Sail Pandora – Page 217 – A journal of our time aboard SV/Pandora an Aerodyne 47

The wild life aboard Pandora and a Mother’s day greeting.

May 10, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Even though Pandora is still on the hard in Norwalk CT, she’s still a hopping place for some. In this case, the feathered kind. When I went forward the other day to check out the anchor windlass I was surprised by a Ground Dove that had built her nest under the cover. I was loath to interfere but had to attend to the anchor so unfortunately, disturbed her. It was amazing just how brave she was and only flew away when I carefully prodded her with my outstretched finger on her back. However, I did have to give her a poke as I really needed to lower the anchor to the ground for some work I was doing. Most important is that the windless makes quite a racket, something that would surely have sent her “over the edge”. I wanted her to fly away but not forever.She did make a run for it and I quickly snapped a photo of the egg while she was away. I came back a few days later and she was still there but this time I kept a respectful distance.

With Mother’s day less than a week away I certainly don’t’ want to be accused of being tough on mothers. Besides, my own mom might get the wrong idea about me.

Pandora has proven to be a great home for me and Brenda and it seems fitting to have another family living aboard while she is on the hard.

Let’s hope that the chicks fly the coop by early June when Pandora gets launched. So, how fast to doves grow? For their sake, they had better be quick about it.

While life goes on aboard Pandora, I am headed to Freeport Bahamas this coming Tuesday to help a friend bring his boat back to CT. It should be a great trip and I am sure that some fun posts will come from the journey.

More to come and soon I hope.

Finally in Essex and getting back to normal

April 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment

It’s been a long few months with the last several weeks of interminable delays in getting out of our home in NJ with septic and roofing problems and a buyer who wouldn’t close until it was fixed. In any event, with that project finally completed with the help of professional plumbers and roofers like Knipp Roofing services, we finally moved last Thursday and are now in our new home here in Essex CT.

In spite of being here we are anything but settled with many boxes still left to unpack. I would have liked to have posted in sooner but there hasn’t been anything to talk about besides wishing that I was doing something on Pandora to get her ready to launch in late May.

However, this Wednesday I expect to head down to Norwalk to spend several days getting her ready for the season. There remains much to complete including the wiring connections on the watermaker, installing the wi-fi and working on the cockpit enclosure. Yikes, the list remains long.

In spite of it all, I was able to spend a bit of time out on the CT river in Essex last week when our son Christopher visited from NYC for the weekend. He and I took the guide boat that I spoke of in my last post out for a run on the river. It was pretty breezy but warm and sunny and we had a great time. Along the way he took these photos of a pair of osprey’s landing on their nest. As there were chicks/eggs in the nest, they were aggressively protecting the nest from our intrusion. Great shots. He’s a gifted photographer and has the patience to get the right shot. Not sure which this is, male or female.

Just take a look at those pointy talons. I’d hate to be on the receiving end when they are out fishing.

I also think that it’s a good thing that ospreys don’t have 20′ wingspans or sailing would be a bit less fun. “Hey, there’s a nice juicy human that we can feed our chicks. No, be my guest, you go first. Here Bobby, Bobby!!

Hmm, that was a bit random… Never mind.

I guess that will have to suffice for now as I am up to my elbows in boxes and unpacking. I can’t wait for things to settle down so I can get back to serious stuff like sailing.

Wish me luck.

Return of a classic for the Pandora clan

April 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Prior to sailing big boats (larger just actually, not BIG like the .001% boys), Brenda and I traveled for vacation to Lake Clear in the Adirondacks as I had with my parents for many years. During the many summers at Lake Clear, near Saranac, I fell in love with the sweet lines of the classic Adirondack Guide Boat, a style of pulling boat designed for hunting guides to take their customers (sports) out on the lakes in the area to hunt and fish. It was important for me to find a good boat supply store who are reliable and provide quality products. Due to the fact that the many lakes were close to one another and yet required frequent portages or “carries” where the guide would have to carry the boat from one lake some distance over land to the next launch area, these boats had to be very light so that they were manageable and easy to handle. While traditionally built out of wood, many of the modern day versions of these boats are built in kevlar, again to ensure that they are as light as possible.

Years ago, nearly 30 actually, I purchased a bare kevlar hull of a 16′ guide boat and finished it myself. The decks, fore and aft, and side rails are made of a combination of cherry, ash and walnut and the seats are caned. I even got ash blanks and made my own 8′ oars or sweeps, to match the design. The hull shape was taken from a wonderful boat Ghost built by a well known boat builder, Durant back in the 1800s and now in the collection of the Adirondack Museum in Tupper Lake which can be found, who would have ever guessed, in the Adirondacks.

Once we got into cruising Long Island Sound, the guide boat went into storage hung up high in my parent’s garage and for the last few years jammed under our front porch. As our new home is just one mile from the Connecticut River, we will once again be able to use our guide boat and for the first time since our boys were toddlers. Now our boys are 26 and 28 years old so it’s been a lot of years since the boat has touched water.

As you can imagine, after so many years in storage, the guide boat was pretty nasty looking as is witnessed by this shot. The under porch storage was very tight and while protected from much of the weather, it was a pretty humid place. Fortunately, the wood chucks that live under the porch hadn’t “chucked wood” or damaged the boat in any way. I did find some leaves tucked up under one of the decks that looked like a comfortable nest, perhaps for some mice.

Pretty nasty but there is beauty in there somewhere.After a bit of scrubbing, beauty… Actually, a lot of elbow grease on this baby.

As I mentioned, walnut and cherry decks. Oh, if it wasn’t clear, this wasn’t a kit, just a bare hull and a pile of locally purchased lumber. Not bad for a beginner. I must have been in my late 20s when I finished her. Amazingly, the varnish hasn’t been touched in all the subsequent years. Nice when you can keep a boat out of the weather.

No, I didn’t weave the cane seats. They are machine woven. CHEATER, CHEATER!!! Yes, don’t be too tough on me, we all make compromises. I was even able to fine hardware true to the original design of Ghost. It’s great to have nice hardware on a great boat. GOD is in the details as is the case in all of life. What amazing lines this boat has. She really moves through the water.

One thing that this boat has in common with our SAGA 43 Pandora, is a fine entry. They both move through the water very easily. Straight on you can really see how this boat would track on the water. Like a knife…Fine, really fine…No, I won’t be distracted from Pandora this summer but what better way to kill a few hours on the CT River than aboard a classic guide boat. There’s even a caned seat back (alas, packed for the move and not shown) for Brenda to lounge against, parasol in hand as we head out on the river.

Perhaps we will want to avoid the whole “dead deer in the bottom of the boat thing” as is in the case here.

No, and I am confident that Brenda will be good deal more attractive and a lot less smelly than the guy who is a passenger in this classic photo from Guide Boats.com. There’s a lot of great information here on the history of this unique North American craft.

In about a week we will be moving out of our NJ home and will be able to begin enjoying this great boat again after what seems like a lifetime ago. So much to look forward to.

Pandora needs her own bucket. Not that kind of bucket!

March 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Call me a virtual “hanger on” but I just love the mega yacht events. Ok, so I have come clean on that and am also at peace that I will never be in such an event. The flavor of the moment for today is the St Barts Bucket, one of two events, with the other in Newport of course, that are held each year as an excuse for the big, really big, boys in yachting to get together and show off their yachts.

So, how is the recession hurting those events? I guess that the 1%, no make that the .001% are back in business and in full swing as this year’s event in St Barts is a whopper with 47 boats in attendance. Even with a $12,000 entry fee. Supposedly they even turned away a number of boats that wanted to participate. I wonder if it’s because they don’t accept AMEX. Probably not . I am trying to imagine what it would be like to have that many boats, most over 100′ and some more than twice that size, competing on a single course. Even if they stagger the starts, that’s a lot of boat-feet moving near each other.

In trying to get my arms around this one I was thinking about what it must be like to handle a boat (I guess that “boat” isn’t the right word) with a 36′ draft. That’s the amount of water that the 190′ Twizzle draws. Yikes! I guess that the Bahamas isn’t on their destination list given the fact that the banks average 6′ in depth. Speaking of Twizzle, check out their site at http://www.twizzle.org/. Normally, I would just highlight the name of the yacht with a link but thought that putting the actual link in this case was better as I am very amused that it’s a .org domain. I guess that all yachts are NOT-FOR-PROFIT anyway, even if their owners are clearly not.

This video on you-tube was filmed at yesterday’s regatta and posted. When I visited it this morning it only had 39 views. I’ll bet that there will be more in the coming days as it will only take one visit each from crew on these yachts to clock up several hundred. Check out the featured boat Twizzle. I’ll bet that Pandora would fit in the cockpit.

Here’s another video, with some fun shore side clips, of the 2010 event. This video has EVERYTHING including great sailing footage, a shot of what looks like a high tech potato gun and even a cooking lesson. This video features Meteor, a real monster. You can charter her for a week for only $106,000. Note how she walks by Maltese Falcon, the largest sailing yacht in the world, like she is standing still, all 289′ of her. Besides, Meteor is a mere 171′. Oh, to be rich, really rich…

Oh yea, I read that the designer of Maltese Falcon is working on a new project based on similar technology that will be even bigger. Bummer to be upstaged.

Progress on getting Pandora ready to splash

March 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment

It’s been very busy lately as we finish up on getting ready to move to CT. Fortunately, I have been able to squeeze a few visits to Pandora in along with everything else.

Happily, the watermaker is finished with the electrical connections all that is left prior to testing the system to be sure that it works. For those that were concerned about my covering up the documentation numbers, fear not, I put them in below the old ones. Not to worry.Because there are two water tanks aboard Pandora, I had to set up a diverter valve to allow me to switch to the port or starboard tank. Note the great sign above the valve. Only the best sineage for Pandora.

The gauge to the left is the system pressure and to the right is a flow meter on product water going into the tanks.

I was pleased with the nicely ordered and run hoses and the placement of the components. Can you say anal? Anal’s good on a boat. This is the actual membrane and pump that separate the salt from the product water. This system works under very high pressure.

Don’t say it. Don’t! You are thinking that it is a bit much to take pictures of EVERY LITTLE THING that I do. Well, now that that’s out in the open, this is the neat fitting that routes water into the water tank. As you can imagine, it took much more work to open up access to the water tanks and run the hoses than it did to drill and put the fitting in place.

But wait, there’s more. I also had some old sound insulation hanging around home that was left over from a job on my last boat. Doesn’t everyone have double layered foam with a mylar fiber reinforced scrim and dense plastic sandwiched laminate lying around? I did. As luck would have it, there was just enough to insulate the cover panels to the engine compartment. As alluded to above, the insulation is 1.5″ thick with a reinforced mylar film on the surface as well as a dense plastic layer between two 1″ foam layers. This combination does a great job of cutting down the sound. I attached it to thee engine compartment covers with contact cement and 10/20 machine screws and fender washers. They fit very well and will make a big difference. I have been meaning to do this upgrade for a number of years. Pretty slick. Here they are in place over the engine in the aft cabin. It will make this sea berth a lot quieter when we are underway and someone is trying to get some sleep.

I have also been having some trouble with bottom pain flaking off in the last few years which makes for a messy bottom when I try to touch it up and have been debating what to do about the problem. The spots tend to come up when the boat is pressure washed in the fall when she is hauled out for the winter.

So, I went out and bought the best paint scraper that I could find. It worked quite well. Actually, it was alarming how much of the paint was loose and came off fairly easily. I may have to do the entire bottom now. Great!!! More to paint and at $225/gal the more the merrier.

Plenty more to do and then I will sand it all down evenly and apply a new epoxy barrier coat to make the pain stick better and to protect the boat from water seeping into the laminate.

Loads to do but Pandora will launch soon, as soon as we finish packing, move to CT, unpack all of our *&^$# up there. Yes, soon…