We have been busy this fall helping our daughter compete on the High School sailing team with getting to/from practice and cheering on the team at the regattas/races. She learned a lot about sailing while on the JV team and has come to love the sport and idea of being on the water. We are fortunate to live in a place where students can participate in this sport.
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon last weekend and without much of a plan, we decided to move the boat to Annapolis and stage it for the eventual haul out at Bert Jabin Yacht Yard. We had intended to continue with Winterizing the boat, but with sunny and calm weather, it seemed prudent to move the boat to the Annapolis mooring field for the week so that our final move to Bert Jabin would be very short. With very little planning, we jumped into the cockpit, started the engine and began the easy 3-hour trip South.
One we got onto the mooring, we anticipated calling the water taxi to get us to shore. We were surprised that the service had been stopped for the season. with very little daylight available, we made the decision to pump up our stand-up paddle boards and paddle into Ego Alley where our car was staged. The lesson was: Always be prepared! We had very high gusts and windy conditions this last week in the harbor, but the boat was well-secured to the harbor.
A friend of ours on SV Aurora took this picture of the harbor one night when it was completely calm. Since we couldn’t taxi out to the boat and we weren’t about to paddle board out to it during the big winds, we took comfort in watching the Spa Creek webcam and our friends nearby watching over it.
Mid-day on Thursday, we got ready to paddleboard out to the boat on the mooring field. We dumped a car at the downtown parking lot and shoved off. We saw some wind in our faces as we cleared Ego Alley, and with that brought some small waves that splashed over the boards. We got wet but we didn’t go swimming.
We glided smoothly onto the fuel dock at Annapolis Landing to top off the tank with about 20 gallons of diesel. The very experienced worker there gave me one of those sailor-to-sailor stares and a hand signal to cut the engine once he had control of the dock spring line. That was comforting. After we filled up, we idled up Back Creek and backed into the slot. The team there handled us smoothly with no fuss. We even received a couple of “welcome back!” shout outs from the crew there who recognize us and the boat.
The next morning we were anxious as expected like two little ducklings trying to get some attention. It took a while longer than we expected, so we kept knocking off tasks to stay busy.
The sun was starting to peek out, and so I pulled up the Winter cover (3 pieces) to start heating up the fabric to make it easier to work with. We pulled the anchor on deck (to shorten the overall length and reduce our storage costs) and also dropped the spinnaker pole for the Winter. Finally lifted out of the water, we were delighted to see the limited growth on the hull and credit the relatively clean and brackish water of Rock Creek where we kept the boat as well as the excellent application of bottom paint by Annapolis Boat Service.
We were very happy that the crew used our new lift stickers to position the sling and that it worked very well. Surprisingly, the Garmin Panoptix PS51-TH sonar sensor came out very dirty. I cannot remember if I painted it before I installed it, but I am pretty sure that I used sensor paint. I will have to sort that out in the Spring before we launch.
After the crew thoroughly washed the hull to get the salt water stains and growth off, we were quickly rolled away. The crew told me that they hauled out over 24 boats on one of the days this week. They seem to be very efficient.
The rest of the day was spent installing our Winter cover. After we purchased the cover in 2023 in response to putting down our new teak deck, we thought we made a mistake. We thought we would be full time cruising buy now, which would have made the investment short-lived and not a good trade-off against annual shrinkwrappiung. However, since we delayed our cruising plans, the cover now appears to have been a very wise decision.
Another wise decision has been to utilize the HR Group forum to get answers to questions about these boats. My friends there gave me a tip to look into a device called a Balmar Belt Buddy, a universal alternator adjustment bracket. I was struggling forever trying to tension our 12V and 24V belts by hand. Now that I have these installed, I will never struggle again!
Do not mind the messiness of my engine. I wanted to share this, because it has made my life so much easier. If you have a similar engine (Volvo TMD31L-A) with V-belts or have the same problems that I was having (poor accessibility, bad leverage), then this solution is exactly what you need. 2 of these arms cost about $150.
Annapolis Boat Service has a big scope for our Winter plans, including:
- Replacing about 5 thru-hulls that remain as original
- Media blasting and re-coating the bottom
- Possibly eliminating the factory-installed bilge drain
- Re-doing the keel-to-hull joint
I am re-chroming our Lewmar 66ST winches with Metroplating. Depending on time, I may also work on re-varnishing hatch frames, installing a Starlink transformer, and installing a 2nd bilge pump. Next season, we are going to make it up to the CT/RI/MA area for a 2-week vacation.
The Loxodograph 