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?
Misty Lady Thought and Comment 