Month: March 2018

We have spent 18 days since our last post wrapping up hurricane repairs on Island Spirit. NOW, she is better than ever. We are very thankful we shipped back from St. Thomas to Stuart, Florida, to work with Mack Sails.  Overall, we are very happy with the work accomplished and working with their team of 31 employees! Living aboard in Stuart at Sunset Bay Marina was an extra bonus! If you are looking to repair or refit your Island Packet Yacht, or any other yacht, then I highly recommend working with Mack Sails. You can read about their work and you can request a quote here: http://www.MackSails.com

A quick overview of work finished: We wrapped up the mast deck collar and caulking/sealing the joint, finished mast base wiring, connected VHF & TV to the new LMR400 wires, added a code zero masthead crane extension, added a halyard and mast winch for the code zero, re-commissioned the autopilot and compass, had the boat compounded and waxed to a level never seen before, installed mainsail reef lines, added code zero sheet blocks, made dyneema loops for shackles, worked on yamaha 15,  test sailed a third time, provisioned, helped buddy boats, attended the Island Packet Factory Rendezvous, and worked with multiple Island Packet Yacht buyers, showing boats and working on offers.

Now, we are on the LAUNCH PAD. The weather window is opening and it is moving and changing, but it looks like this Sun, Mon, Tue or Wed there is a window for motoring over to the Bahamas. We plan to take it if we can. We have worked all of February and now all of March and we are READY to go sailing.

Here is a photo story since our last post…

We love MIAMI BEACH, so it was off to another Wallcast. this one was all Baroque music, which was performed in Bach’s coffee house in the 1730’s.  If you like high-quality outdoor concerts, (FREE) then google this up and attend one of these. This was our 11th Wallcast!

New Cockpit Table

We bought a NEW Teak table and hired a professional varnisher to apply a finish. LOOK at the shine! WOW, this is the most beautiful piece of wood on the boat. We can’t wait to have a fine dinner on this lovely table.

Sealing the Mast Deck Joint

We always seal up our mast with simple BOAT LIFE CAULK and then we use 4″ mast boot tape. Here are some photos of how we finished off the mast collar and sealed it so rain and sea spray will not leak and drip into the cabin below.

Mast Wiring Continues…

The continuing saga of the LMR400 wires seemed to never end. Here we ended up running LMR400 from the mast base to the nav desk to maintain the low loss cable 100% of the way from the VHF to the masthead antenna. Our VHF was always good, but now we are hearing Vero Beach from Stuart! WOW. LMR 400 wire is THE BEST.

Rig Tuning with a PT-3

Tuning the standing rigging was another job.  I always use a LOOS GAUGE    PT-3 tool to read the tension on each wire. The Island Packet Yacht Factory publishes the rigging tensions for every yacht. We have a copy onboard and there is one at http://www.IPYOA.com/docs. Every year, before sailing out to sea, we tune (tension) the rigging wire to factory specs.

Commissioning the new Zeus3 and Pilot and Compass

Out into the North Fork of the St. Lucie River, we did a few circles to recommission the B&G autopilot. We replaced our chartplotter (Zeus2) with a Zeus3 and the software needed to be commissioned. This requires a few circles. Here is our track as we tuned in the pilot and digital compass.

OFF TO THE ISLAND PACKET YACHT FACTORY RENDEZVOUS

Since we were still here in Florida working on the boat, we decided to attend the first ever IPY Factory Rendezvous. Leslie and Darrell, along with the entire factory team, hosted a great weekend of events. The best part of any RDV is the reconnecting with good friends and IP owners. Here are some photos of this great time….

Doc. Jr. and Doc. Ette….

While over in Tampa, we decided to drive north and visit our friends’ son at Starbucks. Nicholas and Bethany are wonderful young people who are both a joy to visit. We nicknamed them Doc. Jr. and Doc. Ette. (PhDs are brilliant!) Thanks for taking time away from your academics to share a coffee.

Back to work on the boat

After a fun weekend at the IPY Rendezvous in Tampa it was back to Stuart and continuing to work on the boat. We decided to buy something FUN after all this work and expense. So, we bought a Mack Sails CODE ZERO, a top-down furling spinnaker.  This sail is a large jib, about a 175%, and it is good in winds up to 20 knots apparent. They are mainly used for light air so this will be fun to sail north up the coast in May. To add this new sail, we needed a masthead extension, a new halyard and a mast winch. Now, we are just waiting for the sail to be built. Then the FUN can really begin.

Cut and Finish the floor around the mast

I grabbed a jigsaw, made a template and cut the wood pieces that fill in around the mast. This finally finishes off the entire job and we can now focus on other tasks like preparing to sail and returning to cruising.

TIME FOR A DETAILING JOB

With all the work finally completed, (March 22, 2018) we hired PASQUALE DETAILING to compound and wax our hull. WOW, what a job that was. Our boat has never ever looked like this in 17 years. He worked off a floating platform, in the water and used a massive buffer. With 800-1000 grit compound, he ground the oxidation off the hull, taking it back to better than factory new. Then he waxed, and when he was finished, the hull now has the best shine it has ever had. (Pasquale usually is repelling off 100-150 foot yachts buffing them, so this little 35 footer was easy for him.) Great job!

Yacht Brokers for Whiteaker Yacht Sales

There is nothing we like more than showing others the quality of an Island Packet Yacht. Lucky for us, we get to share our passion together with others as we have the honor and privilege to show yachts for the Whiteaker Yachts Sales team.  Here we are taking a break from our repair work for a yacht showing. We really enjoy this activity. We like to help others….

One more SHAKE DOWN SAIL

We headed back out into the creek for one more shake down sail. Island Spirit is ready to head EAST to the Bahamas.  Let’s get back to our program of cruising and sailing and exploring.

Time to PROVISION

Here we go. We know this process. Go to every store and buy up all you think you need, then stow it onboard. This is run #1 of 3 or 4 runs….

Let’s Gather the IP owners…

One more IPY gathering of owners at Sunset Bay turned out to be yet another great time to visit with the 22 people who attended.

VIDEO recoding on ISLAND SPIRIT

Ed of Starboard Films wanted to interview us about our hurricane challenges and our decision to ship the boat back to Florida. So, up with the lights, camera and ACTION as Radeen and I shared our story. How fun, thank you, Ed!

AND NOW IT IS TIME TO FLY…

It has been a long process. November assess damages in Puerto Rico. December return to Puerto Rico and launch the boat. January ship back to Florida. February pull mast, March finish repairs. April WE SET SAIL….where to????? First, we will sail to the Bahamas where we can set long legs and sail for many hours. From there, we will sail back to Florida, pick up our Code Zero sail, and then set sail NORTH. We will sail back to the Chesapeake Bay where we can enjoy the boat for a summer and fall. Then in the November, we will sail south and back to the Caribbean Sea. We see no reason to sail back there now, only to store the boat June 1 for hurricane season.

We want to sail and we want to use our boat after all this effort and expense. Thanks to the team at Mack Sails, we can now do exactly that!

LIVE TRACKING IS ALWAYS HERE:

http://share.garmin.com/islandspirit

 

We fully Recommend MACK SAILS, STUART, FLORIDA, USA

With any job, big or small, the hardest aspect is finishing and wrapping up the “punch list” of loose items and redo items. That is where we have been for the past 10 days! The mast was pulled Feb 5, the new mast installed Feb 28. The final jobs are outlined below as we enjoy living here on mooring ball #2 at Sunset Bay Marina. Yes it is far cheaper to be out cruising and anchored out on our 55 lb Rocna, but until we can raise a sail and shakedown this new rig, we simply keep plugging away on the remaining jobs.

Job #1 Install the deck collar mast pin. This is 3/8″ stainless steel pin that goes through the bolted down deck collar and all the way thru the new mast. The purpose of this mast deck pin is the stiffen the deck and prevent it from flexing upward when you tighten down the wire rigging. The new wire rigging is loose when installed and then it is tensioned to the published factory specs. The proper tension is measured with a PT-3 Loos Guage. For our Island Packet 35 these settings are 25 for the uppers, 18 for the lowers and 10 for the backstays. It is easy to do, you simply snap on the PT-3 to the wire and then tighten the Sta-Lok until the gauge reads the proper number. Here is a photo of my PT-3 at 25 on the upper shroud.

But first, lets get back to this mast pin. Many Island Packet Yacht owners do not know about this pin and some yachts do not even have one because it was left out when rigging. Some people think the pin is to keep the mast in place if the yacht flips upside down at sea. NO, that is not the purpose. The sole purpose is to add strength to the deck. Imagine if you pull and push on the sides of the boat just abeam of the mast. Push hard inward and upward, What will happen to the center of the deck? It will flex upward due to the upward arch of the cabin roof. Now, add a solid bolted down metal collar around the mast, centered on the deck. Drill a hole, insert a heavy pin and now push in on the edges. The deck will flex upward against this pin and the deck will be solid with zero flexing. This pin basically creates a triangle between the two upper shrouds and the deck collar. Once the rig is put under full load and tensioned, this pin is locked into place and can not move. The deck will not move when bashing offshore in heavy seas. It makes the boat really solid. Here are photos of how I drilled the deck collar and fit the pin into place.

After finishing the mast pin I now returned the rigging wire to full loads and re-tuned the rig for the 2nd time. I like tuning the rig, I do it every year before we set sail for sea. The final task on the rigging is to add the cotter pins into the turnbuckles and then, finally, she is ready for a shakedown sail.

Our other punch list item we have been working on far longer than we like, is the wiring in the mast. We bought and had installed the best wire and very expensive wire for the VHF and the digital TV antenna. The wire is called LMR 400, and it is very thick and very heavy. This wire requires special end fittings in order to mate the thick core to the proper antenna. The LMR- 400 is very thick and it was run to the VHF antenna. The thinner wire core is the 75 ohm and it was run to the digital TV antenna, all new antennas. The issue became that we discovered, after a few hours of troubleshooting, that the bottom fittings were reversed. TV on VHF and VHF on TV wire. Form the job photos we could tell that they proper wire was connected to the proper antenna on the masthead, so that seems good. We just need to cut off the bottom wire fittings and install new fittings with TV fitting on the TV antenna wire and a VHF fitting on the VHF antenna. An easy mistake to make because the wires look the same, but the core diameters are different.

During these little punch list jobs, we celebrated Radeen’s and Alan’s birthdays together. Something we have done for years. Thank you, Alan and Kathy for diverting to Stuart to make this happen…

Of course, I spoiled Radeen with a gift of a new Propane Regulator which was still in the original package. Then after installing this, I made her scones and homemade bread. To top it off, I took her out shopping and then to Bonefish Grill. In all, it was a very fun birthday bash for a few days.

One more job accomplished is our replaced B&G Zeus2 chartplotter. Our national B&G rep, Steve, was so kind to replace our 2 with a 3 because the screen was not as clear as we expected. This has been in the works for nearly a year, and now, we finally have received our replacement with a Zeus3.

So, as you can see, we are working thru the punch list. Soon we should be able to go sailing and test out this new mast. For now, we do not mind being in Stuart, Fl. We have missed two shipping dates so far, for shipping back to the Caribbean, and the longer we are stuck here, the more the Caribbean sailing season is slipping away. We are not sure what we are doing related to sailing out, sailing back south, going to the Bahamas, or sailing for home. Who knows. One thing is for sure…..we need to finish this job and shakedown…..then we can start our 2018 season!

Thanks for sailing along…even if we are not sailing….yet….

Team MACK SAILS has completed our hurricane Maria repairs with the installation of our new Charleston Spar #S622 and all new wire rigging with swagged tops and Sta-Lok stainless steel fittings on the bottoms. This team is so professional, and it is very obvious they all have done this hundreds of times before.  With Colin Mack leading his team of 5, and the expert crane operator on site for 3 hours, the mast installation and rigging was flawless.

Last week the deck opening was cut larger and a new mast collar was bolted down to the deck to allow this new section to fit into our boat. They no longer make the NG-60 Isomat Spar, so this is the recommended replacement. Jeff, the master craftsman, cut the deck and seated the new keel step. Now it was time to step the mast.

Overall, the cutting of the deck and the mounting of a new keel shoe was not that big of a deal. We were worried about this part of the job, but Mack Sails has 31 people on their team with everyone is skilled in different areas, so the work was easily handled. Great job, Jeff!

In with the mast, let’s go! The crane picked up the mast 55+ feet overall, 500 lbs, and lifted it from the new spreaders which have a solid bar thru the mast. The crane rotated around as Colin and his team positioned the mast over the deck. Jose and I went below deck to help guide the mast down into the keel. The 7 wires coming out of the bottom of the mast needed to be fished through a side hole, then fished into the keel and forward thru a chase to the junction boxes. The final process was directing the crane fore, aft, left and right to position the bottom of the mast onto and over the shoe. The mast shoe has a groove and a raised metal ring that matches the profile of the mast. This locks the bottom of the mast into the keel and secures it. At this point, the mast was through the deck collar and onto the keel shoe, so it will stand on its own now.

With the mast NOW in place, it was time to cut the standing rigging wires and tighten down the rig. The wire tops had stem balls swaged onto the wire using hydraulic presses back at the Mack Sails Shop, and the bottom fittings were cut on-site using Sta-Lok fittings. What a great way to rig the wire. These Sta-Lok fittings are easy to repair at sea or in a remote site. They are expensive but they are strong, if not stronger, than swaged fittings. Sta-Lok info here.

The mast installation wrapped up with the mounting of our B&G 4G radar antenna just below the spreaders. This needed to be drilled and tapped into the mast and wired. They waited to do this to make sure the mount did not hit the rigging wire as it exited the mast. We like the radar up the mast, even though it is more complicated to wire.  One IP owner said, mount the radar as high as the highest waves you want to see over. So, it is up the mast for us. We want to see over 10-15-20 foot waves!

At the end of this afternoon, the Mack Sails team had the mast installed, radar mounted, all wiring rigged and cut, new Tides Inn Strong Track installed, new boom gooseneck and new boom vang fittings mounted to the mast. This was an amazing process. Working with a team of people who hustle and simply know how to get it all done was a joy. Again, we cannot imagine trying to do this job in Puerto Rico. Our decision to ship back and to hire this company was the right decision. We have ZERO concerns with their work. Thank you, COLIN MACK and your entire team. WE HAVE A NEW MAST.

Thank you also to Ed who shot video and photography material for use on the Mack Sails website and their YouTube channel. This added even more excitement to the entire job. Great job, Ed!

The next day, we installed sails and Richard returned to complete the spinnaker car track mounting and winches and cleats on the mast. At the end of that day, we backed out of the service slip at Apex Marine and hosted a Jib and staysail and we sailed down the river. It was wonderful to be sailing again! IT HAS BEEN A LONG PROCESS….but now we can begin the shakedown, stretch in this new wire and begin our 2018 season.

Team ISLAND SPIRIT is BACK…..Hurricane Maria knocked us down and Mack Sails rebuilt us back to better than ever.

Now, time to buy Radeen a nice new present, I think a new CODE ZERO would be very nice for her……..go MACK!