Annapolis Walkabout

We came to the Annapolis Strictly Sail show four years running during the time we were researching to buy our cruising boat. It was a good time for us, a lot of dreaming going on about boats that were in no way a part of reality. There was a lot of hanging out with other dreamers as well, and it was a good time to spend with our family that lives just minutes from the show venue. We never really spent any time exploring the town at all, though, what with being star-struck by the ridiculously cavernous Cruisers of the Rich on display. This morning we decided to right that wrong and headed off to the 6th street dinghy dock for a walk.

The town of Annapolis is rich in history and, if you're so inclined, you can stop every few feet to read a sign with a history lesson. The streets are narrow to the extreme, and the sidewalks are single file but well shaded with old trees. The homes are fitted with beautiful gardens and kept to historical standards so, with the exception of the modern cars, one can almost envision the harbor full of commercial sailing vessels and hear the bawdy midshipmen's laughter spilling out of the abundance of pubs that line the cobblestone streets.

We strolled up the hill to the Maryland State House and wandered the property for a while reading signs. The architecture is stunning, much of it original to the early 1700s. The buildings are grand, solid, and authoritative. But it leaves you with mixed emotions. Everywhere there are monuments that leave you feeling the connection to those who paid for our freedom, but unfortunately there are also many monuments to the shame of our history, our endorsement of slavery. It is, without a doubt, a city of visual conflict - a $20 million dollar yacht parked right next to a plaque with a quote from Kunta Kinte.

Ego Alley before the boat show.

We were amazed at the difference in the main harbor without the boat show present. It seemed somehow smaller and no matter how much we walked the harbor we were having difficulty imagining the parade of boats that will pack Ego Alley in just 2 short weeks. It was good to be here now, to visit this amazing city, but with plans to be out of here before the crowds encroach on these narrow waters. We enjoyed the day immensely and are looking forward to an evening with friends, but it will be good to be on the move again.

Kintala at anchor in Back Creek

Home Sweet Home

In years past, we have stood at the end of the dock at the Annapolis Sailboat Show and looked longingly at the cruising boats anchored in the bay, saying that some year it was going to be us there. Although we opted not to anchor in the bay this year because it was easier with our guests, we were without any doubt in full cruising mode at the show. We spent the vast majority of our time perusing the vendor booths, looking to tick as many things off our list as possible at boat show discounts. We were, for the most part, successful, but the items we didn't find were a bit surprising to me. I had hoped to find an oil changing pump/container which I did not, and also a Hella Marine Turbo fan. I never even saw a fan in the whole place except for one on a display for a marine mechanic school. I guess the 60° rainy weather discouraged the fan market. We did locate our outboard engine hoisting strap at a price I couldn't even buy the materials to make it for, our Mantus anchor chain snubber hook, and as Tim mentioned in his post, our VHF/AIS unit with remote and a new GPSMap 441 to replace the old one that didn't have the right charts. The charts are no longer available for our old unit and, to be honest, they would have cost almost as much as the new unit did at boat show prices so we bit the bullet.

Tim wanted to see some of the racing style monohulls so I used the time to rest my feet in any available chair while he did that. I had no interest in seeing the inside of any boats this year. I went into 2 of them, one of them the Tartan 43 that is most similar to ours in size and use, and after two I was done. We have worked hard enough these past 2 years to make our boat our home that all of these boats left me with an oddly flat reaction. They were sterile, lacking any personality. They were also for the most part, as Tim mentioned, ridiculously out of our price range and societal bracket. In spite of 2 days of traipsing around in pouring down rain and sloshing through puddles it was a good show because it reinforced my belief that we have chosen well. Have we had our trials and traumas? Yes. Have we had more than our share of mechanical difficulties? Undoubtedly. But last night after finishing the VHF/AIS install we hung the last of the LED light bars under the nav station shelf, complete with dimmer switch, and I looked around the boat with a smile. The place has become firmly ours,the atmosphere is comfortable and warm and inviting. Kintala is without any doubt now our home.  

Boat Show...post (2)

The nitty gritty on the boats. The Cats in order from top to bottom: The Antares 44i sits at the top of the heap, the tip of the mountain, the peak of perfection; and is completely out of reach unless mounds of money fall from the sky and land in my back yard. (Money that is actually worth something that is.) To give some idea of how much this thing costs I heard that the one at the show is owned by the dude who runs Haliburton; or maybe it was Blackwater? Anyway we are talking serious throw weight.

 

The Leopard / 40 or 46 are my personal favorites. There is nothing about these boats I would change except, a) finding a way to put a washer/dryer on the 40, and b) having one registered in my name.

 

Admiral 38; a close run on the Leopard. I really liked the cathedral ceilings in the hulls that make for a wonderfully open feel to being "down stairs." The main complaint is the finish of the fiberglass inside the boat which is not up to the standards of the Leopard. As a result the boat has a "hollow" sound to it when one is inside and the hulls look a bit industrial.

 

Lagoon 380. Nice, really nice. Not much to change on this one either but the inside finish is just shy of the Leopard while costing a bit more. It also has vertical windows in the salon which are a good idea for a whole host of reasons; room, not focusing the sun, good visibility, etc. But I think they are a bit ugly. The Admiral looks like a sea-going space ship; the Lagoon like a floating apartment.

 

Foutaine Pajot Mahe 36. This was a boat at the top of my "going in" list. But for a variety of small reasons it just didn't tug at the heartstrings like the Leopard or Admiral. Still a nice boat and if anyone wants to buy me one for Christmas I promise not to be disappointed. Seawind 1160. This was another boat I really expected to like. But when we first boarded her I was vastly underwhelmed and just walked off the thing. The next day we got on her again and (for reasons I don't really understand) I liked it much better the second time around. This is a boat that needs to grow on you a little. Still, I don't think it would be much of a colder weather boat without some work.

 

Monohulls; All of the Mono's that I liked are Center Cockpit boats. They are a bit more troublesome to get aboard since the helm station itself is in a kind of tub located about a third of the way forward from the stern. The interiors of all the mono's were glowing wood and well thought out floor plans. (Cats, being much more sensitive to weight, have a lot of white fiberglass.) Passport. This thing was just flat beautiful inside and out. If I had a choice between this one and an Admiral Cat it would be a hard, hard decision to make.

 

Island Packet 465. All around very nice boat with a long, blue-water pedigree. It also had a really, really nice master cabin aft. Its big sister, the 485, includes an office that any smart CEO would want to call her own. If you promise not to tell anyone I think the Island Packet is probably the most reasonable, biggest bang for the buck, option that we saw. I would not be surprised at all if we landed on one of these a few years from now. (She also has lines very similar to those of little Nomad.)

 

Since Deb and I have never actually sailed on a big catamaran the list is a bit premature. (Of course not having done anything like this didn't stop us from jumping in with both feet when it comes to sailboats. I offer as evidence to our willingness to try about anything a 27 foot Com-Pac currently floating in our slip.) The next step of the plan is to spend a few days learning to sail a Cat and taking a coastal cruising course at the same time. There are several 5 day classes offered along the East Coast and we are hoping to take advantage of one of them sometime next spring. On first brush another consideration is that all of the Cats seem slanted to "warm weather, island hopping" kind of sailing. The Mono's looked a bit more purposeful, like they could take on the Northern climes or Southern Sea and have a fair chance of giving their owners a good time and a cozy place to live. Probably an illusion but something I need to square away in my own thinking. I can easily imagine that Deb and I will not be just warm weather kinds of people, and may look for some sailing where you might find a little snow on the deck once in a while. For now though, we are going to enjoy the changing season right here on our lake in IL. The next few weekends are "on the boat" weekends. (Well, I might have one contract trip on a Sunday.) I want to put some serious time in on Nomad and just enjoy having the boat and being on the lake. The leaves are starting to change around here and with any luck we will find some wind to play with this month.

Boat show...post (1)

We got home from the airport just a few hours ago. These last 3 days were about as much fun stuffed into one weekend as I can remember, but some of the details will have to wait. It is already getting late and I have an early flight tomorrow, so just the highlights while they are fresh in my mind. First, a huge "Love you guys!" to Matt, Tiff, Campbell, John and Lara, who made the trip a delight. Matt and Tiff and their daughter Campbell (just a few months older than Catherine) even came with us to the show on Saturday. It was great to get their impression of the ones we liked and they let us use Campbell for "grand kid tests." She approved of all the boats, even climbing under the covers on a couple of the bunks to check out their suitability for a nap. Important stuff. It was also our first time to meet Lara (she and John are recently married) and I was completely charmed.

 

So what about the show itself? Fantastic if a bit smaller than I thought. The entire show sight would fit in the corner of Oshkosh, the National Business Aviation Association meet, or Sun-N-Fun (3 big aviation shows) and barely be noticed. Still, the docks were stuffed with sailboats of every description and supply vendors filled the tents on shore. Deb and I had plenty of hulls to mull over, and we climbed on and off of literally dozens of boats over the course of two days. Many of them several times. We met and talked with owners. We listened to sales pitches. We gazed at masts and rigging that made Nomad's look short and light. We saw RADARS and plotters, auto-pilots, fantastic interiors, engine rooms to make a mechanic's eyes shine and helm stations that promised adventure far over the horizon. Dock lines creaked, waves slapped gently at a multitude of hulls, the weather was perfect, and all the hardware as shiny as it could be.

 

Much to my surprise the catamaran vs mono hull debate lingers. We dropped one Cat completely from consideration as a live-aboard boat. (The Gemini 105 for anyone who cares). It was simply too lightly built and too tight inside. We would pick a 45 foot center cockpit mono hull first. In fact the center cockpit boats made a very favorable impression all around, and one was drop-dead gorgeous. (For $1.2 mil new it freaking well better be!) So we are now looking at catamaran v center cockpit monohull. (Aft cockpit mono hulls did fall pretty far out of consideration as well. When the weather goes interesting I don't want a monster sea that close to my ass. More to the point the aft cabin in a center cockpit boat is just amazing.) But here's the main thing, all boat details aside. Of the numerous center cockpit mono hulls and Cruising Cats we looked at (less the 105) none would be a disappointment. I would call any of them "home" without a second thought; and would point each toward deep water at the first opportunity. For all the boats we lusted over it turns out the boat itself is not the thing. The thing is the going. So a new debate has taken over from the boat debate. No so much "which" but "when?" Now we are sneaking up on the idea of picking a time, December of 2011 say, or July of 2012. (We haven't gotten that far yet.) When that day comes, put the house up for sale, dump whatever is left that will not fit on a boat, and then find a boat. Work up the list of "most lusted after" (more on that later) get the best boat we can for the money we have, and make it happen. It is the one thing I didn't really expect to learn at the boat show.

 

Boat show...pre

In just a few hours Deb and I should be jumping on a plane and heading for the boat show and a visit with some in the family we rarely get to see. Pretty exciting stuff. Though there is a whole list of boats we want to check out I hope we still have a little time to be surprised, to see some boat we haven't heard of before, maybe run across the "right" one without knowing it yet. I'm sure we will never see all that we want to see in just a day and a half, but it should be pretty cool for Deb to get her first "on the boat" look at the catamarans and center cockpit mono hulls we have been reading about for months. A weekend to spend with her playing in the world's biggest toy store. How much fun is that? And a good time for it, I say. At the moment it looks like retirement might be a bit further away than we thought. (Us and everyone else with a 401k and a house.) There sure are a bunch of clouds on the horizon and (in boat talk) it might be time to reef the sails and figure this is a storm that will be hard to avoid. It is difficult to see to the other side of this one; a serious economic decline coupled with a political debate that gets uglier, more mean spirited and more filled with hate with each passing day. Maybe this is the way it has always been? The days of Vietnam and Nixon, Watergate and riots, saw bodies lying on University lawns, tear gas in the streets and whole city blocks reduced to war torn rubble. I remember tanks on the roads of D.C. and I doubt that the death toll of those tragic times has ever really been told. It hurts my heart to think that those days may be upon us once again. We survived it once. But this time the divide may be even deeper, the two sides more vehement, the hate more passionate. No matter which side wins the current election, after the things said and the charges flung how can either claim to represent the whole? Who on the right will willingly support a President Obama? Who on the left a President McCain (or Palin)? It seems that neither side can bare the thought of living in the country the other side wants to build. And neither side speaks for those of us who would hope the country is big enough for both. When did we decide that the woman who wants to stay home and take care of her family couldn't live next door to the woman who wants to fly airplanes for a living or run a business? Who decided one was better than the other, and when and how? When did we determine that the air was so poisoned by the religious or the atheist that the other couldn't breathe it any more? When did it become my business to tell you who you could love, how you could live, what you could eat or drink (or smoke); and when did it become your job to decide those same things for me? When did it happen that any of us decided that we, and we alone, were the only adults in the room? Scary times indeed. But for tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday the biggest and baddest debates I want to hear are; catamaran or mono hull, in-mast furling or lazy jacks, hank-on or rollers, and how big an anchor is big enough? In the end we all sail the same sea and a large enough storm can take us all to the bottom.