SV Gallant Fox

The Great Splash of December 2014

Our placing of The Fox back in the water - our reverse haulout, if you will - occurred in December, 2014, in Puerto Chiapas, Mexico. I was gratified to overhear a Mexican national on our incoming flight complain about "being back in the Tapachula sauna." At least I know it wasn't just Menopausal Me who had trouble with the heat and humidity.

Overall, The Fox had weathered the 6 rainy summer months fairly well. Sails, rig, transmission, shaft seal, and electronics were all fine. No leaks. Watermaker was fully functional. There was a small amount of corrosion on some electronics terminals and the expected grime on deck and the batteries were fully discharged, but ultimately we found no serious problems with any gear. This pic shows The Fox before getting a new coat or 2 of hull paint.

We had asked the yard guys to prep and paint the hull because the weather was just too hot and humid for GB to DIY this time. The yard guys did an excellent job and it was well worth their labor at US $600. (The copper-enriched hull paint was the typical going price of about US $200 per gallon.) In that pic over there on the left, you can just barely see marina manager Enrique Laclette, striding away in his white shirt. 

All Is Still Well

Criminy. No posting in FOUR YEARS? Inexcusable.

As is always the case, life got in the way. Amazingly, none of the life events was very negative. To summarize 2014-2018:

On March 21-22, 2014, we successfully transited the Panama Canal from north (Caribbean) to south (Pacific) -- no thanks to adverse breezes & currents, and a large catamaran we had to repeatedly tie up to in each of the locks. Sure; that's what those giant fenders hanging all over The Fox are for, but come on, people: have the required number of FOUR line handlers on board who will actually, you know, HANDLE THE LINES; and please use all the required 125-foot-long mooring lines instead of the 15-foot dock lines you use in marinas. Gah.

Minor adventures in Costa Rica (corrupt Customs official) & Nicaragua (one of us fell overboard) ensued, but no permanent harm was done to us anywhere. All parts of Mexico treated us very well as is their custom. Weather came and went. The Fox came and went. We became reacquainted with old cruising friends and made some new ones. Did some new upgrades & refitting in Mazatlan during the 2015-2016 cruising season. The weather for the 2017 cruising season in the Sea of Cortez was predominantly suboptimal throughout the region, but sailing is like that sometimes. All in all the days were just packed. For four whole years, it seems. Heh.

m

 

 

A Slow 100 Miles - Days 1 Through 3

I figured poor GB could use a break after doing a very intensive 11 days of boat work on the hard in Green Cove Springs, Florida, during early January 2013. (That's him on the ground in pic on the right, painting the last of the bottom paint on the underside of the keel just before we splashed.) Instead of my preferred strategy of sailing offshore for a night or two, I planned a slow, 10-day trip northbound up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), going only about 10 miles/day so that we both had plenty of time to recover and enjoy the marshland scenery of northern Florida/southern Georgia. Due to the extensive marshes in this area, it is less developed and has much less boat traffic than southern and central Florida. It certainly has its share of McMansions anywhere the ground is solid enough to build a foundation, but you also see stretches of wooded hammocks which support birds like heron, egrets, osprey and even the occasional bald eagle. Which is nice.

Green Cove Springs, Florida - Logistical Considerations

Thinking of hauling your boat at Green Cove Springs Marina? Here are a few factoids to consider. To reduce the potential of surprise when you show up there.

Green Cove Springs is located about 35 miles south of Jacksonville, Florida, on the west side of the St. Johns River. To get there, a boat must be capable of traveling under 65' fixed bridges and one or two lift/bascule bridges - 7 bridges, total; most of them in the short stretch passing through downtown Jacksonville. Sometimes one or the other of the lift or bascule bridges is being repaired or has been hit by a boat (seriously), so there may be no access whatsoever up/down river until what's busted gets fixed. Which can take days, or even weeks. Plan accordingly; call the marina to ask if they know of any current problems with any of the bridges; and keep tuned to the bridges' working channel, VHF 9, before you commit to travel upriver.

Green Cove Springs, Florida

We left Latin America for the US East Coast in May 2011 because The Fox was almost 10 years old then and was due for a refit. We were looking for a reasonably-priced boat yard with convenient access to the metric farkload of boat parts we needed, which ideally could also offer long term dry storage for The Fox. The US was handier for us than other countries, because some of our heavier and more complicated equipment (diesel heater, watermaker, etc.) had to be shipped to US locations for repair, which would clearly be faster and cheaper to accomplish if The Fox were also located in the US. We bounced back and forth between Florida and Georgia for a few months, and from the last week of November '11 through the first week of February '12 we added a quick cruise of the Bahamas. En route we asked other cruisers for their choice of the best yard for working on a boat. Green Cove Springs Marina appeared to be their favorite. It is one of a few (if not the only) DIY boat yards on the US East Coast. And it is certainly one where your haul-out dollar goes far.

The Boat - It Floats!

GB did an excellent job replacing thru-hulls.They are SOLID, baby.

Too bad the toilet irreversibly packed it in as soon as we left the pier. Looks like it's "bucket-and-chuck-it" time on The Fox until we reach Brunswick.

I pity the fools what anchor near us.

m

"So, What Else Happened After You Came Back to The Fox on New Year's Day?"

I'm so glad you asked.

The black plastic mesh landscape fabric we'd wrapped around The Fox before we'd left her, appeared to have successfully protected the topsides from the damaging effects of months of sun and bad weather. Upon removing the fabric we found The Fox grimy but with no obvious damage. Considering The Fox had weathered nine full months (March thru December) in Florida weather*, the boat was in excellent shape.

* Florida's climate is almost identical to Costa Rica's: damp, squishy, and never too long until the next rainfall. The difference between seasons in Florida, is that wintertime is just as wet as summertime, but summertime has the additional thrill of intense heat, tropical storms, hurricanes and lots of lightning. The poor Fox had to deal with such adversity all alone.

To GB's and my great relief, after unending rainstorms the 12-year-old Fox had sprung no leaks down below. Not one. We only saw a few isolated patches of mildew, easily cleaned with a swipe of a vinegar-dampened paper towel. However, as we revived all the boat's dormant systems we discovered that certain significant pieces of equipment had committed seppuku - probably out of spite for our long absence. Our repair list included: (1) the galley faucet (replaced - $$); (2) the rolling sun shade covering the forward berth's hatch (replaced - $$$ - amazing how expensive these small things are!); (3) the battery charger (replaced - $$$); (4) the 3 gel batteries, 11 y.o., that cooked themselves to death (replaced - $$$$); (5) the 12 y.o. filler hose to the port tank, irreparably split (temporarily spliced- $); and (6) the engine's impeller (replaced - $$).

This is why they say the word "BOAT" is an acronym for "Bring On Another Thousand."

By the time this post is published we will hopefully be back in the water and still afloat. I say this seriously, because one of GB's projects was replacing a couple of thru-hulls and golly, I sure would hate to see them...you know...fail. His work looks good though, so it's very likely that by the weekend we will be ever-so-slowly moving northbound along the Intracoastal Waterway to Georgia. It's a distance of about 100 miles that we hope to make by traveling an average of about 10 miles per day. After working so hard for so long on so many different projects, GB desperately needs some R&R.

See ya!

m

"Listen...Do you smell something?"

Scene 1: 7. Jan. 2013 - Today. Exterior shot of sky. A cool, overcast, winter Monday morning in the boat yard of Green Cove Springs Marina, Florida. Pan downward to boats in yard on jackstands. Sideways pan to ladder leaning against Gallant Fox. Our heroic duo have just climbed into The Fox's cockpit and have unlocked the companionway hatch, ready to begin another day of work before splashing the boat 72 hours later, on Thursday morning.

"What's that smell?"

"It's either teen spirit, or...THE BATTERIES HAVE COOKED!!!"

Scene 2: Seconds later. Interior shot of boat as seen from companionway. Mad scramble to remove all objects, including cushions, from saloon where battery box is located at base of mast while "Yakkity Sax" soundtrack plays. Gingerly removal of planks and battery box lid.

"Whoa, the batteries are toast, all right."

"Totally fried. Sizzlin' and bubblin' like three rectangular conjoined mini-volcanoes."

How did this happen? The sequence of events went something like this:

Minor Canvas Projects in Florida

I spent some time in Stuart working on smaller sewing projects while there were no cushions in the saloon and I was farming out the bigger jobs to Canvas Works. It still left me with plenty to do:

I visited a local upholstery shop and sewed new curtains and tie-backs out of some fancy-patterned, silky-textured Sunbrella I ordered from there, that was the most expensive fabric I've ever bought ($75/yd.) - even for The Fox, which has earned the finest of everything we can lay our hands on. Worth every penny, that fabric with its little rectangular dots of browns and creams - but I'm glad I used only about a yard of the stuff for all the boat's curtains.

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.