Finally Bought a Bigger Boat!
 

After looking for a suitable trawler for about a year to do the ~ 6000 mile Great Loop http://www.greatloop.org, we finally found one in Stuart, after looking at 14 boats from Marathon to North Carolina! It’s a 1986 49’ DeFever Raised Pilot House model (do a google search for passagemaker.com>cult classic) - it appears to be the SeaCraft of Trawlers! It’s a little bigger than what I planned on, but I spent enough time aboard my Seafari to know that the longer you’re on a boat, the smaller it gets! This thing is a serious cruising boat, carrying 400 gallons of water, 1000 gallons of fuel and a displacement of 50,000 lbs! With twin Perkins 135 hp diesels, it burns a total of 4 gal/hr @ 8 kts!

The first week of Febuary was epic . . . On Monday, I sold the house I’d live in for over 50 years; on Tuesday I bought the DeFever, and on Saturday I got married! I’m still in recovery mode! Pics of new bride Arden and boat are attached. Some of you got to meet her as my fiancé at the Homosassa gathering last fall. She lived on a 50’ sailboat in the Bahamas for a year and is really looking forward to doing the Great Loop on a trawler, saying that it’s a lot less work and much more comfortable than a sailboat!

That is one heck of a week in February. Congrats, Congrats, Congrats, and bon voyage!! Well done.

Very nice! Congrats Denny and Arden!

Congratulations!! That's also on my bucket list. Please document the Loop trip for us to follow.

Well done Denny and congratulations on many fronts!!!!

Congrats!!!!

Good for you Denny.Hope you have great times aboard the new ride.I wish my house was as big.
Congrats! may you have many wonderfull trips

Congrats Denny, tell Arden Cindi says hi.

Score and score again!!!! Way to go man. Love that new boat. Whenever I think about buying a big boat that's exactly the boat I think about. Good for you finding a woman that cant wait to spend time in the boat. Keep the pictures coming.

Congratulations, Denny! Don't forget to let me know when you navigate up this way!

Congratulations ! Nice to see a dream come to reality ! Enjoy.

Congratulations on, well, everything! Fair winds and following seas on your epic honeymoon voyage captain.

Not too often one can say they are truly happy for someone; congratulations on taking the leap and sounds like it was well earned.

Congrats, happy for you both and enjoy the voyage!

Congratulations Denny !

It's a tall boat.

Needs more rod holders, a live well, and a hot tub.

Really nice living areas and lots of storage.

She looks great Denny. You know I know it takes time to find the right boat but the effort is worth it in the end. You guys will have great adventures on her I’m sure. By the way, we all know how lovely Arden is. Who would have guessed you cleaned up so nice!

Fantastic News, Denny!
 

Congratulations to you and Arden!

If you give me some notice, when you head up (or down) the NJ coast, I would be happy to treat you and Arden to dinner at a waterfront restaurant (perhaps in Barnegat Bay or if you lay over at Sandy Hook for the night) in partial recompense for the words of advice and encouragement you gave me on my Seafari project.

Enjoy!

Congrats Denny!! If you decide to add a loop and circle Cape Cod and the inlands, please let me know. Sometimes things are meant to be!! You have a beautiful bride and a incredible new boat. Life is good.

This is awesome! Big congrats to you and your new bride.
Hope the new boat works as well as the old one!

Denny & Arden, all of us here at Area 442 could not be happier for the both
of you !!

What an amazing thing life is. One minute down, the next on top of the world.

One big question have we picked out a name for this ocean liner ? :eek:

Congrats and keep your SeaCraft family in the loop...:D

Thanks everyone for the kind replies! Yes, Ken the boat will be renamed “Dream Seeker”, because we’ll use it to pursue our dreams of exploring the country and living aboard! But we haven’t gotten around to that yet, as it’s very important to follow proper protocols, which involve specific formalities and significant quantities of alcoholic spirits, so as not to offend Neptune and Poseidon! Arden has also started a blog that we’ll update when we start cruising!

We’ve decided to delay starting the Great Loop till next year. We really should be leaving S. Florida in April to have optimum weather for most of the trip, and the boat just needs too much work to leave now. The boat is from Wisconsin and has spent most of it’s life in the Great Lakes! Although it has a Webasto diesel fired hot water heating system, it has no air conditioning! My friend/neighbor and buyers broker Jef found the boat in Stuart, said it had “good bones”, and thought that if we could buy it cheap enough to install air conditioning, it would be a good value. The previous owner had it in the Bahamas when he had a stroke! Poor guy is only 65, but he’s paralyzed on one side and can’t speak, so they had to fly him to Florida, hire a captain to bring boat back and his wife just wanted the boat gone ASAP! It was out of the water for bottom paint when we saw it and made an offer on it. We negotiated with the owner to have an additional thru hull and sea cock installed at my expense for the AC pump, since that would save ~$800 for another haul out that I’d have to do if I waited until after I owned it! I think that worked in my favor because when we later discovered that all 8 batteries AND the 8KW generator were shot, the owner had new batteries AND a new 9KW Cummins/Onan genset installed because they realized I was a serious buyer!

We moved the boat to NPB to Jef’s house where he is overseeing the installation of 4 AC units in the 2 cabins, pilothouse and salon/galley, which should finish next week. Before the move I had the exhaust elbow on the port engine replaced, as it had overheated at full power during the sea trial. That fixed the problem, since the original 32 year old exhaust elbow was rusted internally and restricting cooling flow thru the heat exchanger. During the trip south, we noticed the Stbd engine was rough at idle and it stalled several times when we put it in gear. The engine surveyor said that indicates a problem with the high pressure injection pump, because it’s a governor-type control that is supposed to hold rpm when load is increased, so I pulled that pump and all the injectors last week to have them rebuilt/cleaned. We need to top off the fuel and water tanks and repeat the sea trial to see if the engines will make any more power with clean injectors, as the engines would only turn 2400 rpm. (They should turn 2800 @ WOT) If we need to reduce pitch, those 4 blade 26” diameter props won’t be cheap!

I’m on the waiting list for a slip at 2 different marinas in Stuart and will try to move it up there as soon as we get the engines squared away. Will also try to bring it to the SeaCraft gathering in Jensen Beach if possible! Have attached a few more pics of the boat after we launched it and did the sea trial. Last pic is from sea trial at WOT in the St. Lucie river, at about 11 kts. At 8 kts, it doesn’t leave much wake!

Denny-

Congrats on your new boat and the adventure that awaits you.

What marina in Stuart are you on the wait list for? If you are open to it, there is a great, quiet and well protected marina in Hobe Sound called Loblolly. It is right off Peck Lake.
It is extremely safe and no bullshit to deal with.

Anyway - where ever you wind up I am sure you will have fun. Enjoy.

Ed, thanks for the tip on the Loblolly marina! I know where that is so we’ll check it out! North Palm Beach is a 40 minute drive from Palm City but Hope Sound is only about 15 minutes away and a little easier to get to than fighting traffic in downtown Stuart! Slips are very scarce in this area, but temps here are now in the low 80’s and the snowbirds are starting to leave, so maybe something will open up!

We’ve talked to the Harbor Inn & Marina, a small marina on the N. Fork of the St. Lucie where Arden’s late husband used to keep a sailboat. They’re working to raise a couple of sunken sailboats from the last hurricane which are blocking several slips. The other is a Loggerhead marina, just NE of the Roosevelt Bridge over the St. Lucie. It’s a 300 slip marina with over 200 slips that were wiped out by the hurricane that they’re working to restore. It’s a nice marina with floating docks and tall pillings; although it’s fairly exposed to fetch from the E and SE, it does have a low breakwater so it shouldn’t be any worse than marinas on the N. Fork that have no protection from small boat wakes. Loblolly should have neither of those problems!

Wow, sounds like great progress! Hope to see it and y'all at the June 1-3rd East Coast Gathering.

How are you Denny? Sorry I missed meeting Arden last fall so close to home but Irma was rough on me. So happy for you! So you sold your house and now live in Palm City? I have very close friends there, since childhood in NJ. Hope to see you for a cocktail when I make it over, because I will not be attending Jensen since the date change. I will be boatless at the Sportsman after a great invite from Ken and Mel, Mother’s Day is a very special day for me. Very happy for you buddy!!!

BTW, I have been using the Seafari a little over the last week but I believe that the throttle cable was the culprit of extreme sudden response. Have not installed four blade Power Tech yet. Also, have decided to invest in the ‘79 MA, certifying her Garage Queen title.

Best of Luck, and keep in touch...

Michael.

Denny-

The marina & mooring field near the Roosevelt Bridge is it called Sunset Bay? I think that used to be owned by the city, no? The guy that bought it around 2009 or so dumped a ton of money into it (his son used to work for me in Boston). We used to pass it on the way to American Custom Yachts for our annual haul out. It is also pretty close to Capt Chuck's house!

Anyway - you will love Loblolly. It is a private club with lots of beautiful homes. Very secure - they have full time security. The marina is mostly private but they lease out a handful of slips to select individuals from the public. The best part is...Peck Lake is great for dinghy rides and for exploring Jupiter Island. Ray Reganato was the dockmaster when I was there about 6 years ago. Tell him Ed says hi. They were not full when I was there...but the economy has changed significantly since then.

Ed - Still trying to make contact with Loblolly but will keep trying. Thanks again for the tip! Sunset Bay is on the West side of the Roosevelt, basically across the road/bridge from what is now called Loggerhead Marina. The latter has a bunch of Fleming boats that may be moving in another month or two after their dealership completes their own marina.

Loggerhead also suggested contacting Nettles Island Marina in Jensen Beach, which got totally wiped out in Irma, so will try them but not optimistic! For a storm that didn’t seem to get all that much press coverage, Irma really did a number on the whole state of Florida!

Hi Denny-

I just sent you a pm with the cellphone number of the dockmaster at Loblolly. Good luck.

Ed

Wow, Denny, that's quite a switch from the 36 Helmsman you had mentioned !!! Beautiful boat, and you're right, they get smaller the more time you spend on them ! Big Congrats to you and Arden !!!

Congrats!

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