Island Spirit Mack Sails Complete

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