SV Gallant Fox

Refit Tourism: Sanibel Island

One thing that strikes you negatively about the US after having traveled through several foreign countries is the absence of cheap, accessible public transportation. Except for a few of the largest coastal cities, life in the US generally means that to get anywhere, you have to go by car. Florida is no exception. And it seems as if, when you have more than 2 errands to run, the cost of hiring a taxi in the US almost equals the cost of renting a car.

We needed a short break from all the refitting that was going on aboard The Fox in Stuart last June - mostly because we had no mattresses or cushions, thus for several weeks we slept on hard surfaces. Our backs were getting stiff. For a couple of chubby, middle-aged Americans, we were sleeping rough, is what I'm trying to say.

This wasn't the first time we've had belowdecks all torn inside-out, so we knew exactly what to do to get some relief. We had to rent a car anyway to deliver our wind generator to Hotwire Enterprises for maintenance, so we figured we might as well make a 4-day road trip out of it and see some sights throughout Central Florida.

More Refit

Smaller projects continued while we waited for the contractors of the larger projects to complete their work. Stuart has an excellent repertoire of marine services and it seemed like we consulted almost all of them. Vic's, for example, is the place to go for repairing and refurbishing alternators, starter motors and such. Click on the photo of our alternator over there and you'll see Vic's metal plaque, certifying it was he who did the work on it. Classy.

Spinnie, our fine KISS wind generator, was due for a refurbishin' and as luck would have it, the builder, Hotwire Enterprises, was located in Tarpon Springs, Florida, an easy rental-car drive westward from Stuart over to north of the Tampa Bay area. The Hotwire folks, John and Libbie, have always been very good to us over the years we've owned Spinnie, promptly answering all our email questions, and overhauling Spinnie as needed when we've shipped it to them from various foreign ports. We were looking forward to finally meeting them in person and let me tell you right now, they are two friendly people who are extremely generous with their time. Because we had delivered Spinnie in person this time, John walked GB through the whole dusting-and-cleaning process and instructed him on the finer points of maintenance and care of the unit while at sea. That's right: John did all the maintenance work on Spinnie WHILE WE WAITED.

The Great Upholstery Refit of Stuart, Florida

Hot, humid, sunny marine weather - and everything else that continuous living aboard entails - can quickly wear out a boat's interior furnishings. In our case, the V-berth mattress had completely collapsed months ago, and the stern cabin's mattress was showing signs of significant wear. We spent the end of May and all of June correcting these issues. We got both mattresses replaced by E.J. Schrader Mattress of West Palm Beach, Florida. They sure know their business: our V-berth mattress, especially, is plush as can be -- almost as good, perhaps, as was Schrader's mattress refit of John F. Kennedy's old motor yacht. We've been sleeping pretty ever since we got new mattresses, thanks to Schrader.

While Schrader was creating our new mattresses, we contracted with Ft. Pierce, Florida's, finest canvas workers at Canvas Works for a complete replacement of the saloon and nav station's 9-year-old upholstery, much of which was badly worn and chafed. Here's the "before" photo of our former forest-green corduroy-style upholstery, original to the boat:

The friendly, hard working couple at Canvas Works came highly recommended to us by local cruisers. They are in such demand that we gave them a full 7 weeks to: (1) reupholster our interior cushions with some way-cool Miami Sude fabric; (2) sew some fabric slipcovers for the new cockpit cushions we were in the process of buying; and (3) revise some design flaws in our Sunbrella-and-isinglass dodger. They accepted all our projects and got right down to work.

While we waited for the mattresses and freshly upholstered cushions to be completed, we still lived aboard and slept (and sat) upon our former, collapsed, closed-cell foam cockpit cushions. It may not sound too rough to you hardy souls, but my arthritic spine still hasn't forgiven me. Here's what belowdecks looked like for a month and a half - sort of like an explosion in a marine warehouse. While we waited for our new upholstery, I was able to score some very fancy Sunbrella fabric from which I sewed new curtains and tie-backs, so all was not at a complete standstill.

Canvas Works really came through for us - it was all fine work, every bit of it, done promptly. Check out our new saloon in that pic over there on the right. Sleek and chic. Nice curtains, too. I'd recommend Canvas Works to anyone. Just be considerate, please, and give them plenty of lead time for your project as they're always in demand and are often looking for extra, skilled canvas/upholstery workers to help them through the busy season - which for Canvas Works runs from January to December.

m

The Great 10-Year Refit of Stuart, Florida

By the end of May 2011 The Fox had traveled some 18,000 miles in its 10 years of life with us. It had kept us safe and comfortable but eight years of 24/7 life aboard had completely worn out the cabins' mattresses, the binding on our New Zealand wool carpets, and the upholstery on our saloon cushions. Our main sail needed repair and we wanted our staysail recut and our inner forestay made permanent. Much boat canvas needed to be repaired or sewn anew. Spinnie, our KISS wind generator, needed its regular overhaul. It was high time to do $ome major refurbi$hment$.

We began with sails and rig. We had already been in touch for several weeks with Mack Sails, the outfit in Stuart, Florida, who'd been recommended to us by East Coast Cruisers in the know. We'd made an appointment in advance so as soon as we contacted Mack when we arrived in Stuart they were ready to rock. It took them 7 weeks to complete our  projects with lots of nagging follow up by us, but they did well: the canvas working part of their business used the correct sail canvas to replace - and improve - the "emergency" patch we'd made in our main sail way back in March 2010 at anchor in El Salvador. Here's the result, tested under sail: Thanks, Mack canvas workers!

The Mack Sails canvas workers also recut our fine staysail into a shape better suited to the roller-furling permanently mounted inner forestay we had the Mack riggers install. The reason for the reconfiguration, was that our Solent stay, as we'd originally wanted it, was a removable inner forestay. The gear is really cool - looks like a very large, heavy, fancy, polished steel wine cork puller. You can sort of see a little of it in this photo, just below what used to be our staysail's ready bag.

We'd insisted on this removable inner forestay when we had The Fox commissioned, because we had assumed that if the inner forestay and hank-on staysail were totally manual, we'd have a reliable backup if our roller-furling Genoa forestay ever failed. Carol Hasse up in Port Townsend, WA had done excellent work taking our off-the-rack staysail and making it into a hank-on thing of beauty. We really love Carol - the work she did on our main sail and Genoa is still going strong after 5 years continuously afloat, when sails on the boats around us are falling apart. So please don't tell her what we did to her gorgeous staysail work. We don't want her to have a sad.

In practice, at sea, we hardly ever used the Solent stay or staysail. We found that we only really needed to use the Solent stay and our staysail when the wind increased above 25 knots or so. And if it were getting that frisky, the last thing either of us wanted to do was to send GB forward to set the Solent stay and hank on the staysail. We needed a change but didn't know it. Max and Sandy on s/v Volo (read a bit about them here), who we'd met in Zihuatanejo, Mexico in 2010, nudged us in a new direction.  Based on their experience building and circumnavigating sailboats, they suggested that we'd use our Solent and staysail much more often if they were permanently mounted. Max remarked that his own permanently-mounted, roller-furling staysail is always the first sail he deploys; and he always got a bit of extra horsepower from it. After 5 years of doing it our way and failing, we tried Max and Sandy's way.

Now, before we committed to a permanent mount, we very carefully measured whether or not our fully-inflated dinghy* would fit aft of a permanently mounted Solent stay. Result of our measurements: with a bit of manipulation and timing with GB swinging the dinghy inboard while I drop the halyard we've used to raise the dinghy off the water, we could place a fully-inflated 11-foot dinghy aft of a permanent Solent stay and fore of our mast. Go for it, Mack Sails.

* If we're on a passage of longer than a day, we deflate our dinghy and stow it on deck; but if we have a short day trip we occasionally keep the dink inflated and inverted on the foredeck. Why? Because we've been underway and more than once have had big-surprise-non-forecast weather come up on us; the last thing you need to distract you at a time like that is some dinghy bouncing around on davits or on a painter. If you must travel any distance with an inflated dinghy, invert it and tie it down on deck. Just sayin'.

We tested the new roller-furling Solent stay later, as we traveled from Stuart to Fort Pierce and from Fort Pierce to Brunswick, Georgia, and to the Bahamas and back again. Success! Check out the new hardware:

We pull out that sail all the time now and I am here to tell you it is E-Z and always adds to the speed over ground. Max was totally correct: it is the very first sail we pull out now, even before the main sail. Need balance in motorsailing into wind directly on the nose? Get the roller-furling staysail. Too much wind for the foresail? Staysail. Wind directly astern? Pull out the staysail before you try to pole out the foresail. Want more horsepower on a beam reach? Staysail, baby. Max, Sandy: you guys are aces. We hope to see you again some day, out there. We owe you crazy kids a couple of gourmet dinners and some cocktail enhancement.

Next project: The Great Upholstery Refit of Stuart, Florida.

m

Stuart, Florida - First Impressions

Stuart is a nice town to visit by boat. Its revitalized historic downtown district with its shops, theatre and restaurants is a 10-minute walk from Sunset Bay Marina. It has public art - mostly bronze sculptures - here and there in small parks and in front of office buildings. You should get out of the car and take a look. Here's their town mascot, a sailfish. If I were to name him I'd call him Stuart:

We really lived it up in Stuart when we were there during May through June and into July 2011. We joined a gym near the marina (thanks, Lou!). We ate out at restaurants we hadn't seen in a while: sushi, Chinese, organic Middle Eastern, southern B-Q, and more. We shopped in giant sooper marts. We spoke English everywhere.

We also rented a car. Seems it's impossible to do a lot of business in the US unless you drive everywhere. And there was hardly a bus or taxi in sight. In Latin America, you need only stand on a street - any street - and a taxi is sure to stop within a few minutes and take you most anywhere in town for just a couple of bucks. In the US? You need to call for a taxi, which means you need to buy a phone, and then have more cash on hand to pay for the taxi. Expenses add up fast in the US of A.

We were braced to spend large coin because we were doing a major refit of The Fox. And spend large coin we did. But we also got to do a bit of turismo in Florida while we were at it. Even the stretch of old highway along the Indian River/ICW between Stuart and Fort Pierce 12 miles to the north (where some of our refitting business was conducted) was a scenic treat. Even though a driver is limited to about 30mph on the old highway, it's faster than driving the new highway/arterial where there are all those pesky malls and traffic signals. Plus, along the old riverfront highway, a driver gets to look at a succession of modern McMansions (most with "for sale" signs in front of them), historic houses, and even modest, 1930s-era Cracker houses still hanging in there. If you ever have your boat in Stuart, I'd strongly recommend renting a car or riding a bicycle, and taking a little look around. Oceanfront or riverfront, this is a great area for a little exploration.

m

The Intracoastal Waterway - Good? Or Bad? Yes, It Is.

After we got bounced around offshore going north from Ft. Lauderdale to West Palm Beach, Florida, we decided that our next leg would be on the dread Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).

For those not in the nautical know, today's ICW is a channel about 3000 miles long that extends from Norfolk, Virginia in the north to the Florida Keys in the south. It roughly parallels the Atlantic coastline. It's basically a sheltered waterway comprised of natural streams, rivers and estuaries as well as dredged channels, marked with buoys and daymarkers, that allows commercial and recreational traffic to travel in relative speed and safety from Point A to Point B without having to risk the treacherous waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Because on the US East Coast, when the weather gets bad - it gets REALLY BAD. And the Atlantic waters get even worse.

Reentry in Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Florida

Our two days in Ft. Lauderdale went very pleasantly. As terrible as the Floridians' behavior was on the water, every single person we met on shore went out of their way to be pleasant and helpful. We officially checked in to the US in person at the US Customs/Border Patrol office down by the commercial piers and a gentleman who was also there doing Customs business - who turned out to be a former cruiser - very kindly drove us to our next destination. GB and I provisioned; we shopped; we ate sushi and pizza; we met even more nice people. Delightful.

Passage to Florida

Wow, has it been almost a year since we sailed from Puerto Morelos, Mexico, to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida?

That road trip we'd taken through the Yucatan Peninsula was one of our best road trips ever, anywhere. With that now behind us, on May 6, 2011, we checked out of Mexico* and started across the Yucatan Channel, making for the east coast of Florida.

* We had a few hours' delay, waiting for (1) the officials to show up at Marina El Cid with our exit papers; and (2) the fuel truck to show up with some diesel. But in the end, we got out before we'd lost very much time.

Maya, Maya, Mayapan

You're coming to the end of your 10-day whirlwind tour of the Yucatan. You're leaving the Puuc Route and driving northeast out of Santa Elena and Ticul. You're stopping at the ruins of Mayapan on Highway 18 before heading back on the main highway to drop off the rental car. Don't rush - look around Mayapan for a couple hours.