INTO THE DEEP

Our life seems to be full of meaningful moments these days as we take our last steps to the water. Today our newly named boat was set free.

According to tradition, there are appropriate steps to follow in changing the name of a boat. Even though we are not particularly superstitious, we do love a nice ceremony, so we read the lore and then constructed our own version using rum and a metal washer with "Good Company" written on it.

And in the slant of the sun's early evening rays, following the long-held tradition of seafarers, we retired the name of Good Company by dropping the washer in the water and thanking her for many years of faithful service. 

Then Chip offered a tot of rum to the gods of the deep, and, with a toast to the four winds, we entered the name of our new sailing vessel into the log of the sea.

And, in another long-held seafaring tradition, we passed the cup of rum amongst us, our boatyard friends, our new boat and the setting sun.

OURS NOW

Naming a boat is a challenge and not one easily conquered -- at least for us.

I've already written about all the things we will NOT be naming her, but the list of what me MIGHT name her topped out at fifty-five names. When we went to stay on the boat for the first time in April, we took along our short list of candidates, but the second we stepped onboard, it was apparent that most of those names simply did not suit her.

She is no Willow nor Sunflower. She is not sweet or lacy or in any way a Waterlily. No, this boat is substantial, regal, royal, graceful, grande in a very French way.

We abandoned the initial list and started over, scouring our family trees, lists of flowers, birds, colors, queens and goddesses. We considered foreign languages, characters from literature and lyrics of songs. But the name came quietly one night in May as I was reading in the V-berth. It was not a book title nor an author but a simple phrase that made me turn my head and say it to Chip.

For a week, we called her the new name and agreed, it was perfect.

And today we went to the boatyard to meet our boat with her new name.

I was all nerves. The artwork, we knew, was beautiful. The color we chose was perfect. But despite my confidence in all the components, I was shaking.

We approached at her bow and walked all along the mirror glass hull. Together we walked past the stern and slowly turned together to meet our new boat.

Sheer perfection. 

Tears of joy.

But for now, it's just between the three of us, our little secret until we officially introduce her on Sunday.

THE BOAT WITH NO NAME

Sparkle and shine...

STORM BEFORE THE CALM

Moving onto a boat is messy.

Good Company has tons, really tons of storage, and it's all hidden, which in the awesome category means all your crap is hidden from view. In the not-so-awesome category, it means all your crap is hidden from view. It takes some real organizational skill to find a logical place for everything and then, just as importantly, remember where that logical place is. We have to either work together, keep a list or give each other tours of our stowing. Otherwise it's a big, not fun game of I Don't Spy.

This week has an extra large learning curve. Fortunately neither of us knows much about the systems on this boat. Fortunately? Yes, we're on equal footing here. We learn it together and then we both know how to use it, start it, stop it, furl it, fix it, raise it, lower it, dewinterize it, everything. There are no reluctant, "dragged aboard" members here. (And since you brought it up, can we stop with the sailing mag articles about reluctant female sailors?!?!)

So far:
--Dewinterized, cleaned and filled the water tank. Great water pressure!
--Turned on the refrigerator/freezer.
--Puzzled over the bilge pump until we realized, it doesn't work. Got it fixed.
--Got a quick lesson in our packing gland from the helpful guy who repacked it.
--Learned how to furl sails on Harken furlers. Only had to redo one of them.
--Rerigged some of the furling and jib lines. We'll see how that works out.
--Put on the dodger and bimini. For a while we were wearing a big Sunsail shroud, but we got it eventually. I do hope someone was watching.
--Learned how to use the dinghy davits and hoisted the dinghy -- after pushing it across the street on a dock cart, pulling it through the water and over a floating dock.
--Played with the GPS enough to navigate around the GPS. Now on to the bigger picture.

Our original hope was to cross the Chesapeake to Annapolis today as a shakedown, but the boatyard forgot to fix the masthead light when they went up this morning. IF they get to it later today or first thing in the morning, we might be able to cross.

OVER THE EDGE

We arrived in Rock Hall at Good Company today hoping to find her ready to go in the water -- or perhaps already there.

A big NO on that. The boatyard had not yet replaced the strike plate on our newly finished toe rails. The packing gland had not been repacked. Never underestimate the value of being there, face-to-face, OR bringing along a free Chip's t-shirt to the yard manager.

We left to eat lunch and run through our shopping list at West Marine. That run-through cost a whopping $735, but if you're ever planning on visiting us onboard, we bought you two really nice life jackets on sale @ $119. Cheap for saving our lives this month and your life on down the water. (Instead of spending the $250 times two on offshore life jackets with harnesses, we decided to buy the less expensive in-shore versions. We'll drop the $$$ on the other ones once we're close to going "offshore.")

Back at the boatyard, we found this:

We're in the water -- and without me fretting and freaking as the put her in the travelift, drove her a block and dumped her in. Just as well.

It'll be this spot overnight, and a run up the mast by the boatyard to fix some lights in the morning.

We're in the water! It's official.

EXPERIMENT SUCCESS

DAY ONE:

Monday -- We cleaned, cleaned, cleaned and rinsed the rails. Then hit it with teak brightener and rinsed some more.

DAY TWO:

Tuesday -- The weather forecast was rain, rain, rain. We discussed the impending rain over the sound of palm sanders at the boat next to us. Duh. We hopped up and got in a good hour and a half of work before it started pouring. Might as well get used to the weather controlling our lives.

We used the rain as an excuse to hose down the boat one more time, just before welcoming our friend, John, who came for a sleepover: our first overnight guest!

DAY THREE:

Wednesday -- We topped off all the rinsing with a round of hand sanding with either 150- or 120-grit, depending on how bad the particular spot was -- all with the help of John -- future guests, take note.

Then we taped and started coating with the magical Flood. One coat (above), then two coats (below) then a third coat on the outside, vertical piece.

See in the photos, the red, red board on the left? That's teak treated with the dreaded Cetol. I can't wait to strip and refinish those cockpit combings.

So how do you top off eight straight hours of sanding and painting? How about a six-hour drive home? Whew.

ON THE RISE

One of the most seductive qualities of sailing is the distant horizon, the mystery of what the day will hold, the allure of the unexpected, like a snagged line, for instance.

Good Company's main has a Dutchman flaking system. Imagine folding a piece of paper back and forth to make a paper fan. Now if you punch three holes through your folded fan and thread fishing line through the holes, you can fold and unfold your fan easily on the guide lines. That's how the Dutchman works: heavy fishing line threaded vertically through the sail to hold it in place while you raise and lower it.

Well, one of those long, Dutchman fishing lines got wrapped around a light fixture on the front of the mast -- and stuck fast. The best option for untwanglement was sending somebody halfway up the 54' mast. The lightest crew member always wins (loses?) that lottery, so up I went with Marvin hoisting me on the main halyard, Chip on the backup and Nancy taking photos.

Another day of congenial teamwork.

IN GOOD COMPANY

As we left Bridgeville this morning, Dylan called to tell us he was accepted to Appalachian in Boone, NC.

Hallelujah. He set out on a long, long trip from eking through high school to getting accepted to a state school at 21, a trip sewn with hard, ugly work and long, lonely months in a near empty apartment. Hmm. Sounds a little like someone else. Is this the week we all arrive?

A good start  -- and hopefully a good omen. We smiled the whole way to Rock Hall.

You might recall, we looked at several Island Packet 380s in Rock Hall in October, including the one we're here to see: Good Company.

On that last trip, Chip made one notation in his notebook about Good Company: GTV.

"What the heck is that?" I asked.

"Got The Vibe."

It's a funny thing when you're boat shopping. If you're smart, you keep your emotions in check, try not to fall in love with a boat and subsequently make bad decisions. But there's no denying the feel of a boat when you step onboard. It defies logic. We looked at two identical boats, side by side today. One felt cold and lonely, the other warm and homey.

And today, I got the vibe too. I didn't anticipate liking this boat as much as I did. Good Company has had one owner who is obviously meticulous. The boat is spotless inside. The bilge looks practically new. He changed the oil for the first time one month after he got the boat (!). The more we learn, the closer we look, the better it gets.

Michele, our broker, had a lot of info for us about other 380s on the market as well as a listing of what 380s have sold for in the last year. More homework for us ...

 ... and back to Bridgeville to see Ted and Nancy (Chip's parents) and Aunt Peggy and Uncle George!

ISABELLA'S PROGRESS

Turns out Isabella's dent was not such a big deal. There was no delamination, which means the fiberglass hasn't been damaged. The surveyor tested it with a water meter and found it to be dry. Excellent!

Downeasts 32s (at least the 79s) have a swath of hull on the starboard side with no bulkheading. Imagine an umbrella missing one of its spines. Of course, the fiberglass is strong on its own, especially on Downeasts where the fiberglass is several inches thick, but really, I'd rather shore it up every few feet. The hull is, after all, what keeps you afloat.

That photo shows the cutout under the bench seat. The slanting part is the inside of the hull and the three cross pieces are the shoring that was added.

This area had two coolers that didn't offer much storage space, so in addition to improving the hull integrity, we added more storage. That's what I call better than new.

They've already painted the fiberglass work and will put in two new hatches to cover it. The bottom will get painted; the topsides (the part between the water and the rail) will be waxed. She'll be bright and shiny, ready to come home next week.

Or go somewhere else? We haven't decided yet....

BELLY FLOP

QUESTION #2: How did Isabella get a big-ass dent in her belly?

a. What??!?!! There's a dent?
b. By running over a giant sea squid
c. By doing a big belly flop in shallow water
d. By a badly placed jack on a long road trip from Florida.
e. Any of the above.

If you answered any of these, you could be right. We don't know for sure, but when we first got the call it was definitely a. Then after throwing around about 29 possibilities, we decided it must be d. We bought Isabella in Fort Lauderdale and trucked her to North Carolina. Was there a jack in that spot? Maybe.

I would show you a photo of the indentation, which sounded much worse on the phone, but you can't really see it. It's a shallow indentation that none of us even noticed until they went to prop her up on jacks.

This is not good news, but we just keep saying, "at least we didn't have a prospective buyer in tow." That would have been a real deal killer. A surveyor is going to look at the hull tomorrow, and then we'll regroup.

Life is interesting. Stay tuned. This could be expensive.

SOUTH INTO THE WIND'S TEETH

Question #1: Chip and Tammy's trip to Wanchese on Isabella was hairy because of:

a. a late start
b. a wrong turn (or a really long, wide one)
c. a big blow
d. running over a giant squid
e. all of the above
f. all of the above except d (and technically e as well)

If you said f, you are correct.

About three hours into the trip, when we were at the R in OUR, things went south. Well, we were TRYING to go south(ish), but there might as well have been a giant squid in our path. The wind had been slowly building all morning, something we knew was coming, but there was that a. and b. problem.

So by the time we got to the R in OUR we had the c. problem. It was blowing a steady 20-25 with much higher gusts. The waves had built to 3-4 feet, and we were under power, very little of it. At the confluence of all those arrows, we were going about as fast as I could walk (on land). If the engine had died, it would have been SO ugly. The channel is about as wide as that red arrow with shallow water on either side, not shallow like 6 feet, shallow like 1-2 feet.

All this was a good reminder of why we love sailing and hate motoring. We were at the total mercy of the engine.

But, frankly, if it hadn't been a wee bit terrifying thinking of all the possible things that could go wrong with the engine, it would have been a hoot. It's a natural thrill to ride the waves, to lean into the wind, to take the occasional spray -- and to watch for sea creatures (we saw dolphins).

But, it was a wee bit terrifying, the engine did not die, we did not run over (or even see) a giant squid, and we made it safely to the boatyard. High fives in the cockpit.

REMINDER:
a. don't be late
b. don't take a wrong turn
c. give a big blow plenty of sea room
d. fear the giant squid
e. all of the above