...the more we think it could be workable.
Cheap.
We can live on it while we save money.
We can fix it up.
And we can practice the techniques of sailing a ketch.
We need something in order to be out on the water for the summer.
As much as I'm not looking forward to selling "Daria", she's finally almost at how we want her and the last three years with her have been the best for our family, the fact is she is just not big enough for our next step. There has been a lot of interest in her, and I think she'll sell soon. That will be a bitter sweet day.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Is that the one?
Our friend Jay told us about this boat. He said his friend was asking very little money, but he didn't know how big it was or what kind it was. We have a very specific kind of sailboat in mind. We want it to be between 42-46', full keel, ketch rigged. Bill, Theo and I can't believe how cheap it is and we wondered if it still floats.
So today we went out to City Island to look at the boat. Our friend walked us to the marina and then started to walk through a yard with lots of boats. I kept thinking, "Is that the one?" as we passed each boat. But no, it must be on the water because we headed out onto the docks. We approached a wooden boat that needed a lot of work, and I thought, "Oh no, not a wooden boat. We'll never be able to cruise, we'll spend all of our time working on that one." Jay kept walking, and I thought, "Whew!" Each boat we passed, I had that same question in my mind, "Is that it?" or "Is it that next one?" Finally, we're almost running out of dock when we come upon an O'Day 32'. I think, "Oh no, an O'Day, no wonder it's so cheap." But then, we get on board. She's solid in the water, not tender like Daria. She's a center cockpit, so that means there are 2 cabins (bedrooms), a salon, a galley (a very small kitchen) and a head (a very small bathroom). She's not in bad shape, and her decks seem sound.
She seems like a good possibility for a temporary live aboard. Most of the work she needs is work that we've already learned how to do on Daria. Could our family of 3 live on such a small boat? Jay told us the couple selling the boat lived on it for 2-3 years with a son whose now 5 years older than Theo.
She's an interesting possibility, but not what we were looking for. Now we just have to wait to talk to the owner. Maybe Jay misunderstood how much they would be asking for the boat...
Looking at boats. A lot of boats.
Today we went to City Island to look at something that we knew nothing about, other than Jay said we should look at it, that it was going to be short-money. A Brotherhood hook-up.
As followed Jay out on the dock, we would approach a boat and Belinda and I would love at each other. "Is it that one?" and Jay would walk past it. "This one?" As we got close to the end of the dock and we were running out of boats, we approached a large wooden ketch with not a lick of paint still stuck to it, sagging deeply in the water. "Oh, God, not that one!" You could tell it once had beautiful lines, but I think the only thing that kept it afloat today is the fact that it is wood. At what point do you stop calling it a boat and start calling it driftwood? And still Jay walked on.
At then near the very end of the dock was a center-cockpit, a ketch. As we approached, it was in surprising good looking shape. Sail covers were bright and new. A roller furler jib.
And then the label right there on the side: "O'Day 32". My enthusiasm sank. I don't know much about O'Days, but I think of them in the same class as Hunters and Catalinas. Coastal cruisers for weekend sailors. We wouldn't be sailing this sailboat across the Atlantic. Not even across the Gulf Stream.
We looked and poked. Soft decks in front of the stays, both port and starboard. Delamination is a problem. Had that problem on Daria, a lot of work. There was more, but basically it comes down to this: It is a center-cockpit, but it is small. There is only the V-berth, the central main cabin and galley, the exterior cockpit, and the walk-over aft cabin. Can three people live on a 32 foot sailboat? I mean without killing each other?
Is there enough storage? Large enough water and fuel tanks? All of our questions will have to wait until we can track down Otto, who is out of town.
This is not the boat that I want. But it may be the only boat that we can afford for now.
As followed Jay out on the dock, we would approach a boat and Belinda and I would love at each other. "Is it that one?" and Jay would walk past it. "This one?" As we got close to the end of the dock and we were running out of boats, we approached a large wooden ketch with not a lick of paint still stuck to it, sagging deeply in the water. "Oh, God, not that one!" You could tell it once had beautiful lines, but I think the only thing that kept it afloat today is the fact that it is wood. At what point do you stop calling it a boat and start calling it driftwood? And still Jay walked on.
At then near the very end of the dock was a center-cockpit, a ketch. As we approached, it was in surprising good looking shape. Sail covers were bright and new. A roller furler jib.
And then the label right there on the side: "O'Day 32". My enthusiasm sank. I don't know much about O'Days, but I think of them in the same class as Hunters and Catalinas. Coastal cruisers for weekend sailors. We wouldn't be sailing this sailboat across the Atlantic. Not even across the Gulf Stream.
We looked and poked. Soft decks in front of the stays, both port and starboard. Delamination is a problem. Had that problem on Daria, a lot of work. There was more, but basically it comes down to this: It is a center-cockpit, but it is small. There is only the V-berth, the central main cabin and galley, the exterior cockpit, and the walk-over aft cabin. Can three people live on a 32 foot sailboat? I mean without killing each other?
Is there enough storage? Large enough water and fuel tanks? All of our questions will have to wait until we can track down Otto, who is out of town.
This is not the boat that I want. But it may be the only boat that we can afford for now.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Looking at houseboats in Washington DC
My dear old friend Amy (meaning she's been my friend for a long time, not that she's old) came with me to look at a couple of houseboats that are for sale at Gangplank Marina in downtown Washington DC.
Belinda and I would never really want a houseboat. But the trick here is that legal liveaboards at Gangplank are limited, but you can buy a boat that has its legal status grandfathered in. And once you own a boat with liveaboard status, you can transfer that status to another boat. It seems that the boats that have the legal status are selling for a premium of at least $10,000 over what they would be worth without.
It feels like the old days of "fixture fees" and "key fees" on the lofts that I lived in in New York City back in the mid-1980's.
A Canadian woman is asking for $35,000 for a very small, shabby houseboat with one seized engine. She implied that she'd take $29,000. This thing, without the status, would be lucky to get $5000.
Joe at Gladys Marine has another houseboat, also a liveaboard, much larger and very comfortably laid out. Although a bit rough at the moment, he promises a long list of repairs that his crew will take care of as soon as someone buys it. His price is firm at $45,000. And I'm sure he'll get it.
I don't think that a houseboat is in our future. For our $45,000, we'd rather just buy a 40' project sailboat.
If we had $45,000.
While we are here, I'll mention that I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the facilities are at Gangplank Marina. The bathrooms and showers have been recently refinished, and have marble counters and nice fixtures. More like a yacht club than a marina. Add with parking, washers and dryers, and dogs allowed, and it would be a nice place to live. If you could get legal liveaboard status.
Belinda and I would never really want a houseboat. But the trick here is that legal liveaboards at Gangplank are limited, but you can buy a boat that has its legal status grandfathered in. And once you own a boat with liveaboard status, you can transfer that status to another boat. It seems that the boats that have the legal status are selling for a premium of at least $10,000 over what they would be worth without.
It feels like the old days of "fixture fees" and "key fees" on the lofts that I lived in in New York City back in the mid-1980's.
A Canadian woman is asking for $35,000 for a very small, shabby houseboat with one seized engine. She implied that she'd take $29,000. This thing, without the status, would be lucky to get $5000.
Joe at Gladys Marine has another houseboat, also a liveaboard, much larger and very comfortably laid out. Although a bit rough at the moment, he promises a long list of repairs that his crew will take care of as soon as someone buys it. His price is firm at $45,000. And I'm sure he'll get it.
I don't think that a houseboat is in our future. For our $45,000, we'd rather just buy a 40' project sailboat.
If we had $45,000.
While we are here, I'll mention that I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the facilities are at Gangplank Marina. The bathrooms and showers have been recently refinished, and have marble counters and nice fixtures. More like a yacht club than a marina. Add with parking, washers and dryers, and dogs allowed, and it would be a nice place to live. If you could get legal liveaboard status.
Monday, March 09, 2009
"Daria" is for sale
"Daria" is for sale.
She is a 25 foot Seidelmann S25.
Currently in the New York City and Long Island Sound area, she is the perfect boat for these waters.
Fast, beautiful and easy to sail, she is a great first sailboat for someone with intermediate to beginner experience sailing.
Completely renovated, a lot of work has gone into her. (A full list will be coming soon, but email us in the meantime.)
Now that she is finished, and beautiful, we've decided to live aboard with our ten year old son, and we are going to need a much bigger boat.
Most of the S25's are listed around $5000, and all of those are not nearly in as good a condition as Daria.
Until April 15th, we will sell her for $2500, fully equipped.
For $3000, will will include her mooring/ball and our ideal mooring spot in Oyster Bay for 2009. You will be completely set for the entire 2009 season.
Please email us for more information.
She is a 25 foot Seidelmann S25.
Currently in the New York City and Long Island Sound area, she is the perfect boat for these waters.
Fast, beautiful and easy to sail, she is a great first sailboat for someone with intermediate to beginner experience sailing.
Completely renovated, a lot of work has gone into her. (A full list will be coming soon, but email us in the meantime.)
Now that she is finished, and beautiful, we've decided to live aboard with our ten year old son, and we are going to need a much bigger boat.
Most of the S25's are listed around $5000, and all of those are not nearly in as good a condition as Daria.
Until April 15th, we will sell her for $2500, fully equipped.
For $3000, will will include her mooring/ball and our ideal mooring spot in Oyster Bay for 2009. You will be completely set for the entire 2009 season.
Please email us for more information.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Deciding. Commiting. Crazy.
I'm not sure how it started.
But we decided.
We are going to sail around the world.
But we decided.
We are going to sail around the world.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Spent the night on the boat, first time
May 6-7, 2006:
We spent the night on Daria for the first time.
We spent the weekend sailing out to Manhasset Bay, and valet docked for dinner at Louie's Oyster Bar. Crowded with people watching the Kentucky Derby on TV, dressed up and drinking free mint julep's. (Those mint juleps being given out as marketing samples for some liquor company. It might have been more effective marketing if I could remember what liquor company.) A horse won the race. I wasn't following too closely.
It was a calm, peaceful evening. After dinner, just as the sun was hitting the horizon, Belinda, Theo and I piled back into Daria and motored off to the spot that we had picked out earlier to anchor for the night. We had picked a nice spot in the lee of King's Point, near the house on shore that Andre calls "the Taco Bell".
Except that in the short span of time of leaving Louie's dock and getting to the anchorage, the sun sank now well below the horizon and the flat, calm afternoon became quite brisk. The wind came about from the opposite direction and became quite strong, and the flat bay was suddenly kicking up two foot waves. Instead of sitting snug in the lee of the land, we were now trying to drop anchor hanging precariously over a lee shore. We were now trying to drop our anchor - for the first time. We hadn't gotten to trying to set the anchor before today.
We also learned what it is to drag anchor. In this case, what it is to drag anchor with the lee shore beach coming closer and closer. We circled again and tried to reset.
Daria is a light displacement boat, slightly more than a large dinghy. And although it doesn't sound like much, in a two foot chop she bounces around quite dramatically. As this happens, her little 9.9 outboard engine's prop pops out of the water at the top of each wave. The engine over-races loudly and the feeling of forward thrust is suspended, until Daria falls down into the next wave trough and there is a guttural groan as the prop catches water again.
All of this being our very first time - the now deepening darkness, the sound of waves on the beach somewhere behind us, the pitching of the deck in the chop, the groaning and racing of the engine, the dragging anchor, the tangle of its line - it starts to become a lot to take in.
And there is my seven year old son standing in the gangway saying "are we there yet?", although the look on his face looking at his parents said something more like "is this the way it is supposed to look, Mom and Dad?"
And then I see a large white unoccupied mooring ball. It looks like a resident of one of the big mansions behind us had already set out their mooring ball for the season, but hadn't yet launched the boat that would spend the season here. We came around once more and I picked it up. Moored now, the chaos calmed down. Belinda looked at me with that look of "are you sure about this?" No, I'm not sure about this. Its rude, we are parked in someone else's parking spot without permission. But its better than camping on the beach tonight, and now we have a break to regroup. And time to sit and wonder if the resident had really recently put this nice, newly checked mooring anchor out, or if it was one that had been neglectfully left out all winter and could snap at any moment. Which would bring us back to camping on the beach tonight.
Belinda and I went below to warm up and try to relax, but the boat was bucking back and forth. We sat on the bunks facing each other, ready to lose our cookies any moment. As long as we don't show Theo that we are concerned, he'll be alright. But Theo seemed oblivious and dealt the cards. We came here to relax and play cards and damn it, that's what we are going to do.
There are a number of lessons here to take note of:
- Perhaps it would be better to not be quite so rigid about sticking to the plans that we made.
- It might have been better if we had picked up and moved across the bay to be in the lee of the wind, which was no longer here, but was now over there.
- It would have been good to have more (or any) experience with our gear, like the anchor. (But that's how you get experience, by going out and doing, so I'll negate this one.)
- It would have been better to get the experience with the anchor at a time that wasn't pitch black, like during the day.
- When I ask myself "This will probably work. What could go wrong?" then I should actually listen to that answer. Don't take those "little chances" that could result in losing the boat.
- Always settle in to an anchorage for the night earlier than we did. Like 3pm. Anchor, stow gear, go for a swim, eat, then enjoy the sunset. In that order. We should have either anchored and taken the dinghy (note: we didn't own a dinghy yet) to Louie's, or gone to Louie's for the brunch special.
(Started 5/7/06, finished entry 6/11/09)
---
"Daria" is our new sailboat, a Seidelmann S25. Fiendish forum floggers have derided the later Seidelmanns, but Daria is one of the prime original designs by Bob Seidelmann, and we love her. She lives in and on Long Island Sound, as perfect a sailboat for these waters as you could ask for.
We spent the night on Daria for the first time.
We spent the weekend sailing out to Manhasset Bay, and valet docked for dinner at Louie's Oyster Bar. Crowded with people watching the Kentucky Derby on TV, dressed up and drinking free mint julep's. (Those mint juleps being given out as marketing samples for some liquor company. It might have been more effective marketing if I could remember what liquor company.) A horse won the race. I wasn't following too closely.
It was a calm, peaceful evening. After dinner, just as the sun was hitting the horizon, Belinda, Theo and I piled back into Daria and motored off to the spot that we had picked out earlier to anchor for the night. We had picked a nice spot in the lee of King's Point, near the house on shore that Andre calls "the Taco Bell".
Except that in the short span of time of leaving Louie's dock and getting to the anchorage, the sun sank now well below the horizon and the flat, calm afternoon became quite brisk. The wind came about from the opposite direction and became quite strong, and the flat bay was suddenly kicking up two foot waves. Instead of sitting snug in the lee of the land, we were now trying to drop anchor hanging precariously over a lee shore. We were now trying to drop our anchor - for the first time. We hadn't gotten to trying to set the anchor before today.
We also learned what it is to drag anchor. In this case, what it is to drag anchor with the lee shore beach coming closer and closer. We circled again and tried to reset.
Daria is a light displacement boat, slightly more than a large dinghy. And although it doesn't sound like much, in a two foot chop she bounces around quite dramatically. As this happens, her little 9.9 outboard engine's prop pops out of the water at the top of each wave. The engine over-races loudly and the feeling of forward thrust is suspended, until Daria falls down into the next wave trough and there is a guttural groan as the prop catches water again.
All of this being our very first time - the now deepening darkness, the sound of waves on the beach somewhere behind us, the pitching of the deck in the chop, the groaning and racing of the engine, the dragging anchor, the tangle of its line - it starts to become a lot to take in.
And there is my seven year old son standing in the gangway saying "are we there yet?", although the look on his face looking at his parents said something more like "is this the way it is supposed to look, Mom and Dad?"
And then I see a large white unoccupied mooring ball. It looks like a resident of one of the big mansions behind us had already set out their mooring ball for the season, but hadn't yet launched the boat that would spend the season here. We came around once more and I picked it up. Moored now, the chaos calmed down. Belinda looked at me with that look of "are you sure about this?" No, I'm not sure about this. Its rude, we are parked in someone else's parking spot without permission. But its better than camping on the beach tonight, and now we have a break to regroup. And time to sit and wonder if the resident had really recently put this nice, newly checked mooring anchor out, or if it was one that had been neglectfully left out all winter and could snap at any moment. Which would bring us back to camping on the beach tonight.
Belinda and I went below to warm up and try to relax, but the boat was bucking back and forth. We sat on the bunks facing each other, ready to lose our cookies any moment. As long as we don't show Theo that we are concerned, he'll be alright. But Theo seemed oblivious and dealt the cards. We came here to relax and play cards and damn it, that's what we are going to do.
There are a number of lessons here to take note of:
- Perhaps it would be better to not be quite so rigid about sticking to the plans that we made.
- It might have been better if we had picked up and moved across the bay to be in the lee of the wind, which was no longer here, but was now over there.
- It would have been good to have more (or any) experience with our gear, like the anchor. (But that's how you get experience, by going out and doing, so I'll negate this one.)
- It would have been better to get the experience with the anchor at a time that wasn't pitch black, like during the day.
- When I ask myself "This will probably work. What could go wrong?" then I should actually listen to that answer. Don't take those "little chances" that could result in losing the boat.
- Always settle in to an anchorage for the night earlier than we did. Like 3pm. Anchor, stow gear, go for a swim, eat, then enjoy the sunset. In that order. We should have either anchored and taken the dinghy (note: we didn't own a dinghy yet) to Louie's, or gone to Louie's for the brunch special.
(Started 5/7/06, finished entry 6/11/09)
---
"Daria" is our new sailboat, a Seidelmann S25. Fiendish forum floggers have derided the later Seidelmanns, but Daria is one of the prime original designs by Bob Seidelmann, and we love her. She lives in and on Long Island Sound, as perfect a sailboat for these waters as you could ask for.
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