Tag Archives: New Sailboat

Begin Countdown….

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Home Sale

Today is Good Friday, April 3rd, 2015. Today is “appraisal day” for the house. The buyer has an appraiser meeting with our realtor to go through the house today to see if it’s worth all this effort.

JoAnne met the buyer last week during the inspection, who indicated he was happy with the house, it was the “best” he’d seen in the price range, and he was sold on the view, deck and hot tub I believe she told me.

The inspection went well, but they found a couple of electrical items of which I was unaware. I can fix them, but he specifically requested a “licensed professional”. While I am a professional, I’m not licensed for electrical work in this state… so, no big deal. We accepted his objections and we’ll fix them, do an inspection and purchase a home warranty on the house for the next few months. Basically, the contract is still in force, and we’re moving on with it as if going to close on the designated date.

Hence the reason for this post. C-Day (Close Day) is April 30th. Twenty seven days. That gives us another week or so in the house and then we have to move out. If all goes well with the appraisal we will pack up and move.

I’m going over this afternoon to look at a small trailer in which to place a few tubs containing what’s left of our belongings. I mean “all the junk we collected over the years”. You can not believe how much stuff we gave to Good Will, threw out, passed on to the kids, neighbors and random people walking down the street, lol.

We have essentials left. Eating utensils, dishes, cups, cook ware, a small but useful propane grill, our ham radio equipment (and not much of that is left), our instruments and clothing. That is about all we have left. All of it has to fit in tubs, which then must fit inside a small trailer, which must fit in a tiny space beside my daughter’s house for the short time we will be with her.

After close, after the dust settles, after the money “is in the bank” and after we have a few days to decompress, we will set a final date, notify our respective companies of our departure and start planning our trip across country.

If everything goes well, by the end of May we should be leaving. We should be in New York at Stony Point by not later than the second week of June. If the Marina has painted and done the jobs I’ve asked for by then, we will be ready to commission the boat within a day or so of our arrival.

At that point we plan to have a short, relatively private “ceremony” to officially rename the boat, splash her and do some test sails, plan our trip down the ICW and our first 2-3 stops along the way.

That’s the general plan, everything is subject to change, there’s always a Plan B, C, D and usually E. We have learned to not set ANYTHING in concrete and be ready to improvise, adapt and overcome. So the count down begins.

Transworld Formosa 41 – Adventure

I had a rather nice surprise waiting in email yesterday (so did JoAnne). The person who runs a Facebook Owners Page for the Transworld Formosas contacted us via email and invited us to join the page (which we did). It is interesting that he had posted images of “Duna” on the FB site the very day I was writing checks, moving money and getting things in place for the purchase of said vessel.

Kurt is the owner of one of the Formosas and there are several others on the page who also have similar (not exactly alike ) vessels. I’m sure that we will all be hearing much more from one-another in the near future. If I get the chance, I’ll post some images of the various boats here.

Contact Page

By the way, the Contact Page (https://windsoftime.us/contact-page/) has been modified with a new email address for us at the boat (which may change one more time before this is over).

RV

Last notes, the Dodge Shasta RV we bought originally for the trip has become no longer necessary. We sold it last week at a loss just to remove it from the yard and give it to someone who can (and will) use it.

2015, the Year of Adventure

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On Friday, 9 January 2015 I made my way through snow, ice and fog to downtown Colorado Springs.  I had some issues doing my online banking.

I worked for several hours in the morning to get everything right, correct, all the T’s crossed, I’s dotted, signatures, dates and so forth.

But, the bank, God love ’em, screwed me again.  Every time I’ve tried to get the accounts right, move money and keep things in an organized fashion, something weird happens.  Friday, it was the final Wire Transfer I needed to make to complete the purchase of a sailboat.

Not just any sailboat, the very boat my wife and I have dreamed about for the last six years.  In fact, she’s exactly the boat that has been envisioned by us both in waking daydreams and long sails in the Caribbean in our night dreams.

The old name of the boat isn’t really important any more.  She’s lived her last year sitting on the hard in a marina in New York and therefore whatever she was before has been washed away by the tides.  We knew her name a few weeks ago, right after I went up for the survey.  JoAnne and I had discussed many things, but the name was not one of them.

In fact, as the blog is called we knew years ago we would call the boat “Winds of Time”.

When I returned from the survey I was talking to her about something and she said something about “going on an adventure”.  JoAnne loves to say that when we get in the Jeep or Truck to go across country or explore something.  In fact, she usually waits until the car is in drive and rolling down the hill from our home to say, “We’re on an ADVENTURE! YAY!” — or words to that effect.  It’s always cute and makes me laugh.

So the thought occurred to be after seeing the boat in person that her real name had come out and not only was it NOT going to be “Winds”.

Of course, yesterday was proving to be an adventure in and of itself.  Bad weather, ice, snow, fog, cold and the bank couldn’t help me fix the problem.  Thus I left work a bit early, jumped in my truck and set off to slide my way from the Air Force Base to home to grab a check book, and then slide my way south and west to downtown to find the bank.  Ended up parking three blocks away from the branch office (this is a large investment bank and of course, there is only one branch here; and I’m lucky it is, otherwise I’d be driving to Denver, or Kansas City or some such place).

After arriving there, the young man that helps me with account information met me in the lobby and proceeded to help me get the wire forms together and eventually, late last night I received word from the broker in Annapolis that everything was finished.  The official close date is Tuesday.  Monday though, we will close as everything is in place.

USCG documentation is being worked for me by a nice lady in West Virginia.  The Delaware Registration will be worked in a few days when the sale is officially complete (and the lady in WV sends me the MD title to get to MD — yeah, even the paperwork has been an ADVENTURE).

Today I awaken, a few dollars poorer, but richer for a beautiful sailing vessel.

The bank got things together.  I got things together.  The broker got things together.  The seller got things together (in fact today he delivers a pallet load of equipment to a storage locker for me, spare parts and so forth). In fact, everything finally came together late last night.

Today, JoAnne and I proudly introduce our new boat, a Formosa 41′, full keeled, heavy displacement ketch;

Adventure

Adventure_Sailing

The picture is from a few years back, with the previous owners I believe, sailing down the Hudson River.  Yep, that’s the Empire State building in the background.  With a bit of luck in a few months, we’ll add our own images as we sail past Lady Liberty further down river.

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Picture of the interior, looking forward. That’s a wood pellet stove on the starboard side, a kerosene lantern in the port foreground.  The wood is gorgeous.  The insides need a good “clean”, dusting, wiping down and perhaps some oil for some of the wood.  The companionway ladder needs a bit of varnish.  Most all of the teak on the outside needs work.

The bilge needs a good pressure wash, a float switch needs replacement and the majority of the running rigging, in particular the halyards should be changed out.  The sails need some work, but eventually we will replace them with a new set.

The standing rigging is in good shape – but I need to get a rigger to the top to do a close up inspection of the head (change lights, and a few minor things).

Obviously things like the zincs need to be replaced, some hose clamps changed out and a couple of lights and switches are broken.

All minor maintenance issues for me.

It was negative 10 degrees when we did the survey.  The boat was on the hard.  We really couldn’t run the engine up but my investigation with the marina staff says the boat ran fine when they put her on land and winterized the vessel.  So, all that remains is filters, oil change, some fresh diesel to make her run.

The bottom should be painted and the boot stripe put back on properly. (The bottom has been soda blasted and was smooth, no blisters and the hull is very sound).

All in all the previous owner took decent care of her.  He was ready to move on (and I guess away from sailing), and we’ll be ready to move aboard and travel as soon as we sell the house this spring.