11 - 11 - 11

It's Official...

Under the light of a full moon, the sailing vessel "Spirited Away" was christened today 11-11-11.

May God bless her and all who sail in her. All old boat names were Purged from the "Ledger of the Deep" and from "Poseidon’s Memory". Champagne was broken across the bow, a toast was made as we asked the gods Neptune and Aeolus to grant her fair winds and safe voyages....

Cannot wait for warmer weather and a summer full of sailing!

Sailing to Her New Home!

We sailed her down to Norfolk, VA on a beautiful day in mid-September 2011.

We left out of Poquoson, VA around 6am with the sun just creeping over the horizon.  Motored out and navigated the very narrow channel until we hit the open Chesapeake Bay, which took about 45 minutes.

Once in the Bay, we cut the motor and made our way under sail for the duration of the 8 hour trip.

We had a decent breeze for most of the morning and practiced tacking and jibbing.  We saw many, many dolphins, sea birds and even a Huge loggerhead turtle.

The wind died around noon and we puttered along wing-on-wing for about an hour. Then the breeze started to pickup slowly.  As we got closer to the HRBT, the winds was pretty steady.  By the time was crossed the main shipping channel, and headed towards the harbor, we were moving  at a pretty good clip. The GPS said we making 5.4 knots!

In the shipping channel, we encountered a hug freighter and surfed down the backside of her 6 foot high wake! Quite an experience for me. I did not know what to expect, but Spirited Away handled the wake/wave with aplomb.

Thanks to Dan, Bob and Troy for making this a fantastic day of sailing.

Notes on the Electric Motor:

The shore power was spotty at the old marina and when we arrived at the boat that morning,  I had error lights flashing on the battery charger for the motor bank. After 2-days of charging, two batteries did not charge, one only partially charged and the 4th battery was about 75% charged.  I was nervous and suggested we postpone the trip as I could not guarantee we would have propulsion from the electric motor.  Bob and Dan said "Nonsense!" and we headed out anyway.  We did have a small 1.5 horse outboard that Bob brought, but it looked like it had not been started in years.  Over all we had about 2 hours of run time on the partially charged battery bank. We used about an hours worth of battery getting out of Poquoson and into the Bay.  We kept the motor off for the majority of the trip and had enough juice to power our way into the marina. The motor has been working flawlessly, and I am hoping the shore power will be more consistent at the new marina.

Finally! Our first sail!

After 3 years of work, new batteries, motor, oxidation problems, prop shaft and roller furling issues etc., ect..

We went sailing today!

Had the sails up ready to catch some wind.... um, well we had a little bit of wind anyway. Tried for about a hour, tacking back and forth there was just a slight breeze and it did propel the boat with the motor off. So YES! I would say we were finally able to sail Spirited Away - Woo Hoo.

I can't wait to get back out on the water and try again, soon.

OK - this is a photo from a 1983 Hunter Brochure - but since we did not take any pictures of Spirited Away with her sails up, I thought I would use this photo. Think of it line and 'artist's interpretation'... ; )

On to the Next Project

With the motor working now, we decided it's time to do some real sailing.

First things first, get the sails up.

We were able to raise the jib with no problems, but it was really hard to furl up the sail. It looked like the jib halyard was wrapping around the sail - not good.

We lowered the sail and examined the furler swivel assembly - this swivel part and he base seem to be fused together. We opened is up and it appeared to be rusted beyond repair.




I imagine this may be the original 30 year old furler Hyde Streamstay One Furler. As is turns out, the luff extrusion rod and furler system are actually working as the forestay.

After some sage advice from Derek, my marine surveyor friend, I have decided it is time to replace the old unit with a new Harken system. Hopefully this will happen next week and we can get back out on the water and give the sails a test.

Who was it that said "a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into"?

I am anxiously awaiting the day when we are out sailing on a steady breeze in the beautiful Bay. Then all this effort will be worth it.

The "Electric Yacht" Motor Working Great!

We took Spirited Away out today to test the motor and all the while it performed very well.

We were out for a little over an hour, got her up to about 4.5 knots (according to the GPS). Power is instantaneous as soon as the throttle is engaged.

We even got stuck on a soft sand bar and were able to rock ourselves off by giving it full throttle - forward then reverse then forward.

We started out and the battery meter told us we have 6 hours of battery life at 98% charge.



After freeing us from the sandbar (thank goodness for the Bay's soft bottom) we built up quite a bit of steam at 90% throttle. The battery monitor displayed 2 hours charge life remaining. When I cut back to about 75% throttle, % remaining went up to 4 hours.

Clearly more than enough time to get out, raise the sails and get back.

With the new prop shaft and flex coupler, we no longer experienced any vibrations from the motor - even at full throttle. I think it is safe to say we got that resolved - amazing what a difference a straight prop shaft makes.

And talk about QUIET!!!

With the motor tucked inside the engine compartment, all we hear is the rushing of water under the boat and that annoying shallow water warning beep. Did I mention the "Creek" is really shallow - we learned it's best to hug the channel markers both out and back.

Finally I feel I have the motor working. I am sure folks more mechanically inclinded than I am would have taken half the time to get to this point. But it has been a learning experience.

SPLASH! redux

Finally the weather started to warm up and we scheduled to have the boat returned to the water.

I spent the weekend re-mounting the motor and batteries in the 'battery box'. I connected everything up and all was working fine.

I decided to go ahead and install everything again feeling confident that:

1 - The new stuffing box will not leak.
2 - The flexible coupling will take care of any minor prop shaft/motor misalignment.
3 - The was the LAST TIME I was going to mount the motor and batteries.

The boat was 'splashed' for the second time today and the short trip to her slip went without a hitch - Motor, batteries, Stuffing Box, Prop Shaft all seemed to be working the way it should

I can't wait to take her out and crank up the motor.

I hope the good weather hold up this weekend.

New Prop Shaft

Well guess what... I believe we found the source of the motor vibrations.. In the process of re-packing the stuffing box, the prop shaft was removed. With the shaft out of the boat, it was easy to see that it was bent. A new shaft was installed, new stuffing box and zincs were added.

Now if the weather would cooperate, I can reconnect the motor and get her back in the water.