Friday, December 20, 2013

Electronics upgrade and Seatalk Ng backbone connection

When we first bought Catchin' Rays, we had hopes that we'd be able to use some, if not all, of the electronics.  Although we were able to power up the radar and chartplotter displays, the GPS would not fix on a signal, the radar wouldn't engage, and the displays looked like the old dot-matrix printers....but those were just hopes....

Monday, December 16, 2013

Progress update after another week on the boat

Just got back from another week at Key West - time for a renovation update over the past month's progress.  First, the mast finally came down - and our rigger had some trouble busting the turn-buckles loose and also had difficulty finding the correct replacement parts on the cable ends - I'm not sure how that's going to work out yet, but hopefully it all goes back up ok.  A new anchor light was installed along with new wiring and a new "steaming" light.  

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Back home after a week on the boat.

Just back from a 6 day stay on our boat and I'm sad to say that I'm not real happy to be back home.  Tami and Justin arrived at the boat about 11 days ago, showed up with a car and a trailer and set up a home.  All the bed covers, seat cushions, and curtains were removed and taken to the laundry-mat.  Everything was wiped with clean-wipes as there was no running water.  Tami even fell 6 feet off the back of the boat because the only access was from a ladder.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

In her better days

Well Tami and Justin ended up driving non-stop from Dallas-Fort Worth to Key West and made it there today around 4:30pm local time - now that's some hard-core driving.  They took shifts driving and slept in a small sliver of a space they created in the back among all the stuff that was crammed back there.  Total driving time....

Monday, November 4, 2013

And the work begins

This past week, work began on the boat.  

Also, the previous barrier coat and bottom paint were just applied over the old barrier coat and bottom paint without first removing it.  He said its like sanding off concrete, but supposedly it is coming off.

The rigger also called today and is going to start removing the sails tomorrow in preparation for the "de-mast-ication" on Friday.

And lastly, Tami and Justin left today around 1:00pm with a loaded up SUV pulling a 5x8 purple trailer with a custom plywood hinged top to carry all our supplies, tools, and misc. crap that we think we'll need.  Hopefully their trip hasn't hit any snags so far and their ETA will be sometime Wednesday if all goes right.
As an introduction to the boat, I've made a video (I love making videos) of our trip down to see it and plan on making more as the re-fit progresses all the way until we're actually making "sailing" videos.  Here is the link to the youtube video that I uploaded today.

Click here for The Introduction Video

I'll also include the link to the video I made in August of 2011 when we hitched a ride on a 45' Privilege going from Miami to Nassau.  We had a head wind the whole way, so all we did is motor, but it was a good experience to live on a boat for 5 days.  Check it out here:

The Sailboat vacation aboard Stray Cat

The YouTube channel to the right is my son's channel and therefore does not have these two videos on that channel.  Some of his videos on his channel are of his and Tami's Panama sailing adventure that they went on a couple of months ago on a 46' Fountaine Pajot Bahia.  A few of the videos are of the next day after a bad (really bad) storm where a neighbor of there's, a 45' Outremer ran aground on the reef.  He was full steam ahead, but could not keep off the reef after he lost anchorage.  The boat Tami and Justin were on also lost anchorage and ran into the boat behind them as they did not have any running engines at the time.  But I'll just post links straight to the videos as this post seems like it will be my "video" link page.

This video is of our shark dive in Honduras in 2006.  Brandon was only 12 years old here but was a seasoned diver by this time and had probably logged over 50 dives prior to this one.  If you don't watch the whole thing, at least fast-forward to the 13 min. mark to watch the bucket get opened and the feeding frenzy that ensued.

The Shark Dive - Roatan, Honduras 2006

This one is of the Outremer being pulled off the rocks by a "yacht".

Click here for the 45' Outremer

And finally, the tow to Colon of the Outremer and the boat Tami was on due to loosing their engines in San Blas.  They were towed over a two day period and over 12 hours of tow time.

Click here for the tow to Colon, Panama


     

          
       


Friday, October 25, 2013

I now have a family of ASA 101, 103, and 104 Certified Sailors

Although I didn't go on this latest adventure to Seabrook, Texas, my family just got back from a 6 day trip to become ASA certified sailors and learned a lot in the process.  Both Justin and Brandon were reported to have done well, Tami on the other hand claims that she has too many brain issues to be able to apply what she's studied to the actual sailing process.  And based on these difficulties, she's come up with a solution for our new running rigging on Catchin' Rays.....

Thursday, October 17, 2013

The new name for the boat is "Catchin' Rays"

So Tiki II will now be known as Catchin' Rays, and I hear that unless you do this complete "name change" ceremony that your boat will be cursed with bad luck.  Ah, .....nobody told me this when I decided to change the name during our registration process.  Are you exempt by way of stupidity.....

Sunday, October 13, 2013

From Dream to Reality: how we plan to afford it.

As I write this post, we are nervously anticipating the signing that is scheduled for this Friday on our 1995 Fountaine Pajot Venezia. Although this is a brand new blog that I started this year, this is actually a 7 year old plan that has required a huge amount of dedication, discipline, and work.....

Offer accepted and contract signed!

After much debate and discussion and weighing all the pros and cons, we accepted the contract on a boat post survey. Our 10% down is officially not ours any longer.  The boat: a 1995 Fountaine Pajot Venezia located in Key West, Florida......