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!
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