After a rather intense week of prep work, I am finally sitting in the salon of Salty Ginger, typing. James (our trusted windvane) is steering on a close-hauled course almost exactly at the waypoint we set where we intend to enter the Gulf Stream.
NYC to Rhode Island
Since we were leaving the city on a Monday morning, it was quite important to leave before the heaviest traffic sets in. Being jet-lagged in the right direction, I woke up at 5:30 and some time before 7 texted Mark that I was on my way. My text woke him up. He was dealing with his things before the departure, and went to bed quite late. I took a few things from him and drove from West Village to the Upper West Side to load the car with all the groceries that Frank got at Costco. The picture he sent gave the impression that we might not even be able to fit everything into the car. We folded 2/3 of the back seats, left room for Mark to sit and then magically everything fit with a bit of room to spare.
After a quick lunch we made it to the marina just before 1pm and started our work day by moving all the food and bags onto the boat.
Projects begin
As I expected, the first snag was that the electronic charts I bought were incompatible with the 13-year old chartplotter. Raymarine support confirmed that there is no way to update the software. Sigh, we'll need to get a new one.
For some strange reason the bilge was very full. On the bright side, that enabled us to test that the high volume pump works -- one of the fixes I asked the yard to do.
We set up the bimini and the dodger just in time: the drizzle that we drove through on our way out of New York finally caught up. We were completely busy till dinner time: cleaning, unpacking, commissioning boat systems. The interior of the boat looked more like an unorganized workshop than a living space, so eating on the boat was out of the question. Mark fixed a leaking pump, Frank continued to set up Iridium Go, and I started taking apart the in-mast roller-furler so that the furling line can be replaced. As I undid 2 bolts I heard something metallic fall down. Oh, oh, not a good sound. Indeed the backing plate with threaded holes was no longer there, so now the project turned into fishing out the plate. Luckily, Mark's hand fit through the narrow opening in the mast and on the second attempt he could get the plate out. Now the fun part will be to figure out how to get it back. Over dinner we planned Tuesday: Frank and I go shopping for the life raft and the new electronics while Mark stays on the boat to work.
At 4am I was woken up by the automated bilge pump that wouldn't shut off. In my daze I considered 2 options: we're taking on water or the pump is malfunctioning. Since the floor boards were dry, so we were not in imminent danger of sinking, I turned the pump off and dozed for another hour. We quickly discovered that the pump was indeed not shutting off, so Mark had a project while Frank and I were driving to the store.
Defender is a pretty nice chandlery, and they had a display that would work in-stock, but the original mounting arm would not fit. A similar arm could be ordered, but would maybe make it to the store on Friday. Somehow "maybe" was an unsatisfactory answer. And then I realized that the mounting arm that the device has could be fitted onto the original hardware. There was one problem: we needed to drill a 3.5cm hole in the middle of it. We called Mark who said "I have a buddy in Newport, let me call him, he might be able to help". In the meantime, we realized that ordering a life raft at Defender would be completely impossible since the lead time is 5 business days. That meant that we had to drive to the other side of Narraganset Bay to LRSE. While en route, Mark texted us that we should call Toni's Marine Services and mention that we were referred by Audrain Auto Museum.
The referral worked: an elderly gentleman agreed to help us. First he said, leave it, tell me what you need and come back tomorrow. Then he looked at the piece and said: "Oh, that'll be interesting to get onto my machine. Let me see... And this is aluminum. Come take a look at my workshop." Frank being a mechanical engineer, knows a lot about the machines and turned on his Mr Charming mode. "That's an amazing thing. I've never seen one like that before." The guy melted under Frank's compliments and said, "Let me see, I have something in the vise, but maybe I can get it out. Ok, let's do your piece now." After 20 minutes of talking we had a perfect hole that fit our mounting hardware. Turns out that Will's mother was from Zurich and his father from the Azores. What a coincidence!
Back on the boat, Mark was fiddling with the bilge pump. It's not exactly a pleasant experience: the pump is hard to get to and the bilge doesn't smell nice. He washed the bilge and the pump and when Frank and I got there, the last test of the pump was successful: the automatic shut off worked.
Getting power to the new electronics was relatively easy. However, the rest of the connections took a lot more effort to get figured out. I knew that the previous owner left some cables and I eventually found them. But the radar would still not connect and the GPS signal does not make it to the radios. That's rather disappointing, but not so critical that the voyage should be postponted.
A "half-hour" project
Wednesday morning Frank asked me imploringly to install the antenna for Iridium. However, I realized that if we do that, the SSB radio that the previous owner installed should be taken out. So what could have been a half hour project ended up being a 5 hour project. We even forgot to eat breakfast. My forearms looked as if I were fighting with cats, but the mission was accomplished. Iridium receiver was very happy with the new setup.
Mark had a good idea of how the plate could be mounted and started the project of putting the mast back together. While he was on it, the second plate fell to the bottom, so he had to undo everything and start from scratch. I was sure that he would need help to get it done, but he managed to do everything alone and finished at the same time when the antenna was installed.
Frank cooked pasta with beans and we started bending the sails on. The genoa was not hard, but as we set everything up for the mainsail, we discovered that one of the shackles was missing a pin. I remembered that at the end of last season we did drop it down the mast. The issue was: I didn't have a matching pin aboard, and nor did the marina. We packed up and drove to a nearby hardware store that carries some marine supplies. A very helpful (and eager) lady found a matching screw for us, but it was fully threaded. West Marine seemed to have a similar shackle, but of course in imperial rather than metric. Worth a try.
After dinner in the dusk we tried to get the mainsail up again. The new shackle was too narrow. And then while I was trying to fiddle it into position I dropped it ... to the bottom of the mast. Ugh. Only one way forward: the bolt. By then I was tired and was getting frustrated, so we had to delay the project till the morning, when getting the sail on took half hour as expected.
Shake-down sail
The optimist in me was hoping for an overnight sail and spend a night at anchor in Newport. That was definitely not happening, so we agreed to quickly clean up the boat and head out into the bay for an hour or so, making use of the high tide. Besides ensuring that the sails work as expected, I wanted to test the hydrogenerator (would suck not to have enough power) and flush the desalinator and ensure that it worked, cause that would affect our water plans drastically. This time nothing unexpected happened, and we came back all happy with the progress made so far.
In the afternoon Mark and Frank went shopping. "Oh, we just have a few items at Walmart, we'll be back in no-time." I replaced the valves in both toilets (magically, they started to work better) and despite my attempts, I could not get the new electronics to connect to the radar.
When Frank and Mark got back, we had 2 main projects: clean up unexplained loose excrements on the floor of one of the heads and to figure out how to download weather information through the pro package on PredictWind that Frank got. He scheduled a consultation, and Craig explained to us how to get the data and how to think about using the data while we will be on the passage.
Back at sea
Thursday things were falling into place. I became quite confident that we will be able to leave as planned on Friday. The dinghy needed to folded and tied to the side, the decks and the cockpit needed to be washed.
I drove to Providence to pick up Alice, on the way back we dropped off the car at the airport and took an Uber back to the marina. By the time we were there, Mark scrubbed the decks to spotless clean. Salty Ginger hasn't been this white in ages!
Everybody aboard, I untied the boat in absolutely windless conditions and we were off to Newport. Final check of the desalinator confirmed that it is working as intended, so we will have plenty of water on the passage.
Fueling at the Newport Yachting Center we made a bit of a mess spilling diesel because the automatic shut off didn't cut the fuel flow. Clean up. (Seems to be the name of the game this time around). The guys at the dock allowed us to stay long enough to get the jacklines ready and stow the items so that they wouldn't fly around on either tack. The southerly wind forced us to tack out of the harbor entrance and we are off.
The plan is to enter the Gulf Stream in about 260 miles and then head east in the warm waters that will help us in the right direction.
