Reality Checkmate

I suppose I should take the long view here, and be happy that I got a good education for a mere $3K. I'm now much better equipped to contemplate potential ships, though I must admit that there is a strong sense of letdown along with the unavoidable "what-if" feeling. I'll always wonder...

Gypsy Spirit is a hearty vessel with very distinctive character, and most of the upgrades and additions over the past few years have been first-rate. The sails are new, and the current owner obviously never hesitated to pay for the best quality hardware. But what I learned from the suite of surveys (see previous post) is that in order to bring her to the point where she is truly offshore-ready, I would be looking at months of hard and expensive work (much of which would have to be done by people charging hefty hourly rates). Beyond that, there is an additional level of preparation, on the same general scale, before she would be ready for the integration of the lab, Shacktopus, and other custom systems. And that still doesn't include finish work to make her interior at least passably beautiful, though of course that's a highly subjective term.

The net effect of all this is that I eventually had to start considering this boat in terms of tens of thousands of extra dollars, and, even more painfully, a likely replay of the now-tiresome endless project scenario that I have come to know all too well during the various phases of the Microship quest (now some 14 years along). I don't thrill to the thought of spending the next year or more in boatyards, writing large checks, and doing messy things like scraping spray-foam from the bilges and somehow removing hygroscopic saline encrustations integrated with absorbent nests of iron oxide, although it doubtless would have had its moments.

I'm not quite back to the proverbial square one, however, as the learning curve has been quite rewarding. My ability to "pre-survey" a candidate vessel is now at a point whereon my impressions are formed more by objective observation than the projection of dreams onto a blank nautical canvas, and I have a much better sense of what questions to ask. I know experts around town, and have seen first-hand some of the politics and interpersonal dynamics in the industry (quite capable of yielding dangerously misleading results). And I've gotten much more hard-nosed when it comes to the business aspects.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Gypsy Spirit - I'm convinced she has an interesting future, and there's a lot of boat there. But there's also over $40K worth of essential work to be done that we actually know about (rig, engine, batteries, and various repairs), not including the things that are still mysteries... or the other things that are required before actually cruising. The weirdest thing is the realization that I'm the only one with all this information (besides the surveyor, who has seen the reports on rig/engine/power/hull and incorporated them into his report). The boat thus goes back on the market with the same asking price and description... while I feel a sort of strange loyalty to the broker and sympathy for the seller that keeps me from publicizing the results of my research in more explicit detail.

Ah well. All part of the adventure, I suppose, but now I just want to find the FAST-FORWARD button. Starting over, driving around looking at boats, spending hours doing searches on Yachtworld, reading, making checklists, calling people in the business... it's all so damned abstract compared to what I expected to be doing about now, which has a lot more to do with the immediate logistics of boat ownership and outfitting than with noodling over cutter vs ketch, steel vs fiberglass, Yanmar vs Detroit, and monohull vs catamaran. But in the long run, I think I dodged a bullet.

Ultimately, the ship to be named Nomadness is going to be the substrate for an extensive suite of tools for mobility, self-sufficiency, and communications... so I can't let myself be seduced by the sexy "workboat patina" of aluminum and stainless that tugs at these old geek heartstrings. I also must insure that the projects (inevitable on any boat) need to be not only congruent with my passions but also finite. The whole point, after all, is reaching escape velocity, and one cannot do that with a welding torch clutched in one hand and a checkbook in the other.

Reality Checking

It seems insane that I'm already out $3K on the "decision support" aspects of this project; I've paid for overall survey, haulout and audio gauge, rigging inspection, engine and power system audits, and oil analysis. This is rather a lot of expense, but hopefully, by hiring trusted experts, I am either saving myself from my own enthusiasm or bringing the purchase price in line with reality (depending on what I do with their reports).

There are numerous issues here, falling into three categories: problems that must be addressed immediately for the ship to be safe and seaworthy, longer-term projects that are essential upgrades but not the seller's responsibility, and complete unknowns. The first is quantifiable, the second can be put off as long as I'm realistic about it, and the third is quite scary. Since this is essentially a homebuilt boat, and there are huge regions of the hull that are inaccessible, there are quite a few mysteries down there. When we're talking about this kind of money (on the scale of real estate), taking a "leap of faith" is not quite the right approach, despite a general sense that things were done well. So more investigation is in order.

Among other mysteries, we have a huge and inaccessible section of the sole above the keel, mostly filled with fuel tank... and the stuffing box is deep under the engine, behind the large hydrostatic transmission. This is somewhat worrying, given the fact that it is a through-hull, although the side loads on it are probably much lower than on a "traditional" vessel due to the decoupling of engine vibration from the prop shaft. But these are the kinds of things that concern me; we basically have no documentation regarding what's down there, and no way to even see it. What we can see is generally good with a few exceptions, and the added components, for the most part, are first-rate.

This seems to be typical of amateur-built vessels on the market... a rather large disparity between "fair market value" and "replacement value." The out-of-pocket investment by their early developers can almost never be recovered, since the ship itself will always be an unknown and will thus have a depressed value when compared to professionally built vessels of similar scale. This can work to the buyer's favor down the road, however, IF the purchase price is reasonable and most of the major work is done. Still, I have to remember to look at this as a quality of life investment, and not expect any financial return on rigging upgrades or added systems.

We have gotten an extension on the purchase contract to allow further analysis of all this new information, and I've also launched insurance and moorage inquiries. I'm emotionally prepared to walk away if that appears to be the best course of action, but I am not yet convinced that's the case: she's a beautiful ship with a lot of excellent gear, and she lends herself almost ideally to the system integration projects that I have in mind. She also has excellent headroom for my 6'4" frame (a big deal, and not common especially in engine rooms), a workboat-scale pilothouse, and a general funkiness that will let me fire up a Sawzall without fear of trashing professional joinery... which is a very charitable way of saying that the interior is anything but beautiful. But, in a twisted way, that really is a feature (another boat I considered is such a stunning monument to the woodworker's art that any "improvements" I might make would irreparably damage it).

Should have a decision in the next few days....

Haulout!

The first truly traumatic experience with this boat that I don't even own yet was a couple of days ago... the full survey with haulout. Alain Vilage was wonderful and a wealth of information, and he spent the day examining her from stem to stern.

Late in the morning, it was time to cast off from the brokerage dock, duck under the Ballard Bridge, and haul out at Seaview East ($9/foot just to get started!). It took a few passes to figure out where the slings should go, prompting me to muse that a place like that should have an underwater camera on a pole readily available... the potential for lifting a 25-ton boat by a prop shaft or other delicate component is rather high. But the guys knew what they were doing, all went well, and the monster slowly rose into the air while I somewhat nervously captured video footage.


The underwater profile is bizarre, but very robust: the huge Max-prop is well protected in an aperture, the skeg supporting the rudder is firmly attached to the keel, and there is a huge "foot" at the bottom that should be able to handle at least casual grounding. All that inspired confidence, but the audio gauge guy started muttering that he couldn't get meaningful readings through the unknown coating without having to grind away 50 bare patches per side... so we ended up having to block her and leave her in the yard overnight so someone with a different ultrasonic instrument could come the next day. There might be some issues; we found a few strange bubbles in the bottom paint that easily popped and squirted water, with clean steel behind. A full sandblast and bottom paint is an expensive proposition, not to be undertaken lightly, so at this point we just need to be sure the hull is sound.

Much of the challenge here (for the surveyor as well) was figuring out just what we have. There is little documentation from initial construction, and Alain went to considerable effort to expose as many of the critical components as possible. Generally, I believe he was favorably impressed, especially given my intended use... I should have his survey within the next 2-3 days, whereupon the ball will be in my court.

I'm bringing in one more expert for "decision support" before doing anything rash: my friend Ned Konz will visit the boat with me this weekend and do a bit of reverse-engineering on the power systems. There are multiple independent battery banks (house, engine start, generator start, dinghy winch, and windlass) and we need to know how intelligently all the charge management and load distribution have been handled. Ned's a whiz at this. We have already discovered that the house bank (multiple 6-volt batteries, not all matched, installed in 2001) needs to be replaced, and with the intent of adding a huge solar array, it's critical that the power infrastructure is reliable and up to ABYC standards.

This certainly is a lot more complex than buying a house ever was...

The GPS Datalogger

Before even acquiring the ship, I knew I had to have this bit of gizmology; it automates what I did for a couple of years with the maplets of local kayak jaunts aboard Bubba. The whizzy new way to do that is with the Lassen iQ FAT16 Datalogger from the clever folks at Spark Fun Electronics.

In the photo, you can see my simple and expedient packaging job: I just nestled the hardware into a carved foam insert inside a SealLine Electronic Case. The wee antenna is lost in the glare; below that is the board, which carries the Lassen iQ GPS, an LPC2138 ARM processor, and a socket on the back with a 256 megabyte SD card. The software strips the NMEA sentences to just the basics, and stuffs them into the card... which has enough space for 440 hours of logging! I haven't checked the power drain yet, but the four 2300 mAH AA NiMH cells should keep it going for quite a while.

I took this on the first sea trial, bungeed to the propane locker. The LED blinked every second as we played around in the Ship Canal, Lake Union, and Portage Bay. When I got back to the lab, I popped the SD card into my Mac's USB reader, dropped the collected data into a KML template file, and clicked it to launch Google Earth... with utterly wonderful results!

Here is the overall journey, and this is a close-up of our zig-zagging in the Lake to get to know the sails and learn tight maneuvering (the really tight turn in the upper right was done by Chris Tesh as he lectured me on prop walk and engine/rudder tricks; the much sloppier one to the left is mine... looks like I need practice). If you want, you can play with the KML file and your own installation of Google Earth (do a "save link target as" on that, or you'll see a bunch of text in your browser instead).

Ain't technology wonderful? When this site matures a bit, there will be a browsable archive of track logs and related photos.

On the Eve of the Survey

Tomorrow is perhaps the pivotal event in the acquisition (or avoidance) of this ship... a full-scale Condition & Valuation (C&V) survey by Alain Vilage. It was a bit of a scramble getting to this point, as the fellow originally scheduled to do the survey turned out not to be a SAMS or NAMS member. While he is no doubt competent and seems to have a good reputation around the docks, huge red flags went up when I realized he was not accredited... for that is absolutely essential when it comes to getting insurance (or backing up a claim later). Once I realized what was up, it was quite a red-alert; I had to find a surveyor within the contract time frame, which then required re-scheduling of the haul-out and audio gauge hull analysis.

But it has all come together for tomorrow. Once Alain's survey is complete, I'll compile the results and recommendations with the rig and engine audits, then distribute the extensive to-do list into three categories:

1. Problems that need to be negotiated with seller
2. Urgent fixes/upgrades before cruising or shopping for insurance
3. Things that would be nice to do, but aren't the seller's problem

When that's done, my broker will swing back into action... and if all goes well, a revised contract will be finalized by the end of the week. The worst-case scenario, of course, is that there are serious deal-breakers that contraindicate buying the boat. More likely, the deal will go through, but I'll have no shortage of immediate issues to deal with. It is a boat, after all.

Ah, once again surfing the knee of the learning curve...

The First Two Experts Visit...

Historically, I have posted most of my news to the Microship live page, a place for ephemeral commentary and fleeting tidbits that really don't need to be archived. But as a couple of readers have pointed out over the past couple of days, it's time to start blogging about this new project. So this, along with the Nomadness site of which it is a part, will henceforth be the collection point for all information about the ship. And so, on to the news!

The first two of three experts have now completed their consultations: I spent Wedensday with Brion Toss, who examined the sailing rig in close detail while making a running commentary on all aspects of the hardware and design. It is fundamentally sound, although there are definitely some essential and expensive projects: a new boom with vang, rerouting of the starboard staysail sheet around to the port side of the pilothouse to share one accessible winch, a rearrangement of main winches, new headsail furler and better line routing, a few fixes at the masthead, and some minor things like tang/terminal alignment and shroud tuning.

Two days later, it was time for another guru... this time to demystify the engine (something very far from my areas of expertise). Craig Hatton came by and examined the Detroit Diesel 4-53 and the 5KW Westerbeke genset, concluding that both are in essentially great shape. A few little things need to be fixed, of course: genset cooling water is blocked and its fuel filter is sucking air somewhere, and over on the engine side there is a loose muffler baffle and a lack of insulation on the exhaust loop... but most of the work that needs to be done is relatively minor and can be handled by me later.

This sudden barrage of extremely important and relevant information puts me in the position of needing to become better equipped to receive same; the nature of brains, those endearingly associative information systems, is that they are not very efficient at assimilating new information until there is a rich context into which it can be woven. With the rig, and even more so with the diesel, I am not far enough along the learning curve to simply nod sagely and take it all in. So after nearly a week of research, I added two new tools to my armamentarium of information-acquisition gizmology:




I am quite enchanted with both... and suddenly have the tools for podcasting and video production (I just did my first project in iMovie this morning). Good timing, given the loom of adventure teasing me just over the horizon!

A Resurgence of Nomadness

I am setting up a site for this new nautical substrate, since it diverges so thoroughly from the Microships... posting over here would approach cognitive dissonance!

At the moment, I am still in the pre-acquisition phase, but well along. The ship has been selected, and I have already had the rigging and engine inspections done by gurus in the field. Next week is the full survey, and after that... well, if there are no deal-breakers, I'll guess I'll hand over a scary check and welcome a rather grand addition to the Nomadic Research Labs fleet (which currently consists of Microships and kayaks). At that point, I'll have to find a place to park 'er, which is apparently not a trivial problem around here...

The ship is a 53-foot steel pilothouse cutter - more details soon.