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[Kensblog] A whole new boat! (Well .. almost) 8/17/2016 18:00 8/17/2016 18:09 8/17/2016 19:18

By on August 17, 2016 in Sans Souci

Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
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[Kensblog] A whole new boat! (Well .. almost)

By on August 17, 2016 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[Kensblog] A whole new boat! (Well .. almost) 8/17/2016 7:18:34 PM
I am happy to report that Sans Souci will soon be back on the water!

A quick recap:

Last December we shipped Sans Souci from Mallorca Spain to Seattle. This was the final chapter in what was loosely intended as a circumnavigation. From Spain we had planned to cross the Atlantic and cruise the Caribbean, but Sans Souci had been away from home for seven years and was starting to send us subtle messages that it was time for some extensive maintenance.

We still think of Sans Souci as a new boat, but she wasn’t looking so new anymore. Over the nine years we have owned her she has taken us (and our pups) to twenty countries while running nearly 40,000 miles.

Sans Souci was running fine, but was she ready for another ocean crossing? And, more importantly, were Roberta and I ready for another ocean crossing? We knew the answer to that one. We were both eager to get home. There were some big things happening in our personal lives, and we knew that it was time for a return to reality.

When not on the boat we have lived most of the past twenty years dividing our time between Seattle and Mexico. We had decided to put our home in Mexico for sale and had a lot of work to do to prepare for the sale. We needed to get focused on readying the home for sale. (NOTE: I am happy to report that our home sold quickly and easily.)

All of which is the long way of saying, Sans Souci has been going through a major renewal for the past eight months. But, within a few days we get her back!

The balance of this article describes the work that was done. Those of you not interested in technical details may wish to stop reading now.

The largest project was the installation of American Bow Thruster’s At Rest (STAR) stabilization system.

Regular readers of my blog might recall that we spent a lot of miserable nights in the Med this past summer. The southern coast of France and Spain are incredible, but there are very few good places to anchor. And those that are good are so crowded that the wakes from all the boats — during the daylight hours — make for very choppy water.

When I first heard about the STAR (STabilization At Rest) system I thought it was a simple software upgrade to my system.

But, as I started doing research, I quickly realized that without the main engines running there would be no hydraulic pressure to move the pistons that control the actuators (that move the fins). Unfortunately, the main engines can’t be used to power the stabilizers at anchor, because the stabilizers don’t require much horsepower to move back and forth. Running the main engines for hours with virtually no load would be hard on my main engines and shorten their life.

And, so began the slippery slope…

Making a VERY long story short, I discovered that I needed an alternate source of hydraulic power. There were two options:

A) An electrically driven pump (powered by my generator)

Or B) a hydraulic pump attached directly to the end of my generator.

I chose Option A, even though it was the less efficient and costlier method. The decision for me was based on where I could place the pump within the engine room. If I had put a pump directly on the generator it would have required space in a part of the engine room where no space was available. It would have blocked the door to the lazarette.

Powering the fins was only one piece of the puzzle. The fins required for ABT’s STAR system are slightly longer and skinnier than those required for stabilization while running. ABT advised me that for the best result I would need to upgrade to larger and differently shaped fins. I would be moving up from 12 square foot fins to 16 square foot fins.

And, bigger fins would mean bigger actuators.

The slippery slope gets steeper…

Installing the new larger actuators created more challenges than expected. Because of the tight place they’d be going, the new actuators had to be custom made in order to fit my boat. We then had to add a larger hydraulic tank to handle and cool the extra hydraulic fluid, and a hydraulic accumulator tank to help smooth pressures in the hydraulic system.

We also discovered we needed a large electric box called a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) to convert the single phase electricity coming from my generator to the three-phase electricity required by the hydraulic pump, and to smoothly phase-in the load on the electrical system when starting the pump.

Another large project was replacing all of the air handlers (air conditioning units)…

Our project to replace the air handlers became much larger than originally planned. What started as replacing the two that we knew were failing became a project to replace all of the air handlers in the boat AND MORE.

For those of you who have no idea what an air handler is, I’ll give the briefest of explanations.

Sans Souci’s air conditioning and heating system is comprised of four major parts:

– Chillers: These are refrigeration units that sit at the back of the boat and provide the cooling
– Kabola: This is a diesel furnace (a furnace powered by diesel) that provides heat to the boat
– The Loop: There is a loop of water which constantly is circulated around the boat. This loop is full of cold or hot water, depending on if we want to cool or heat the boat
– Air Handlers: These look like old-fashioned heating radiators, and function exactly the same way. Air is blown across the cold (or hot) loop and into the room.

Each year during the off-season one of the many tasks I give my mechanics is to “exercise” my thru-hulls. These are the holes drilled into the hull through which cooling water flows into the boat or out of the boat.

I remember in Captain’s school that one of our projects was to write down a list of thru-hulls on our boats. There are more than one might think. Here’s a list of the thru-hulls on Sans Souci:

Intakes
– two intakes for the sea chest (to reduce the total number of thru-hulls a common “chest” is used to distribute raw water to the generators, hydraulic cooling and a/c chiller cooling)
– An intake for each of my two watermakers
– Two intakes for each of my two main engines

Exits (these are all smaller)
– Two exits for the watermakers (above the water line)
– An exit for gray water (beneath the water line)
– An exit for black water (beneath the water line)
– Two exits for the watermakers (above the water line)
– An exit for the a/c chiller cooling water (above the water line)
– Two exits for the generators (above the water line)

As you can see, there are a bunch of them! And, I’ve probably forgotten some….

If a hose ever bursts that leads to any of the below water thru-hulls it could be a bad day. And in fact, hoses do burst or spring leaks from time to time. Also, when equipment is bring worked on, hoses often need disconnected. This is where the valves on the thru-hulls come into play. Each thru-hull has a lever which can be used to open or close the thru-hull.

I’ve never asked a boat surveyor (inspector) but I’d bet that they frequently find thru-hulls that are rusted and inoperable on the boats they inspect. Should a water leak occur while at sea, closing the thru-hulls is the first line of defense against water flowing into the boat. I’ve tried from time to time to close a thru-hull and found it almost impossible. I avoid doing so because the thru-hulls typically have popsicle stick sized handles. If one were to snap off while half-open water would be flowing into the boat and stopping it would be difficult.

We decided to address this issue pro-actively. Sans Souci’s thru-hulls were replaced with the butterfly-valve based thru-hulls used on large commercial vessels. I haven’t had an opportunity to try yet, but the mechanics assure me that they can be opened or closed with fingers. Much better!

And.. Another project; one that I knew would be difficult but needed to be done

I have been fighting for years a nagging overheating problem with my engines. To be technically accurate, the engines have never overheated, but that’s because I have been babying them, and babying should not be required.

My main engines are what they call “continuous duty” engines, meaning they are supposed to be able to run continuously at their full rated output (340hp per engine.) However, I’ve never been able to run them at more than about a 50% load without the temperature climbing precipitously.

I’ve asked about it to the manufacturer over the years, and taken a long series of steps meant to improve the situation, but nothing has been effective. I haven’t considered it a major issue, in that my boat was designed to be run with a single engine. Having two of them at half the output works just fine. But, I’ve known for years that it was something that would need fixed when the boat got back to the US. There are times when I need to be able to “run up” the engines without having to worry about them overheating. For example, once a day when on long passages I should run my engines up to maximum throttle for 15 minutes. It’s good for the engines, and I’ve done it, but it is spooky to see the engine temperatures climb into the red zone even if only for a few minutes.

Because my boat has been in out-of-the-way places, I’ve not been able to get representatives from Northern Lights (maker of the engines) onto the boat to look at the problem. We’ve been emailing each other from time to time.

This time, with the boat in Seattle, I said “I want it fixed once and for all.” In the past we tried to address it by focusing on ventilation in the engine room. I beefed up the fans, with no improvement.

Our latest idea was to focus on the cooling water to the engines. Essentially every piece of plumbing was removed from the boat and replaced with beefier hardware and larger pipes. Places where the hoses made sharp turns, or where water runs were longer than necessary were looked at and fixed. Effectively, we started over and designed a whole new raw water cooling system.

Virtually the entire raw water cooling system on the boat was replaced and upgraded. We just did a sea trial, and for the first time since I’ve owned the boat we were to run both engines at 90% load (I didn’t have the courage to push them to 100% load) without overheating. Yay! We nailed it.

I replaced the Furuno displays around the boat with the newer model color displays. I haven’t tested this yet, but allegedly this display has a feature which I badly wanted. I want to be able to set an alarm based on wind speed. Specifically, I want to be able to set an alarm that says something like, “Wake me up if the wind speed exceeds 30 knots.”

I know my anchor and have confidence in it. But, there is always some maximum wind speed above which I’d want to be awake and at the helm. Traditionally, I have set anchor watch alarms (alarms that are based on the distance the boat moves from the point at which it was anchored.) But the problem with those is that they only wake you if there is a problem. I want woke earlier in the process; when there is a situation (high wind) that might lead to a problem.

The boat is just starting to be put back together as I am typing this, so there isn’t much to show, but we are repairing all the fiberglass dings, wood dings, replacing the carpets, refinishing the tables, replaced the non-skid on the bow, fixed dings in the teak deck. My instructions were that I wanted the boat back “better than new.” I have no doubt it will be.

I should start this discussion of what we did to the audio/visual system on Sans Souci with a brief bit of history.

When our boat was first being built I decided to have all of the navigation, communications and entertainment hardware specified and purchased from a company in Florida called “Larry Smith Electronics.” (LSE) I chose them because I wanted a first tier company and at the time LSE was doing a lot of the east coast high-end yachts. They were an impressive company and delivered proposals to me that were very expensive but I felt confident I would have the best.

However…. what I didn’t know was…

Behind the scenes LSE was struggling financially. I gave them a large chunk of money and they shipped the wiring for my boat off to Taiwan to be installed. Taiwan installed what was literally a ton of wiring.

At which point LSE went belly up, taking my money with them, and that wasn’t the worst of the problems it created.

I quickly contacted Nordhavn’s normal electronics company (Alcom) to have them take over the project. They worked with the builders in Taiwan and did a great job.

Except…

Each electronics company has their own way of doing things. In some cases they used the wiring LSE installed, but in many cases they did their own wiring. My boat finished with two sets of wires.

Then add to it that over the past eight years I have upgraded the boat’s electronics several times, with each new effort resulting in another set of wires.

The final result was that I had lots of wiring much of which went nowhere, and no up to date schematic showing how the system worked. We had reached the tipping point.

So, I had the mechanics rip all of the wires out of the boat and start fresh. This alone was an enormous but much needed project.

My regular mechanic, or a better description would be ‘Yacht Management and Maintenance Guy,’ (Jeff Sanson, Pacific Yacht Management) used his own people to do much of the work, but this phase of the project was driven by a third party company out of Seattle that Jeff introduced me to. They are incredible and VERY recommended. I worked with another Jeff, this time named Jeff McMillan, at Fastclock.net to completely bring up to date all of the electronics on the boat.

What I did and what decisions were made is a very long story. But, the diagram above gives a quick overview.

The design goals were:

– Any TV or monitor on the boat can access any video source
– Maximum quality everywhere (HD) That said, I told them not to worry about 4k video. I might regret that decision someday, but it felt premature at this time.
– Gigabit internet everywhere
– Separate VLNs (networking) for the navigation system, monitoring system, and entertainment systems. I didn’t want any slowdown anywhere on the boat for internet.
– Wifi everywhere on the boat, at full speed, with no dead spots
– No risk of failure. Should the Crestron “brain” at the center of my new system die, I needed redundancy such that I would still have the essential gear (chart plotter, radar)
– Simple to use. I’ve decided I don’t like video based remotes. They make sense to me, but non-geeks on the boat always prefer something with real push buttons. We ultimately went with a combination of push button panels and physical remotes

As long as everything was torn apart I did something which was considered crazy at first, but which I am convinced was the right answer.

I rely on Nobeltec, running on a Windows PC, as my primary chart plotting system. As a backup I used Furuno’s Navnet 3d. Both are good systems, but they are different systems, and I’ve had problems with reliability on the Navnet 3d system.

For simplicity I wanted to standardize at the helm.

So, after thinking about it, I said, let’s rip out Navnet 3d and just give me two identical computers running Nobeltec. This raised the issue that my backup radar had been dedicated to Navnet 3d. Thus I said, let’s just get a duplicate of my primary radar (A Furuno BB 2127 amazing radar.) My thought was to use my older 2127 as my backup radar and make the new 2127 my primary radar.

I now have two identical systems that are fully redundant, that can be brought up on any monitor or tv on the boat, and they work exactly the same way.

And finally, we had some decorating maintenance done: new fabric on outside settees with new decorative pillows, all new canvas covers, including the bimini, sanding and resealing all exterior wood, a new table for the stern cockpit, renewing the exterior granite counter, new carpet for the staterooms, and a brand-new sofa as the old one was falling apart.

The test drive!

After eight months in the shop, last Thursday, we were finally ready for a sea trial. I could not wait to try out my new stabilizers.

There are a couple things to note in this picture. The tender on the port side is brand new! After years of thinking about what to replace our existing tender with we decided to just get a brand new version of exactly the same tender. It is a 15′ ABT DLX. We beat the heck out of our prior tender and it just kept running. We never had a problem with it, but as I look down the road, its time had come. On the starboard side was a smaller tender that never got used. We replaced it with some fun “paddle by foot” kayaks.

Check out this video about the new kayaks:

http://www.hobiecat.com/miragedrive/

The sea trial was a huge success!

That said, it was a success in a lot of areas, but not in the area where I was the most curious. I have no idea how these stabilizers will perform when running in heavy seas, or even when sitting at anchor while trying to sleep in a heavy swell. I am 99% certain the new stabilizers are a huge step forward but our test drive was thwarted by calm seas. We did what we could to generate a little excitement, by zigzagging and trying to run over our own wake, but nothing we did provoked much action from the stabilizers. They are set to counter an angry ocean, not to wobble their way through six inch seas. Earlier today Jeff and his team tried rocking the boat from side to side at the dock to see how the boat would behave, but it really accomplished very little. The real test will come only when I take the boat out in real-world conditions.

On Friday of this week I will recover the boat from the mechanics and start this year’s cruising.

All of this took time and money … but … we don’t know when the boat will be back in the United States again and we wanted to do everything on our wish list before setting out on our next big adventure.

Which raises the question, what cruising?

We have no idea where we’ll cruise next!!!! We have discussed Latin America, the Caribbean, Bermuda, Hawaii, the East Coast of the US, the West Coast of the US and more.

We had originally thought that we would be cruising around the Pacific Northwest this summer, but the work has taken longer than we thought. Our plans are completely unknown at this point, with the probable case probable case that we’ll stay here in the Pacific Northwest — next summer season as well. We want some time to cruise our beautiful islands and coast before setting off on another lap around this planet we call home.

Until next time,

Ken and Roberta Williams (and the pups: Toundra and Keeley)
N6805, Sans Souci

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[kensblog] Sans Souci gets a new life

By on May 4, 2016 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[kensblog] Sans Souci gets a new life 5/4/2016 2:53:21 PM

Sans Souci is in Seattle!

I still think of Sans Souci as our “new boat.” It replaced a smaller boat from the same manufacturer (a Norhavn 62 which bore the same name.) I remember when she was built and all the excitement of customizing her, traveling to Taiwan to watch her built, waiting anxiously as she was delivered to the US aboard a freighter, and finally starting the engines for the first time.

That was only about eight years ago, but since that time she has taken us over thirty thousand miles, south to Costa Rica, north to Alaska, then across the Bering Sea, through Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the Eastern Med we explored Turkey, Greece, Malta, Croatia, Montenegro. Then to the Med where we explored Sardinia, Italy, Spain and France. It has been an amazing journey.

Sailors (and, us power boaters) have been known to claim that the true definition for the word “cruising” is “Fixing your boat in exotic places.”

Salt water is corrosive. It may be pretty, but the same sea spray which feels so good as you move through it is constantly eating away at everything on the boat. Plus, think about the toll that bouncing over ocean waves takes on a boat. Imagine even the best-built of homes, and what would happen were you to dangle it from a giant bungie cord rising and falling every few seconds for months at a time. And, then think about all the systems on a boat; four different electrical systems (12v, 24v, 120v, 240v) with electricity that we make ourselves, water that we make ourselves, satellite communications equipment, navigation equipment, satellite tv positioning systems, grey water system, black water system and much more. Boats are comprised of dozens of intricate systems which live in a highly corrosive environment.

The bottom line: Those of you who are reading this particular blog entry hoping I’ll talk about sexy and exciting places to go may as well stop reading now. Sans Souci has put on a lot of miles over the past eight years and the time has come to “make her new again” before we set out on our next big adventure.

I’d also say that if you are someone hoping to buy a boat, hide this article from your significant other. It is best if she or he doesn’t figure our what boats really cost, or how much work they are, until later.

The rule of thumb on boats is that one should estimate about 10% of the purchase price for a boat as the annual maintenance budget. I could never understand how people could spend that much, but … as you’ll see reading this blog entry, I’m doing a few years of “catch up” this year!

Each season as we cruise I make a list of things that need fixed. This has meant shipping spare parts around the world.

During the off-season, Jeff my Seattle based mechanic and his team fly to wherever I’ve left the boat and start working on the annual maintenance. This has meant getting work done in dozens of countries, each with their own import regulations, access to parts, and languages. Some countries, where you would think it would be easiest turned out to represent a serious challenge. In Japan we struggled even to find engine oil. Jeff did a fantastic job, but the fact is that getting the right people and the right parts, while traveling internationally, is not easy and in some places it is impossible.

There are many projects which we decided were best handled when the boat returned to Seattle.

This past season Roberta and I really started sensing that the time had come to bring Sans Souci home. The boat was running fine, and if we had needed to cross an ocean, I have no doubt we’d have made it without having to pull out the oars. But, there were dozens of little ways in which Sans Souci was sending us a message that she wanted some loving of the sort Jeff could only give her back home in Seattle.

We had planned to cruise this past summer in the Caribbean along with our GSSR partner boats Seabird and Ocean Pearl. However, there were lots of reasons why it just didn’t happen. In addition to our sensing that Sans Souci needed serious maintenance, we had some personal issues that pulled us home.

Some of you might know that we have lived, when not on the boat, in Mexico for the last seventeen years. Last year we decided to build a home in the California Desert and sell our home in San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico. We were working with an architect to design our new home, plus needed to get our home in Mexico ready for sale. Our home in Cabo took a direct hit from a hurricane a couple years ago. We had made most of the repairs but there was still some work to do to get the home ready for sale, and the toughest was to break the news to our friends and neighbors that we’d be moving. This was particularly rough in that we had created a life so good that no one understood why we’d be willing to blow it up. All we could say in response is that we did it because at the core we are wandering nomads. The perfection of our lives in Cabo was part of what we wanted to change. We like new places, new things, new challenges, new restaurants, etc. It’s why we cruise the world. Our life in Cabo was too comfortable and we wanted to shake things up.

It was time to send Sans Souci home and focus on events at home.

Anyway .. this all brings me to the work that is now well underway.

Like all boat repair lists, ours started small and grew.

Initially, all we wanted was to update the boat cosmetically. The carpet was worn. Our doggies had put some scratches in the wood floors, there were dings in the cabinetry, fiberglass that had been bumped by the tender, the couch in the living room was starting to sag and the outside cushions had faded.

No decision has been made on where we will be cruising next. We don’t know if it will be in the continental United States or if we’ll be heading somewhere off the grid. We have discussed heading back to Alaska, but we have also discussed Hawaii, the Caribbean and South America. Our assumption is that we’ll go somewhere and that it probably means that this is our last bite at the apple for major boat repairs before we start another five to ten years of having the boat away from home. Whatever we do next we know that we want the boat made new before we begin, so that our next thirty thousand miles are as trouble free as those that have already passed beneath our keel.

There was only one really big project we were discussing…

Those who read my blog this last season were frustrated by reading me whine in virtually every blog entry about our inability to find a calm peaceful anchorage. We have “flopper stoppers” – giant trays we hang off the side of the boat which help keep the boat from being tossed around when our anchorage isn’t calm. Normally these do a great job, but they were inadequate for the unprotected anchorages we found in the Med. We ripped the trays off the boat on a couple of occasions and were miserable at anchor for most of the season.

Thus, I started researching “at rest” stabilization.

When Sans Souci is underway we have giant wings under the water that look like stubby aircraft wings. As we move through the water they pivot in an effort to keep the boat flat. If you’ve ever put your hand out the window while driving you know how they work. But when sitting still, they do nothing to keep the boat from moving with the waves.

The first option I explored was the gyro based systems, like Seakeeper. These work by spinning a giant ball at very high speed to stabilize the boat. Remember the tops and gyroscopes we had as kids? It’s the same principal, and they do work.

But, unfortunately, a gyro based system wouldn’t be possible on Sans Souci. The gyros grow in size based on the weight of the vessel they are trying to stabilize. A gyro sufficient in size to stabilize Sans Souci would weigh two tons, and be nearly four feet across. I simply couldn’t find room to place it anywhere. A single-engine boat like ours “might” find a place, but our twin engines fill the engine room.

I had heard about another system which would use the boat’s existing stabilizers to provide at rest stabilization but have had doubts about whether or not it really works. Basically, all it does is flap the stabilizer fins even though the boat is sitting still. By moving the fins rapidly the movement of the waves is counteracted. The company that made my stabilizers has pitched me on it a few times over the years but I’d never heard of anyone successfully using their system. I hadn’t heard anything bad, but I didn’t know of any boats as heavy as mine using the system successfully.

I posted a message to all the owners of large Nordhavns to see whether anyone else had experimented with the system, and received a response from only one Nordhavn owner, who had upgraded to the system, but then partially uninstalled the system. The stabilizer fins required are larger than the normal stabilizer fins. I spoke with the owner of the boat and he didn’t like how the boat felt while underway with the over-sized fins. He went back to the normal sized fins, reducing the effectiveness of the at-rest stabilization. His experience was an exception though. I spoke with other boat owners (all lighter boats, and non-Nordhavn) who said the system did work and was very effective. And, I convinced myself that the larger fins would be fine on my boat. The other Nordhavn was single engine, and my dual engine, twin skeg, boat would track much better through the water. I’m confident that having larger fins will not be an issue on my boat.

As I got deeper into the project I discovered the project wouldn’t be as simple as I first thought. For example, my stabilizers are powered by a hydraulic system that runs off my main engines. I would need a way to power the hydraulic system without the main engines running. This would mean a large electrically-powered hydraulic pump, which I’d need to find space for. I then realized that the “actuators” (the big piston-driven mechanism inside the boat that pivots the stabilizers) would need replaced with larger units. I’d also need to replace the computer brain that powered the stabilizers. And as the project became reality we hit other surprises. Jeff recommended we hire a nautical engineer to verify that the hull was strong enough to handle the larger stabilizers, and then the engineer recommended beefing up the fiberglass.

At this point, if I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn’t. But – I haven’t tried out the new stabilizers yet and won’t until we put the boat in the water in June. If the system does its job it will have all been worth it. I am optimistic, but the jury is still out.

For more information: CLICK HERE

How to turn a little project into a big project

There is a gentleman named Steve D’Antonio who offers marine consulting services. His reputation is legendary and I’ve always wanted an excuse to have him look at Sans Souci. One of the many services he offers is boat inspection. Steve has a reputation for finding EVERYTHING wrong on a boat. One fellow boater I spoke to, when I mentioned wanting Steve to survey my boat, said, “Ken, don’t do it. Steve will find so much wrong with your boat that when he is finished you’ll take one look at his report and then sell the boat.” I am very confident in Sans Souci’s seaworthiness, but that’s a challenge I could not resist. When we head to sea with Sans Souci we are literally betting our lives on the boat getting us to our destination safely. I have absolute confidence in my normal mechanic Jeff, but .. there’s nothing wrong with getting a second opinion. If there is even a remote possibility that something somewhere might need fixed, I want it found. A thousand miles offshore is the wrong place to discover that a bolt should be tightened.

It would be an understatement to say that Steve did an amazing job. His reputation is well deserved. To be fair, arguably, most of the items he found are things that would be fine without fixing, or that Jeff would have caught and fixed. But .. Steve spent two long days crawling everywhere on Sans Souci and came up with hundreds of items and SIX HUNDRED and FIFTY pictures of things that he felt merited attention.  Sans Souci is a carefully maintained boat. It has been difficult getting the repairs exactly the way I want them given all the frustrations of international travel. But… we now have the time and the right team to get things made new. Between Steve and Jeff, I have zero doubt that Sans Souci will be better than new when she comes back from the shipyard. If you ever hear a boat has been through a Steve D’Antonio inspection and the repairs made, you can feel comfortable taking that boat to sea.

In addition to everything else going on, here are a few samples of other projects…

I decided to overhaul the navigation system on Sans Souci. 

First, a bit of background…

We have been running two different pieces of software for chart plotting: Nobeltec Odyssey (on a Windows PC) and Furuno Navnet 3d (which is a proprietary hardware system.) The two systems have very different interfaces, and I’ve never really used the Navnet 3d system. I use it as a backup, but even as a backup it has seemed unreliable and awkward to use. In BOTH Turkey and Spain it died completely and had to be replaced. If you think it is frustrating to spend money replacing equipment you use, imagine spending money on equipment that is a never-used backup.

Actually, there is one minor piece of Navnet 3d that I do use. Whereas I haven’t been impressed with Navnet 3d as a chart plotting system, it comes in handy as a second radar from time to time.

When Jeff called to say, “You need new charts for your Navnet 3d system,” I responded, “You know. I don’t use anything but the radar. Why don’t I just install a cheap radar, PLUS get a second computer running Nobeltec?” At first Jeff thought I was crazy. I sent him a link to a cheap radar, and he wrote back, “Ken. That is a piece of crap. You don’t want it on the boat.” I reminded Jeff that I was just looking for a backup radar, not my primary radar. Given that it was a piece of equipment that might never be used, why would it being a piece of fecal matter make a difference?

I don’t remember if it was Jeff or I who had the winning idea…

I wanted Navnet 3d off the boat. We discussed going with something called TZ Touch, that to be honest I still don’t completely understand. What I knew was that I liked Nobeltec and didn’t really want to learn something new, and I was not giving up Nobeltec as my primary system. Not happening. And, as we looked at cheap radars, I started thinking about training Roberta or any crew, on using the backup radar. And.. the toughest one to train would be – me! Don’t let anyone tell you that it is easy to use radar. On a clear day with only a few boats around, radar is easy. But .. when running in rough seas, with ugly weather, with lots of boats around, knowing how to make the radar do magic is absolutely critical. And, as I thought about this ..the solution was obvious. What I really wanted was to have my backup be the same as my primary. I wanted TWO copies of Nobeltec, and two of my “good” (Furuno 2127 BB) radar. If I’m at sea, and my radar or my chart plotter flakes out, I want to press a button and go. I don’t want to futz around learning a new system that I never use.

Thus … the decision was made that:

– Navnet 3d would go
– My pre-existing primary radar would become my backup
– I’d get a second computer to run Nobeltec
– I’d get a new radar as my primary, that would be just like what my old radar was

To make a very long story short, I ultimately decided that the right answer was to have twin computers, each running Nobeltec, with two identical radars. My primary radar has been a Furuno Black box 2127 unit. It’s a high-end commercial unit and has been bulletproof.  My existing 2127 will now be my backup and the new 2127 will be my primary. The beauty of this is that whereas before everyone needed to learn two different radar packages and two different chartplotter packages I now have two identical systems on tap at all times.

Here’s a quick summary of some other projects:

Carpeting – Roberta and I disagree on what to do with carpeting on the boat. She is focused on pretty, and I am focused on “lasts forever.” Every time we walk into some high-traffic location (like an airport) and I see carpet, I immediately say, “Why can’t we have this carpet?” Roberta always says, “Don’t worry. I will choose something durable.” Fingers are crossed that she does.

Wood dings – Someone once told me that scratches and dings are “personality.” If you see an eight year old boat that has zero scratches, the odds are it has been a marina queen, or owned by someone who was afraid to take it out into rough seas. We’re going to make Sans Souci new again, but anyone going on board today would instantly know that Sans Souci has lots of personality.

Annual Maintenance – I subscribe to a service called “Wheelhouse Technologies.” They have a database with all of the equipment on my boat. Each piece of equipment has recommended maintenance at different intervals. Bearings need greased. Pumps need replaced, rebuilt, or new bearings. Engines need oil changes, new oil filters and new fuel filters. Hoses need replaced. The list is endless. Even on a normal year there is plenty to be done on Sans Souci. As a bit of a side story, in one of my first jobs as a computer programmer I was assigned to programming software to keep track of maintenance on the DC-10 aircraft. I remember the stacks of paper that we would generate showing work to be done. They now seem small!

Steve D’Antonio – Steve’s “fix it” list on Sans Souci is a full-time job. Steve did exactly what I wanted. He dug deep, and focused on the small details. He crawled into places I never knew existed. Jeff will be assigning a full time mechanic just to “work Steve’s list.”

Mickey Smith – Sometimes cool things happen. The original designer of my boat’s electrical system was an engineer named Mickey Smith. He worked for Nordhavn designing their electrical systems, and then went to a competitor, followed by retiring. Recently Mickey decided to “drop back in” and Jeff scooped him up. No one is more prepared to look at my electrical system and verify that it is exactly right than Mickey Smith. There are some projects that I will be speaking to Mickey about. In particular, how we designed Sans Souci is different than how we use Sans Souci. I remember adding tremendous battery and inverter capacity to Sans Souci thinking we’d want to survive overnight at anchor without running a generator. I have an amazing 14kw of inverter power and over 2,000 amp hours of battery capacity! That is two or three times what most boats my size have. And, what is really strange is that we just don’t use it. Sans Souci’s electrical requirements are such that we always run a generator. We like cruising in warm places, running the air conditioning constantly, and we like our satellite tv, satellite internet … and even running the hot tub. Sans Souci is a very comfortable boat. We have the creature comforts of a boat many times our size and also the electrical requirement. The inverters and batteries are not used, but take up a lot of space, put out a lot of heat, add complexity to the boat, and need maintained. My #1 lesson from our 10s of thousands of miles of cruising is that “simple is good.” Anything I can do to simplify the boat is a good thing. Having anything on the boat that is complex and unused is not smart. I’m not ready to say that I want to remove this stuff from the boat, but I am looking forward to talking with Mickey about what he thinks I should do (and, having him tweak my system.)

Bumper on the back – One of Jeff’s more interesting projects is to experiment with adding a rubber bumper to the back of my boat. Every year, one of Jeff’s projects is to re-fiberglass the swim step at the back of the boat. Year after year we bump the swim step with the tender and take out chunks of the fiberglass, as well as pieces of the teak. It’s not that we’re bad drivers of the tender, but there are times when the tender arrives at the back of Sans Souci and the swim step is moving through a six foot arc. On those days the focus is on getting passengers onto the swim step safely. No one cares about whether the tender or swim step takes a little abuse. I have done experiments with putting large fenders at the back of the swim step and last year had a custom wide fender made that exactly matched the swim step, but nothing works. This year I want Jeff to find a way to put rubber around the swim step that won’t come off. It’s a trickier task than it sounds.

Rewiring the boat – Sans Souci was born with messed up wiring. When we were early in construction on Sans Souci I hired a top company out of Florida (Larry Smith Electronics) to install all of the entertainment, communications and navigation electronics. They developed fancy wiring diagrams and sent the wire over to Taiwan where the boat was built. They then went bankrupt taking my money with them. I then hired a new company who had their own way of doing things and produced their own fancy wiring diagrams, and shipped a lot more wire to Taiwan. My boat wound up with two sets of wiring, much of which went nowhere! This left an undocumented mess which has haunted the boat over the years and which I decided needed cleaned up. Thus, we’re pulling both sets of wires; trash bag after trash bag of wires, completely off the boat and rewiring. While we’re going we are updating to the latest standards; things like HDMI to all the TVs, an HDMI switcher allowing any video to be routed anywhere, NMEA 2000, etc.

Anchor watch – This is a small project, but one that could have tremendous benefit. We tend to anchor for most of the nights in a season. On a calm night anchoring is wonderful, but when the wind kicks up anchoring can become a challenge. We’re spent many long nights sitting in the pilothouse watching the wind gauge hoping that the anchor would hold and the boat wouldn’t wind up on shore. I also use a series of “apps” on my ipad and iphone to track where we are in our “circle” (the circle that we swing around our anchor.) What I’ve always wanted is a simple alarm that would wake me if the wind goes past a certain velocity. When we drop anchor, we tend to have a very good idea what it would take to cause the boat to break anchor. If it is shallow water and sand, with lots of room to put out chain, we’re in better shape than when on hard pack or weeds and not much scope. We usually have a pretty good idea what speed wind could potentially be a threat. What if I could simply have an alarm that wakes me if the wind passes a certain speed? Over time at an anchorage confidence builds. If on our first night in an anchorage we see 30 knots of wind and the boat holds solid, 25 knots won’t be moving us on subsequent nights. Each night I can set the threshold higher as we sit in the anchorage. On the first night I might say “Wake me at 25 knots.” And, if I was woken and we the wind were to leap to 40 knots, I would feel safe in setting the “wake alarm” to 35 knots on the second night. It’s just a way of avoiding being woke up unnecessarily.

Kayaks – Sans Souci has two tenders on the bow; a 15′ tender and an 11′ tender. The small tender is never used. A couple years back I swapped the engine on the small tender to electric, figuring it would be easier to maintain, and I was right. But.. the tender still isn’t being used. So .. we decided that perhaps we should dump the small tender completely and replace with a couple of kayaks. We bought a couple of fun looking Hobie Kayaks that you paddle with your feet (or, oar by hand.) They seem like they will be good exercise, fun to goof off with, plus easier to beach when we need to get to shore and there are waves. They are fairly light — but, not light. Each weighs around 80 pounds, and our bow sits about 10′ in the air. I’m not sure if I’ll need to use the davit to lower them into the water, or if I can pitch them over the side. It will be a learning experience.

New tender – Roberta and I spent last season taking pictures of the tenders from other boats. We knew our tender was getting old and tired and were trying to decide what to replace it with. Many readers of my blog sent suggestions. Ultimately, we decided that we’d just re-order a new version of what we already had (an AB Inflatables 15DLX.) You can’t beat up a tender or run it in rougher conditions than we have, and our tender runs great. It is fast and reliable. What more could we want?

Stabilizers – I already mentioned the huge project to replace my stabilizers. I had lunch with a friend who flew 747 aircraft for many years and mentioned to him that my new fins would make his wings look small. I was only partially joking! The new fins are shaped differently and are much larger. And, what I didn’t appreciate at first was that everything needs upsized. The “actuator;” the piston driven mechanism that drives the fins needs replaced and my hydraulic system needs upsized to handle the hydraulic needs. It’s a bunch more work than I expected.

Seachest – Much of the equipment on Sans Souci uses seawater for cooling. Rather than each of these items (the generators, the hydraulic system, the a/c chillers) having their own sea water intakes, all of the water comes into a single “box” and is distributed to the equipment from this single box (which has two intakes and six outflows.) The problem is that the box (chest) is tough to clean and loses effectiveness when it needs cleaning. We’re moving the seachest where it can be made larger, and the new seachest will be lined with copper, which sounds wrong to me, but allegedly will collect crud much slower.

Exhaust – This season, I had problems with Sans Souci overheating at higher RPMs. We discovered some leaks in the exhaust system and hopefully this was the issue…

Air Handlers – Sans Souci uses a “chilled water” air conditioning system. This means that the boat has machines (called chillers) which refrigerate water (or, heat water) and distribute it throughout the boat in a giant plastic loop. In each of the rooms of the boat there are little machines called “air handlers” that look like car radiators. The piped water goes into the air handlers which have fans that blow heated or cooled air into the room. Some of Sans Souci’s air handlers are noisy and annoying as a result of being operated non-stop in hot humid environments for nearly a decade. We are replacing the air handlers, which means in some cases doing woodwork, as the air handlers are buried deep in cabinetry.

HD 7 – Sans Souci has not been in the mainland of the United States since 2009. For the first part of our world cruise we had no television. But in the Western Med we were able to obtain satellite tv from the UK. Coming back to the US we had to replace parts of the satellite positioning unit to obtain US tv. We also had to replace the satellite tv receivers. Well … given that all of this work was happening, when Jeff called to say, “Ken. Are you sure you want to continue with your eight year old sat tv receiver? It is now obsolete and your unit is near the end of its life. If you get a new one you’ll get HD.” What could I say?

New auto pilot – Sans Souci’s exterior controls are starting to show their age, and needed replaced. As Jeff was looking into replacing them, he discovered my auto-pilot (the system that I use to drive Sans Souci) is now obsolete and hard to get parts for. “Crap,” I said and approved upgrading to the latest autopilot system. Remember — the goal is to get Sans Souci back BETTER than when new.

Anyway… that’s it so far, but .. there are still a couple of months ahead of work, and the list could grow. Although, I don’t see how it could! Other than the hull it really will be a new boat!

As to this year’s cruising…

The current plan is that we won’t be cruising this year! I apologize to readers of my blog, but we’ve been cruising every year since buying our Nordhavn 62 in 1997. This may change, but our current plan is to spend plenty of time on the boat, but sitting at the dock. We haven’t ruled out the possibility that we’ll get bored and fire up the engines, but … spending a year just sitting at the dock in the Pacific NW, zipping around the bay with the kayaks and tender, sounds pretty darn good!

As to future cruising…

I am typing this from on an airplane as we travel to Hawaii. Our current idea (and, keep in mind that all cruising ideas are written on sand at low time) is that we’ll take the boat to Hawaii. That said, we have friends who say there is no good cruising in Hawaii, and other friends saying it is a wonderful place to have a boat. We figure we’ll check it out for ourselves and then decide. Alternately, we might head to the Caribbean, or back to Alaska, or I’d like to go back to Croatia, or Roberta would like South America, or ..

We have lots of choices!

Thank you,
Ken Williams
N68 Sans Souci

You can access the blog entry
here.

Start your own blog now! Free!

Passagemaking with a Nordhavn 2015-11-02 03:06:06

By on November 2, 2015 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[Kensblog] Sans Souci is in Florida 11/2/2015 10:06:06 AM

I was surprised by this article in a Palm Beach newspaper showing Sans Souci moored in front of a restaurant in Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

Article in Palm Beach Newspaper

Those of you visiting the Ft Lauderdale boat show have a good chance of seeing Sans Souci!

Our hope is to put Sans Souci on a freighter and have her delivered to the West Coast sometime before Christmas.

I’ve started work on a list of winter projects and will post that list here sometime in the next few days.

For now, the biggest projects I know of are going to be:

–          Upgrade the satellite tv system to do HD
–          Replace the stabilizers in order to take advantage of ABT’s “at rest stabilization” system (named Star)

More later…

Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68
Sans Souci

You can access the blog entry
here.

Start your own blog now! Free!

[Kensblog] Sans Souci is in Florida

By on November 2, 2015 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[Kensblog] Sans Souci is in Florida 11/2/2015 10:06:06 AM

I was surprised by this article in a Palm Beach newspaper showing Sans Souci moored in front of a restaurant in Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

Article in Palm Beach Newspaper

Those of you visiting the Ft Lauderdale boat show have a good chance of seeing Sans Souci!

Our hope is to put Sans Souci on a freighter and have her delivered to the West Coast sometime before Christmas.

I’ve started work on a list of winter projects and will post that list here sometime in the next few days.

For now, the biggest projects I know of are going to be:

–          Upgrade the satellite tv system to do HD
–          Replace the stabilizers in order to take advantage of ABT’s “at rest stabilization” system (named Star)

More later…

Ken Williams
Nordhavn 68
Sans Souci

You can access the blog entry
here.

Start your own blog now! Free!

[KensBlog] End of the Road

By on October 2, 2015 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[KensBlog] End of the Road 10/2/2015 12:26:29 PM

It’s the end of a very long road.

The journey that began in May 2009 when three boats — Grey Pearl, Seabird and Sans Souci — departed Seattle has now concluded. We covered over 20,000 miles visiting Canada, Alaska, the Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, Siberia, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia, Italy, Sicily, Malta, France and Spain.

It was the trip of a lifetime.

We met incredible people, cruised places off the beaten path, experienced a wide variety of cultures, witnessed history being made and history long past, and learned more about the world and boating than we’d ever imagined.

As mentioned in prior blog entries, this year, Roberta and I decided to ship the boat home to Seattle aboard a freighter. We flew to Seattle with the dogs a couple of weeks ago, and sent the Seattle-based mechanic/Captain (Jeff Sanson), who maintains our boat, over to Mallorca, Spain, to prepare Sans Souci and load her onto a freighter.

Loading the boat onto a freighter isn’t as easy as it sounds. Roberta, Jeff and I each made lists of things to do before the boat would be loaded onto the freighter.

Here’s a small sampling of the items on Jeff’s list:

1. Call customs guy and pay
2. Pickup euros
3. Throw away dog stuff
4. Clean out freezers and refers setup for shipping.
5. Clean out holding tank
6. Stash all outside cushions
7. Roll up fly bridge Bimini top
8. Tie down all chairs in salon
9. Make sure all cabinet locks are pushed in before leaving boat
10. Store table chairs in side of vessel from top deck
11. Make sure tenders are tied down properly
12. Put fresh baking soda in refers and freezer’s after shutdown
13. Remove all items off counters and store
14. Run Water makers
15. Clean out shower sump with bleach
16. Bleach Gray water tank and pump down
17. Pump down fresh water tank
18. Pump down black water tank
19. Move boat to Palma prior to loading 9/29/15
20. Have diver clean bottom and replace zincs
21. Secure engine room & Lazerette
22. Go through the order of shutting down systems.
23. Last thing is to store dock lines and fenders and once the boat is loaded on the ship.
And more!

Jeff flew to Mallorca thinking he’d have a few days to prepare before the freighter would arrive, and that after its arrival there would be a few days delay. Both he and I were surprised when just a day after his arrival he received this message from the customs agent in Mallorca:

“Jeff:

Saimaagracht arrived today. Loadmasters preparing deck to load smaller yachts this afternoon.

The plan is to load you tomorrow at 8 am.

Please confirm ok

Toni Horrach
Miguel Puigserver, SA
Since 1876″

We shouldn’t have been surprised. I shipped once before with the same yacht transport company, and they were excellent to deal with (Sevenstars.)

Jeff still had a few tasks to complete, but got them all done. The last of the tasks was to get the bottom cleaned. Amazingly, he (and Richard, a local guy I had hired to watch over the boat) persuaded a diver to go under the boat, in driving rain and lightning, to clean the boat.

Loading a boat onto a freighter can be disastrous. I know of two Nordhavns that were destroyed while being lifted, and have had some dicey liftings of my own boat. In addition to those times where the lift seemed barely able to lift the boat, I had a real mess in Costa Rica when I was shipping the boat home to Seattle. The freighter appeared and the Captain took one look at my boat, declared it too heavy, and refused to attempt lifting it. That mess took years to sort out and ultimately resulted in a miserable run up the coast in horrible conditions.

Adding to my sense of nervousness was that our boat was nearing the end of the 18 month period we were allowed to be in Europe without being assessed a huge import tax (VAT). We had been watching the calendar closely and I had carefully preserved the paperwork showing we were in the country legally and had not overstayed our dates, but… should anything go wrong, and some major delay creep in, or some tax authority declare my paperwork insufficient, it could be a nightmare. I had everything well organized, and knew there was nothing to worry about, but… having nothing to worry about has never hindered my worrying.

Thus, the hours before loading were tense. And, with the time zone difference, the action in Spain would be happening while I would be Sleepless in Seattle.

At 11pm I spoke with Jeff Sanson. Sans Souci was to be loaded on the freighter at 8:30am Spain-time (11:30pm Seattle-time.) Jeff was busy doing the final preparations to load the boat  and was waiting for a call from the freighter’s load-master to start the loading. I told Jeff I was going to sleep and he should just text me when the boat was loaded onto the freighter.

At 2:30am the phone rang. I expected it to be Jeff, and that I was about to hear that something had gone wrong. I jumped to answer the phone, fearing the worst, but it was a lady’s voice with a thick Spanish accent. She was from the Port Adriano Marina, where Sans Souci had been moored awaiting departure for the U.S. They had noticed that my boat was gone and wondered if it were coming back. I was half-asleep and did a poor job explaining that the boat was loading onto a freighter. I confused her, leading her to seek her boss, who I further confused. But, the message finally got through, and she said they would email me an invoice.

I had no word from Jeff, so I checked my email and there was a picture of Sans Souci in the slings! The email had just arrived moments before. We were loading! I didn’t want to pester Jeff, so I decided to go back to sleep.

Sleep was impossible. After a bit of tossing and turning I phoned Jeff. No answer. I figured he was busy and tried to sleep again.

At 3:45am, the phone rang. It was Jeff, “Did you call me?” he asked. He went on to say that the boat was still in the water. “But, I saw a picture of it lifted from the water!” I exclaimed. He explained that they had lifted the boat, but then noticed it was coming up at a strange angle, and lowered it back to the water to readjust the straps. Divers were under the boat as we spoke. I was nervous but said, “I’m going back to sleep. Call me if there are problems.”

At 5:45am, after hours of tossing and turning, I texted Jeff to ask how it was going. He texted back a picture of Sans Souci on the deck of the freighter! All was good. Jeff said that all had gone smoothly on the second lifting, and that he had met the captain of the freighter.

The captain gave Jeff, as well as the other two guys with Jeff (Richard, a local person I hired to watch over the boat in my absence, and Steven Argosy, from Seabird) a tour of the freighter, which is loaded with boats bound for the Fort Lauderdale boat show in Florida.

Jeff and I briefly discussed next steps. The freighter will cross the Atlantic in just 11 days.

Things are happening faster than planned. Jeff will return to Seattle and then almost immediately fly to Florida.

Sans Souci was loaded Spain, but will offload in Florida. Jeff will need to put the boat in a marina for some indeterminate amount of time. Then, return home, and fly back again to load the boat onto another freighter where it will probably offload in Canada. After which Jeff will bring it back to Seattle.

 And… then, I’ll relax.

I’ve received a lot of email asking, “What went wrong?” As many of you know, our original plan was to spend almost eight months on the boat this year, including a trip to the Caribbean this coming winter. Instead we spent around four months on the boat and made the decision to ship the boat home, bypassing some great cruising in the Caribbean and the entire east coast of the United States.

There were lots of reasons but it really comes down to: It sounded more fun to be at our home in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, this winter than to be on the boat. We were missing our family and friends in Seattle, and wanted some time at home there, and we thought about how much we missed our life and friends in Cabo, and decided we would rather be there as well. We were also looking forward to cruising with our GSSR co-conspirators in the Caribbean, but… a tough decision had to be made, and we were homesick.

We did have some issues with weather this year (too much wind, and too much swell accompanied by unprotected overly-crowded anchorages) but I don’t think that better weather would have made a difference. It really just came down to, “We love the boat, but we love it for four months a year, not eight months a year.”

We thought about shipping the boat to the east coast, and then cruising there next summer, and came close to doing that. But, we just decided that Sans Souci needed some attention. We’ve run the boat over 30,000 miles and it is time to make her new again. There’s nothing major, but the upholstery is starting to wear, the carpets are looking worn, there are some fiberglass dings, there are some wood dings, etc. We’re looking forward to having the boat at home, and getting her looking perfect again. Also, we have had a slip for nearly a decade at one of our favorite marinas in the world, Roche Harbor, and Sans Souci has never even been in her own slip. We are looking forward to spending some time in the Pacific NW, which is one of the greatest cruising grounds in the world.

So, as we look ahead, and think about “what comes next” the answer is a firm, “Darned if we know.” We haven’t the foggiest idea of what comes next for Sans Souci. We know that she’ll get fixed up, and we know we’ll spend some time next summer in Seattle. But, after that? Who knows? There is some momentum for taking her to Hawaii, and we’re going there soon to check out that option. But.. we don’t know.

Anyway, I thought I’d close out the year with a quick look back at some pictures that aren’t particularly the best pictures or most interesting pictures, but they are ones that reminded me of the good times we had.

That’s it for KensBlog for 2015. Thank you for accompanying Roberta, Keeley, Toundra and I on this amazing journey!

-Ken Williams

You can access the blog entry
here.

Passagemaking with a Nordhavn 2015-10-02 04:26:29

By on October 2, 2015 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[KensBlog] End of the Road 10/2/2015 12:26:29 PM

It’s the end of a very long road.

The journey that began in May 2009 when three boats — Grey Pearl, Seabird and Sans Souci — departed Seattle has now concluded. We covered over 20,000 miles visiting Canada, Alaska, the Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, Siberia, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia, Italy, Sicily, Malta, France and Spain.

It was the trip of a lifetime.

We met incredible people, cruised places off the beaten path, experienced a wide variety of cultures, witnessed history being made and history long past, and learned more about the world and boating than we’d ever imagined.

As mentioned in prior blog entries, this year, Roberta and I decided to ship the boat home to Seattle aboard a freighter. We flew to Seattle with the dogs a couple of weeks ago, and sent the Seattle-based mechanic/Captain (Jeff Sanson), who maintains our boat, over to Mallorca, Spain, to prepare Sans Souci and load her onto a freighter.

Loading the boat onto a freighter isn’t as easy as it sounds. Roberta, Jeff and I each made lists of things to do before the boat would be loaded onto the freighter.

Here’s a small sampling of the items on Jeff’s list:

1. Call customs guy and pay
2. Pickup euros
3. Throw away dog stuff
4. Clean out freezers and refers setup for shipping.
5. Clean out holding tank
6. Stash all outside cushions
7. Roll up fly bridge Bimini top
8. Tie down all chairs in salon
9. Make sure all cabinet locks are pushed in before leaving boat
10. Store table chairs in side of vessel from top deck
11. Make sure tenders are tied down properly
12. Put fresh baking soda in refers and freezer’s after shutdown
13. Remove all items off counters and store
14. Run Water makers
15. Clean out shower sump with bleach
16. Bleach Gray water tank and pump down
17. Pump down fresh water tank
18. Pump down black water tank
19. Move boat to Palma prior to loading 9/29/15
20. Have diver clean bottom and replace zincs
21. Secure engine room & Lazerette
22. Go through the order of shutting down systems.
23. Last thing is to store dock lines and fenders and once the boat is loaded on the ship.
And more!

Jeff flew to Mallorca thinking he’d have a few days to prepare before the freighter would arrive, and that after its arrival there would be a few days delay. Both he and I were surprised when just a day after his arrival he received this message from the customs agent in Mallorca:

“Jeff:

Saimaagracht arrived today. Loadmasters preparing deck to load smaller yachts this afternoon.

The plan is to load you tomorrow at 8 am.

Please confirm ok

Toni Horrach
Miguel Puigserver, SA
Since 1876″

We shouldn’t have been surprised. I shipped once before with the same yacht transport company, and they were excellent to deal with (Sevenstars.)

Jeff still had a few tasks to complete, but got them all done. The last of the tasks was to get the bottom cleaned. Amazingly, he (and Richard, a local guy I had hired to watch over the boat) persuaded a diver to go under the boat, in driving rain and lightning, to clean the boat.

Loading a boat onto a freighter can be disastrous. I know of two Nordhavns that were destroyed while being lifted, and have had some dicey liftings of my own boat. In addition to those times where the lift seemed barely able to lift the boat, I had a real mess in Costa Rica when I was shipping the boat home to Seattle. The freighter appeared and the Captain took one look at my boat, declared it too heavy, and refused to attempt lifting it. That mess took years to sort out and ultimately resulted in a miserable run up the coast in horrible conditions.

Adding to my sense of nervousness was that our boat was nearing the end of the 18 month period we were allowed to be in Europe without being assessed a huge import tax (VAT). We had been watching the calendar closely and I had carefully preserved the paperwork showing we were in the country legally and had not overstayed our dates, but… should anything go wrong, and some major delay creep in, or some tax authority declare my paperwork insufficient, it could be a nightmare. I had everything well organized, and knew there was nothing to worry about, but… having nothing to worry about has never hindered my worrying.

Thus, the hours before loading were tense. And, with the time zone difference, the action in Spain would be happening while I would be Sleepless in Seattle.

At 11pm I spoke with Jeff Sanson. Sans Souci was to be loaded on the freighter at 8:30am Spain-time (11:30pm Seattle-time.) Jeff was busy doing the final preparations to load the boat  and was waiting for a call from the freighter’s load-master to start the loading. I told Jeff I was going to sleep and he should just text me when the boat was loaded onto the freighter.

At 2:30am the phone rang. I expected it to be Jeff, and that I was about to hear that something had gone wrong. I jumped to answer the phone, fearing the worst, but it was a lady’s voice with a thick Spanish accent. She was from the Port Adriano Marina, where Sans Souci had been moored awaiting departure for the U.S. They had noticed that my boat was gone and wondered if it were coming back. I was half-asleep and did a poor job explaining that the boat was loading onto a freighter. I confused her, leading her to seek her boss, who I further confused. But, the message finally got through, and she said they would email me an invoice.

I had no word from Jeff, so I checked my email and there was a picture of Sans Souci in the slings! The email had just arrived moments before. We were loading! I didn’t want to pester Jeff, so I decided to go back to sleep.

Sleep was impossible. After a bit of tossing and turning I phoned Jeff. No answer. I figured he was busy and tried to sleep again.

At 3:45am, the phone rang. It was Jeff, “Did you call me?” he asked. He went on to say that the boat was still in the water. “But, I saw a picture of it lifted from the water!” I exclaimed. He explained that they had lifted the boat, but then noticed it was coming up at a strange angle, and lowered it back to the water to readjust the straps. Divers were under the boat as we spoke. I was nervous but said, “I’m going back to sleep. Call me if there are problems.”

At 5:45am, after hours of tossing and turning, I texted Jeff to ask how it was going. He texted back a picture of Sans Souci on the deck of the freighter! All was good. Jeff said that all had gone smoothly on the second lifting, and that he had met the captain of the freighter.

The captain gave Jeff, as well as the other two guys with Jeff (Richard, a local person I hired to watch over the boat in my absence, and Steven Argosy, from Seabird) a tour of the freighter, which is loaded with boats bound for the Fort Lauderdale boat show in Florida.

Jeff and I briefly discussed next steps. The freighter will cross the Atlantic in just 11 days.

Things are happening faster than planned. Jeff will return to Seattle and then almost immediately fly to Florida.

Sans Souci was loaded Spain, but will offload in Florida. Jeff will need to put the boat in a marina for some indeterminate amount of time. Then, return home, and fly back again to load the boat onto another freighter where it will probably offload in Canada. After which Jeff will bring it back to Seattle.

 And… then, I’ll relax.

I’ve received a lot of email asking, “What went wrong?” As many of you know, our original plan was to spend almost eight months on the boat this year, including a trip to the Caribbean this coming winter. Instead we spent around four months on the boat and made the decision to ship the boat home, bypassing some great cruising in the Caribbean and the entire east coast of the United States.

There were lots of reasons but it really comes down to: It sounded more fun to be at our home in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, this winter than to be on the boat. We were missing our family and friends in Seattle, and wanted some time at home there, and we thought about how much we missed our life and friends in Cabo, and decided we would rather be there as well. We were also looking forward to cruising with our GSSR co-conspirators in the Caribbean, but… a tough decision had to be made, and we were homesick.

We did have some issues with weather this year (too much wind, and too much swell accompanied by unprotected overly-crowded anchorages) but I don’t think that better weather would have made a difference. It really just came down to, “We love the boat, but we love it for four months a year, not eight months a year.”

We thought about shipping the boat to the east coast, and then cruising there next summer, and came close to doing that. But, we just decided that Sans Souci needed some attention. We’ve run the boat over 30,000 miles and it is time to make her new again. There’s nothing major, but the upholstery is starting to wear, the carpets are looking worn, there are some fiberglass dings, there are some wood dings, etc. We’re looking forward to having the boat at home, and getting her looking perfect again. Also, we have had a slip for nearly a decade at one of our favorite marinas in the world, Roche Harbor, and Sans Souci has never even been in her own slip. We are looking forward to spending some time in the Pacific NW, which is one of the greatest cruising grounds in the world.

So, as we look ahead, and think about “what comes next” the answer is a firm, “Darned if we know.” We haven’t the foggiest idea of what comes next for Sans Souci. We know that she’ll get fixed up, and we know we’ll spend some time next summer in Seattle. But, after that? Who knows? There is some momentum for taking her to Hawaii, and we’re going there soon to check out that option. But.. we don’t know.

Anyway, I thought I’d close out the year with a quick look back at some pictures that aren’t particularly the best pictures or most interesting pictures, but they are ones that reminded me of the good times we had.

That’s it for KensBlog for 2015. Thank you for accompanying Roberta, Keeley, Toundra and I on this amazing journey!

-Ken Williams

You can access the blog entry
here.

This is a test article – ignore it

By on September 22, 2015 in Sans Souci

[KensBlog] Last Day In Paradise

By on September 6, 2015 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[KensBlog] Last Day In Paradise 9/6/2015 2:06:02 PM

I am working on a final blog entry that will wrap-up and summarize our season. I should post that in the next few days.

In the meantime, here is a brief video I shot with my drone on our last day at Port Adriano. It doesn’t have much to do with boating, other than it begins by showing a bit of the squall that hit us while sitting in port.

The morning started fine and looked to be a nice day, but as I was sitting at my computer early in the morning I noticed the captain and stewardess (yes – they still call them that on yachts) from the next boat sitting on the front deck taking pictures. It made me curious what they were looking at so I went out to the bow and looked westward where their cameras were pointing.

There were dark storm clouds; some of the darkest I’ve seen and they were coming our way fast.

Within minutes the wind shot up to 20 knots, from nothing. Minutes later it hit 32 knots and we were besieged by rain. Pushed by the wind, the rain was coming sideways! I wanted to go outside to check our lines but I’d have been drenched in seconds.

And, then the lightning struck. It didn’t seem that bad, but it seemed incredibly close. Some of the strikes were really frightening the dogs.

As part of preparing for our departure, and in addition to all the packing, Roberta needed to do some final loads of laundry. As always, she called up the stairs to say, “Is it ok to start the dryer?” We were on shore power with all the power we could want, but it’s a rule on Sans Souci to alert me before starting any heavy appliances. I responded, “No problem” thinking that would be the end of it, but back came the reply, “Do you have the breaker off?”

Crap. I knew what this meant. The shorepower had gone out. I phoned Steven Argosy (Nordhavn 62, Seabird) to ask if his shorepower was out. It wasn’t. This meant it might just be our boat, so I headed down to the engine room.

We have an international shorepower converter called the Atlas. It allows our American boat to accept the 3-phase European power. I immediately noticed the bright red error light. On the LED was the message, “Voltage out of range.” That meant we had gotten some voltage surge due to the lightning and the Atlas had decided to shut down. I pressed reset and the error wouldn’t go away. “Why was this happening on our last day?,” I was thinking. I shut down the breaker right where the shorepower first enters the boat, powering down the Atlas completely. I waited a minute and powered it back up. It seemed to be coming up. Good! But, then it suddenly went black. Not good.

I checked the shorepower breaker. It was tripped. Double-crap. Normally this is an indication that the boat is drawing more amps than shorepower could provide. There was nothing running on the boat that required a significant amount of electricity. I flipped the breaker back on and started the power again. Seconds later, the power shut down again, but this time the breaker wasn’t tripped. It appeared I had blown the shorepower breaker.

We were connected to a 150 amp shorepower circuit. Tripping it should have been impossible. Something was definitely wrong. I decided that I should take a look at the power pedestal, and despite the driving rain went ashore to inspect it. Unfortunately, there were no breakers on it I could get at, and no indication of any sort as to whether the power was on or off.

I went up to the pilot house and called the marina, asking them to come reset the power pedestal. They, having common sense, said they wanted to wait for a break in the action and then send someone to check on our power. I knew this could take a while, so I used the time to type a note to the local gentleman (Richard) who I would be paying to look after our boat during the weeks until my guy Jeff, could fly over from Seattle to Mallorca to load Sans Souci onto a freighter.

“…
Richard:
CC: Jeff Sanson, Pacific Yacht Management

The storm today seems to have blown up Sans Souci’s shore power converter (the Atlas).

Richard – is there a time you could stop by today? (what time works for you?)

My plan is to:

– Run on the generator until we leave tomorrow
– Show you how to run the generator while we are gone
– Shut down everything on the boat to the bare minimum
– Have you run the generator twice a week for an hour (just to keep the batteries charged)
– Let Jeff figure out what to do when he gets here

Ken Williams
…”

I waited to hit send hoping for a miracle when the marina guy looked at the power pedestal. After about 30 minutes, there was a break in the rain, and someone did show up. I saw him look at the pedestal, open it, fiddle around, and then walk off. I walked out to the back deck to see what he’d found but he was already walking away. So, I went to my electric panel and seeing a green light shouted to Roberta, “The electricity is on! Yay!” The email above was never sent.

Anyway, this video shows just a brief bit of the rain. Steven (from Seabird) and I had made plans to fly our drones on the last day. However the rain was making it impossible. Plus, we were worried the marina would yell at us for taking up a drone in the marina. I called Steven to say, “It has stopped raining for a few minutes. Still want to fly? We can go up the hill to a playground I saw.” Steven said he didn’t want to take his drone out in the rain and I said I’d take a chance with mine.

As you’ll see in the video we did take the drone up, but the wind came back, and it started raining. The video is amazingly clear given that the drone was shaking trying to stabilize itself despite the wind. Had it been a clear day we’d have flown it over to the marina but I was too afraid of losing it. The rain was obscuring visibility and we shouldn’t have been playing at all .. but, what fun would that be? No guts, no glory. Plus, you know that old saying, “The primary difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys.” The best piece of the video is the part that unfortunately we lost. I was showing Steven how fast the drone could go and meant to stop it just before running into a fence, but … didn’t. Oops. The fence was fine and the drone was fine, but … it was a spectacular crash, and I wish the video hadn’t been lost. Anyway… this has very little to do with boating, but I think you’ll like it.

Click the link below in order to see the video. Don’t forget to click the little icon in the lower right corner of the video that makes it display full-screen.

http://www.kensblog.com/aspx/vimeoplayer.aspx?vimeo=138440035

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (with Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

You can access the blog entry
here.

Passagemaking with a Nordhavn 2015-09-06 06:06:02

By on September 6, 2015 in Sans Souci
Sans Souci, Nordhavn 68
[KensBlog] Last Day In Paradise 9/6/2015 2:06:02 PM

I am working on a final blog entry that will wrap-up and summarize our season. I should post that in the next few days.

In the meantime, here is a brief video I shot with my drone on our last day at Port Adriano. It doesn’t have much to do with boating, other than it begins by showing a bit of the squall that hit us while sitting in port.

The morning started fine and looked to be a nice day, but as I was sitting at my computer early in the morning I noticed the captain and stewardess (yes – they still call them that on yachts) from the next boat sitting on the front deck taking pictures. It made me curious what they were looking at so I went out to the bow and looked westward where their cameras were pointing.

There were dark storm clouds; some of the darkest I’ve seen and they were coming our way fast.

Within minutes the wind shot up to 20 knots, from nothing. Minutes later it hit 32 knots and we were besieged by rain. Pushed by the wind, the rain was coming sideways! I wanted to go outside to check our lines but I’d have been drenched in seconds.

And, then the lightning struck. It didn’t seem that bad, but it seemed incredibly close. Some of the strikes were really frightening the dogs.

As part of preparing for our departure, and in addition to all the packing, Roberta needed to do some final loads of laundry. As always, she called up the stairs to say, “Is it ok to start the dryer?” We were on shore power with all the power we could want, but it’s a rule on Sans Souci to alert me before starting any heavy appliances. I responded, “No problem” thinking that would be the end of it, but back came the reply, “Do you have the breaker off?”

Crap. I knew what this meant. The shorepower had gone out. I phoned Steven Argosy (Nordhavn 62, Seabird) to ask if his shorepower was out. It wasn’t. This meant it might just be our boat, so I headed down to the engine room.

We have an international shorepower converter called the Atlas. It allows our American boat to accept the 3-phase European power. I immediately noticed the bright red error light. On the LED was the message, “Voltage out of range.” That meant we had gotten some voltage surge due to the lightning and the Atlas had decided to shut down. I pressed reset and the error wouldn’t go away. “Why was this happening on our last day?,” I was thinking. I shut down the breaker right where the shorepower first enters the boat, powering down the Atlas completely. I waited a minute and powered it back up. It seemed to be coming up. Good! But, then it suddenly went black. Not good.

I checked the shorepower breaker. It was tripped. Double-crap. Normally this is an indication that the boat is drawing more amps than shorepower could provide. There was nothing running on the boat that required a significant amount of electricity. I flipped the breaker back on and started the power again. Seconds later, the power shut down again, but this time the breaker wasn’t tripped. It appeared I had blown the shorepower breaker.

We were connected to a 150 amp shorepower circuit. Tripping it should have been impossible. Something was definitely wrong. I decided that I should take a look at the power pedestal, and despite the driving rain went ashore to inspect it. Unfortunately, there were no breakers on it I could get at, and no indication of any sort as to whether the power was on or off.

I went up to the pilot house and called the marina, asking them to come reset the power pedestal. They, having common sense, said they wanted to wait for a break in the action and then send someone to check on our power. I knew this could take a while, so I used the time to type a note to the local gentleman (Richard) who I would be paying to look after our boat during the weeks until my guy Jeff, could fly over from Seattle to Mallorca to load Sans Souci onto a freighter.

“…
Richard:
CC: Jeff Sanson, Pacific Yacht Management

The storm today seems to have blown up Sans Souci’s shore power converter (the Atlas).

Richard – is there a time you could stop by today? (what time works for you?)

My plan is to:

– Run on the generator until we leave tomorrow
– Show you how to run the generator while we are gone
– Shut down everything on the boat to the bare minimum
– Have you run the generator twice a week for an hour (just to keep the batteries charged)
– Let Jeff figure out what to do when he gets here

Ken Williams
…”

I waited to hit send hoping for a miracle when the marina guy looked at the power pedestal. After about 30 minutes, there was a break in the rain, and someone did show up. I saw him look at the pedestal, open it, fiddle around, and then walk off. I walked out to the back deck to see what he’d found but he was already walking away. So, I went to my electric panel and seeing a green light shouted to Roberta, “The electricity is on! Yay!” The email above was never sent.

Anyway, this video shows just a brief bit of the rain. Steven (from Seabird) and I had made plans to fly our drones on the last day. However the rain was making it impossible. Plus, we were worried the marina would yell at us for taking up a drone in the marina. I called Steven to say, “It has stopped raining for a few minutes. Still want to fly? We can go up the hill to a playground I saw.” Steven said he didn’t want to take his drone out in the rain and I said I’d take a chance with mine.

As you’ll see in the video we did take the drone up, but the wind came back, and it started raining. The video is amazingly clear given that the drone was shaking trying to stabilize itself despite the wind. Had it been a clear day we’d have flown it over to the marina but I was too afraid of losing it. The rain was obscuring visibility and we shouldn’t have been playing at all .. but, what fun would that be? No guts, no glory. Plus, you know that old saying, “The primary difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys.” The best piece of the video is the part that unfortunately we lost. I was showing Steven how fast the drone could go and meant to stop it just before running into a fence, but … didn’t. Oops. The fence was fine and the drone was fine, but … it was a spectacular crash, and I wish the video hadn’t been lost. Anyway… this has very little to do with boating, but I think you’ll like it.

Click the link below in order to see the video. Don’t forget to click the little icon in the lower right corner of the video that makes it display full-screen.

http://www.kensblog.com/aspx/vimeoplayer.aspx?vimeo=138440035

Thank you!
Ken and Roberta Williams (with Keeley and Toundra)
Nordhavn 68, Sans Souci

You can access the blog entry
here.