We’ve been spending 3-4 hours every day working on the boat and still haven’t managed to cross many items off our “To Do” list.  When we’re home, we’re on the internet researching models and prices of various pieces of equipment, reading forums for advice, or emailing friends for help.  We work from 10 in the morning until 8 at night every day, and we’re starting to get tired and cranky !  Summer sailing Plan A evaporated weeks ago, and now summer sailing Plan B is starting to look overly ambitious as well.  But as with running a tough race, we’re simply going to have to lie convincingly to ourselves that if we can just get up and over that next hill, things will get easier, and then set ourselves the goal of finishing with no injuries and big smiles on our faces.  

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Ghost Ship Inventory

In 1872, three crew members of the Canadian freighter Dei Gratia boarded a vessel they encountered drifting 400 miles off the coast of Portugal.  Not a soul was found on board, and yet the ship showed no signs of damage or a hurried departure.  The crew had simply vanished, and the ghost ship Mary Celeste entered into maritime legend.* 

* For fans of maritime history (and chemistry !), I highly recommend the excellent book GhostShip by Brian Hicks … all will be revealed. 

1st layer of stuff in the cockpit locker.

You may think me a drama queen, but I was strangely reminded of this story the first time we boarded Spray as owners and began the inventory of the equipment left behind.  The standard equipment that was listed in the “for sale” announcement was all there.  But there were also sacks of lines, nets, tarps, bungee cords, gas cans, buckets, fishing equipment, hoses, flashlights, cleaning products, paint cans, putty and gelcoat supplies, rolls of wire and spare cables, wheel and motor parts, kitchen utensils, glasses and dishes, coffee, pillows, and three rolls of toilet paper.  Even if the crew had simply vanished, the boat still carried more supplies than many coastal cruisers we know, and we were reminded that the boat had most recently been outfitted for a trans-Atlantic crossing.   

A small sampling of paints and putties.

Since our list of hull repair tasks was growing by the day, I started the inventory with the mysterious crate of cans and tubes found in the cockpit lockers: 7 kinds of grease, numerous bottles of acetone, turpentine, and motor oil, and 18 varieties of putty, hardeners, catalyzers, and gelcoat paint and polish.  I carefully wrote down the name of each product and read the instructions to try to figure out what each was for.  I thought about labelling things, but was stopped by a fit of giggles when I remembered the scene in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude where the citizens of Macondo lose their memories and start labelling things: “This is a cow.  It gives milk.”  I imagined my first label: “This is polyester for the rudder.  It needs a hardener” but quickly realized that such labels would be more fun than functional. 

After we finished the inventory, we checked with Antoine and Caroline to make sure they had intended to leave all this stuff (in fact, they wanted the kitchen utensils back).  Our next mission is to decide what to remove from the boat.  We are not planning a trans-Atlantic hop anytime soon and don’t need to haul around such a vast supply of emergency repair products.  All those chemicals in the lockers remind me of my first year in college when I decided to double-major in chemistry and marine transportation !

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The Naked Truth, Part II

A friend-of-a-friend dropped by the boatyard today to take a look at our propeller shaft tube problem.  At first, he was convinced that we just needed to patch up the stratification on either end of the shaft, but we decided to go ahead and open up the crack a bit to see what the tube looked like a little further back.  Doing so revealed a pit in the tube about 2cm x 1cm completely eaten away by rust.  When we dug a bit further, the tube pulled away from the stratification with little effort. 

Propellor shaft mysteries resolved.

So the good news is that we no longer have any doubt that the tube must be changed, and personally, we feel a bit vindicated in our insistence that there just might be a problem.  The bad news is that Spray now has a gaping hole where the prop shaft tube used to be and we can’t get this fixed until early July.  And the cherry on the cake is that this is not a cheap operation, even doing the work with friends.

We also just received the estimate from the boatyard for the epoxy work on the keel and hull.  I don’t know if my liver will be able to take another month of such surprises.

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Zephyr of Nantes is Spray of Vannes !

It’s official, at least as far as the French administration is concerned.  Zephyr of Nantes has been replaced by Spray of Vannes !

From Er Gwennick to Zephyr to Spray, and the new proud owner.

The process was Kafkaesque as expected, but we managed to get it done in just under 7 hours.  Last night, we went to “The Official Web Site of the French Administration” to learn what steps we had to take to register the boat, to change the home port, and to change the name of the boat.  Let’s just forget the fact that many of the steps outlined by the web site had links to important information on other pages that told you the same stuff that was on the first page, but with the helpful suggestion that if you wanted the really important information, you should go to the following link, which took you right back where you were in the first place.

Here are the official instructions:

The seller must deliver to the Customs Office of the home port of the boat :

·         The sales contract, including all information concerning the boat and its administrative situation.  It must be signed by the Maritime Administration.

·         The acte de francisation (proof of registration and annual duties paid)

·         The “pleasure craft form” filled out in the name of the buyer, in 2 copies

·         2 identity photos of the buyer

·         1 original photo identification of the buyer.

If you want to change the home port,  you must:

·         Fill out the form requesting the change of home port ; present this request to the Customs Offices of  both the current home port and the new home port.

Here, as we discovered, is the reality:

The seller  (the buyer does this now) must deliver to the Customs Office of the home port of the boat :

·         The sales contract, including all information concerning the boat and its administrative situation.  It must be signed by the Maritime Administration.  (They don’t do this anymore, which cuts out one step if you actually know about it, which of course, you can’t know about until you present yourself at the Maritime Administration office.)

·         The acte de francisation (proof of registration and annual duties paid).

·         The “pleasure craft form” filled out in the name of the buyer, in 2 copies.  The Customs Office said that this was for the Maritime Administration. The Maritime Administration officer said she didn’t want it.

·         2 identity photos of the buyer.

·         1 original photo identification of the buyer.

On calling the Customs Office, we are also told that we must include the following information:

·         Bank account information required for wire transfers.

·         A document proving your current address, dated not more than 3 months from present date (e.g., and electricity bill usually works).

·         A handwritten request to change the name of the boat.

When we asked about changing the home port, we were informed that there was a home port for the Customs Office and a home port for the Maritime Administration and they are not necessarily the same.  The Maritime Administration suggested we change the home port for the Maritime Administration but leave the Customs Office home port as it was, since that service will soon be restructured to have a central service anyway.  This then gives us:

·         Fill out the form requesting the change of home port ; present this request to the Customs Offices  Maritime Administration of  both the current home port and the new home port.

To be honest, everyone was very kind, efficient, and helpful, despite that daft web site that is clearly maintained by some pin head bureaucrat in an office in Paris who has little or no contact with the services for whom he is the sole information provider.  The Maritime Administration even accepted our file at 16h32 when the sign on the door clearly said they closed at 16h00. And it didn’t cost us anything, unless you count the 3 hours of driving between Vannes and Nantes.  It could have been much worse.

But it’s too early for champagne.  We still have to contact the Radio Frequency Administration to register the VHF radio under the name of the new owner and boat name (Patrick is looking that one up on “The Official Web Site of the French Administration” as I type … heh, heh, heh) and we have to notify our port authorities of the changes, which undoubtedly requires forms and photos.

After these last few steps, Spray will be fully registered with the French authorities.  Then we’ve just got Neptune and that creepy sea serpent to deal with (see earlier posts).

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Dehler 34 Owners !

The check passing hands.

That giant sucking sound you heard around 19h00 GMT centered somewhere over western Europe was the siphon that just started in our bank account.  We’re officially poor boat owners! 

Antoine and Caroline, the charming FORMER owners of Zephyr/Spray, met us at the boat yard to discuss the crack around the propeller shaft tube.  We agreed on a price for fixing it and then drove to our home to sign the papers and celebrate with a little bubbly. 

The keys passing hands.

Neither of us knows quite what we’re supposed to do now.  We’re thrilled, anxious, overwhelmed, and aware that we’ve just accomplished a dream that has motivated our decisions and actions for the last 2 years.  A new chapter of our lives has indeed begun, with a glaring blank screen and a blinking cursor.  More champagne anyone ?

Time for champagne !

The Happy New Owners !

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