Month: September 2019

As I indicated in my previous post, the posts that will be forthcoming will describe the ups and downs of being an owner of a motor yacht and living aboard that yacht 24/7 year round.

No, we don’t shutter her and move on land during the winter, we stay on board all year long, though the heat of summer and the freezing temps of winter, here on the waterfront neighborhood known as the DC Wharf.

We are located on Maine Avenue SW, just past the historical DC Fish/Seafood Market. Our location is the Capital Yacht Club (CYC) and our yacht is home in a 60 foot floating dock slip in the CYC marina. The Wharf is a new multi billion dollar development that replaced the old DC wharf’s rather downtrodden environment with high rise offices, apartments, expensive Condominiums, a 6000 seat theater/entertainment venue, and multiple restaurants, snack bars, and boutique shops. Overlooking the rather higher than normal prices for items, the available selections for lifestyle is very expansive. We have a hardware/bicycle shop, a marine supplies shop, many sit down restaurants, several walk up kiosks, and multiple sandwich, pizza, Falafel stores.

So life at the Wharf is rarely boring, if one partakes of all the amenities and the events that happen each week. WE on the other hand, do not spend a lot of time with the Wharf gatherings, considering that the crowds are rather large each week and the old Captain really does not function well in large gatherings. Once I retired, I love the ability to just be, not interact with others, just be.

SO, now that you have some idea of where and how, let’s talk about the life of a yacht homebody. Thinking about how things have gone over the past three years, since we first brought the Misty Lady from Annapolis/Edgewater, Maryland, to the Capital Yacht Club we have been making repairs to various systems aboard, trying to enhance the livability of the boat, acquiring and installing necessary appliances and simply keeping the old girl in running order. We hire a nice gentleman to wash and polish the Misty Lady’s exterior surfaces and he does a bang up job for a very reasonable price.

Over the past three years, we have had to install, repair, remove and replace, various items and systems aboard this old girl. At the outset we left the Maryland marina at Gingerville with a balky fuel injection system on the port engine. It required a priming action using a starter fluid to get the engine to fire off, and the pump would simply stop the engine as it wound down in the engine speed. Our master diesel mechanic, (Delyn) who has been our life saver for these engines, wanted to remove the fuel pump and rebuild it, because of the cost to do a replacement with a new one.

One thing led to another, once we arrived at the CYC marina, we were relegated to “floating” status. which means that we had no permanently assigned slip to put the Lady into. Instead we were told to move every few days or weeks from one docking to another. Meaning we had to be ready to move the boat whenever the Club General Manager indicated we had to do so. So this is one reason why we fell for the “club scam artist” or as some in the Club referred to him as a damn thief. This individual convinced me that he had a source for a fuel pump which would eliminate our down time. This source was supposed to have rebuilt pumps in their inventory and we would simply remove our pump, trade it for the new rebuilt one. During this time, this person “found” that we had, during our float moves, damaged the turbo charger on the port engine as well. Long story short, this man cut the two primary water exchanger pipes to “remove” the fuel pump, had parts laying all over our engine room and soaked me for 3,500 dollars. He had performed NO appreciable work whatsoever. We simply got taken for the money. Turns out, we weren’t by ourselves and multiple complaints were sworn out to the Metro Police for his arrest. To the best of my knowledge, he has not been seen anywhere in the DMV (District,Maryland,Virgina). And good riddance.

When the reality came about, we were lucky to have had our true diesel expert, Delyn, at the Club docks working on another boat. He came over to our vessel, took a look at the mess, said a number of unprintable expletives, cursing the thief guy up a streak and said that he had done absolutely nothing except damage the water transfer pipes, and stealing money from us. (As for the expletives, I should tell you that he was in the Navy for quite a while so the inventory of those words is quite extensive)

I had to make a trip up to the Alban (Caterpillar Distributor) facility in Elkridge, MD (near Baltimore) and purchase two new water transfer pipes while Delyn worked on getting the fuel pump prepared for removal and transfer to the repair facility where it would be rebuilt. Long story short, after a protracted effort, Delyn was able to lock the engine, remove the fuel pump and take it to the repair facility for rebuild. A few days later, the pump was returned with a diagnostic and rebuild descriptive and Delyn reinstalled it on the port engine. Nothing was wrong with our turbocharger and that 750 dollars was paid for absolutely zero work. So a major warning to any of you contemplating the acquisition of a boat, be very careful who you hire/contract to perform work on your vessel. As for us, major work on the yacht (excluding the engines) will be done by one of two craftsmen affiliated with our yacht club, or the Gingerville Yacht Center/Abel Marine yard in Elkridge, MD. Most of our work these past two years has been done by the technicians recommended by the membership of our yacht club.

Now don’t get me wrong, incidents like the deal with our fuel pump and turbo money theft are not the norm. Usually the skilled tradespeople are very honorable and do good work. Admittedly prices for marine/boat skills are higher on average that for trades folks with ground/land facilities.

A friend recently asked that since we had so many things hit us for repair or replacement, were we ready to chuck the idea of living aboard a motor yacht and move back on land. I response was a definite no, I was still in love with the yachting life and have no intention of moving off the boat and back into a fixed structure house or condo.

More later> how we spent the past three years here at the Washington waterfront and continuing to describe life of a liveaboard.

Stay Tuned?

When one who is a confirmed live aboard person, if asked about their lifestyle, they usually give the Living the Dream response. What they don’t tell you is that some time that Dream is a nightmare, but then nightmares are actually dreams as well.

So let’s start this new Blog approach with a nice history of our live aboard life. Back at the start of 2016, we were fascinated by a television show called Tiny Houses. After watching several of these shows, where people downsized from large and costly homes to the inexpensive to buy and to maintain, small tiny houses of less than 500 square feet, we thought how nice it would be to rid ourselves of the large monthly mortgage payment, Condo fees, high property taxes and simplify our lives. I mentioned that a motor yacht (40 feet or larger) would provide a similar living space and would have the added nicety of being able to move across the waters of the Eastern Seaboard.

After checking a couple of online boat broker websites, we decided to look at a couple of options in that area. Long story short, we found a boat in Dundalk, MD that suited our need for size and price.

Once we determined that we wanted to acquire this boat, we arranged for a yacht surveyor to conduct a viability survey of the boat. This was a $1,500 dollar deal, and the boat had to be hauled out of the water using a huge Travel-lift unit, the accumulated residue and little sea creatures power washed off the hull to allow the surveyor access in evaluating the status of the hull (blisters in the fiberglass, weak spots around the keel and prop shaft outlets, and a special device to measure any wet areas in the hull signifying any possible areas of deterioration), he also checked the trim tab, rudder and prop surfaces for viability.

Once the boat was back in the water the survey continued and the yacht was checked from bow to stern. We were then ready for a sea trial to check the running gear. The first trial was a bust because the starboard engine overheated and we had to return to the marina on just the port engine. The owner had a new raw water pump impeller installed and we took a second sea trial the following week. This time it went well.

After the second sea trial was a success the next hurdle was to get our condo sold in a timely manner. Interestingly enough, even though our asking price was well over 500k, our condo sold in less than seven days after listing. We had placed our earnest money on the motor yacht about a month prior to the closing on our condo and when the condo sale funds were deposited into our account, we transferred the balance of our offer price to the broker.

The following Saturday we met the broker and his lady and he drove us up to the marina where we were to be joined by my son, his wife and our youngest grand daughter. They were going to ride with us down to the Annapolis area and to the Ginger Creek Yacht Center just off the South River.

The trip started out wonderfully, the broker took us out of the marina as the slip was very convoluted and directly behind were several yachts in the million dollar class. I certainly didn’t want to start my yachting career hitting an expensive boat. Once we turned toward the Chesapeake Bay, I took the helm and was totally enjoying our new live-aboard yacht. But as fate would have it, two hours into the trip, the starboard engine blew. Most of you, who have followed this blog from the early days, know all about the starboard engine blowing up two hours into our voyage down to Annapolis.

We wound up limping into the Gingerville Yacht Center in Edgewater, MD, just off the South River and spent the next six months with the boat “up on the hard” which is boater slang for having your boat hauled out of the water and settled on blocks. She stayed that way from May through September and we spent almost six full months in the local hotel. The Sea Cats were not thrilled with being restricted to a single hotel room day in and day out. But then neither were Charlotte or myself.

The day they finally finished with the engine and had it back into the boat, was a super happy day. Rick (the TravelLift Operator), put the slings under the Misty Lady and lifted her off the blocks. The engine specialists finished up up a couple of things and we put the big girl back in her element, the Water. We put her into a temporary berth and wrapped up a couple of other items, before scheduling a sea trial for the newly installed engine.

During the sea trial, we took the Misty Lady out of the marina and into the South River. Shortly after we got the engines up onto some speed, the diesel specialist noted that the new engine was starting to get a little warmer than normal. So we headed back to the marina, calling the marina owner and they had the Travel Lift available to pull the boat out of the water. We kept her on the Lift’s slings while the technicians evaluated the water intakes, etc. Turned out the “raw water” impeller was worn and needed to be replaced. The tech installed one from the Center’s parts inventory and we put her back in the water to resume the sea trial. This time, all went well and we brought her back to a maintenance slip to begin the process of putting all the pieces back together. The flooring was replaced, the cabinets and appliances along with the sink/faucets were reinstalled. The settee and dining table were installed and the Center staff replaced and resealed the large galley window that were used to remove and replace the engine. Just to give you an idea how large these marine diesels, a photo is below, this is the engine that we bought and prepped to be installed. They weigh several hundred pounds. This picture is when they brought the finished engine back to the yacht center to do the reinstall.

Within a few days of the final, successful sea trial, I signed off on the engine installation, settled up with the diesel specialist and turned the boat over to the yacht center employees to finalize the restoration of the interior and exterior items to their status prior to the engine work.

Once the interior was restored to functional status, the flooring people finished installing the new flooring in the galley area and the forward entry to the guest cabin in the bow area. Finally we were ready to bring our personal items on board, let the Sea Cats be freed from the hotel and removed from their carriers on board their new sea going home. Needless to say they were a bit nonplussed at the different area, having been moved from a single room to a multiple cabin area with a 1,000 square feet of areas to explore. As usual, Penny found an open hatch on the bridge and got underneath the dashboard cowl. Took us a long time to coax her out and to shut down the hatch.

Our plan was to prepare the boat with food, water, snacks and of course COFFEE, then get a good night’s rest in our new master stateroom. Our plan was to leave in two days (Saturday morning) at first light. However, as Mother Nature would show what a capricious being she was, a storm was forecast for that weekend with high winds (gusting to 50 knots) and heavy rains. Being the intelligent captain, we decided to postpone the voyage home for another weekend. As it turned out, we were smart to delay, the winds and rains were fierce and we experienced that living aboard a motor vessel was like in a storm, even though we were securely tied to the dock.

Finally the following weekend we were able to begin the process of heading home to Washington, D.C. and our marina home at the Capital Yacht Club.

The early blogs describe our voyage home, the things we saw and the trip down the Bay and up the Potomac. Blogs following this will describe the many facets of our life as live aboard yachts people. Some will be mundane, others will be interesting, but all will be informative. Especially if any of you are considering joining into the yacht live aboard life.

More to come, keep watching.