Of Dreams, Ditches, and Bubbles

 

Richard Mojena and Cynthia Mello

 

(Original article appeared in Krogen Cruisers Newsletter, February, 2001, pp. 11-14)

 

 

It’s 4am and 9 degrees; the lines groan under 30 knots of stress; and it’s just the morning after Christmas.  Still, the near-seven-foot lighted tree on the afterdeck gives comfort through the frosty aft windows; it IS cozy inside.  But we get ahead of ourselves…

 

The Dream

We LOVE that boat.  What is it?  She was moored in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard.  It was 1988 and we were land-bound and boat-less.  Actually, we had never even owned a boat.  Sure, we had sailed with friends for years, but we weren’t boaters, not by a long shot.  Two years later we find ourselves tied to a palm tree on one end, gazing out in wonderment at the other… from the afterdeck of a 45-foot houseboat on the surface of Silver Glen Spring, on the St. Johns River.  It’s early November, it’s a warm spell,  and we have the place to ourselves.  Three days in that comfortable box, the best-tasting food we had ever cooked, thundering through the tropical underbrush, diving the warm, crystal-clear waters, chasing down the odd cockroach, and several assorted, mutually-resolved crises later, all crystallized it for us:  Ya know… this ain’t a bad way to live. 

 

Two days later we’re mooching a cousin’s condo in one of those Long-Boat-Key marina and golfing complexes.  And there she was again… that same hull.  We practically ran to the marina office.  What kind of boat is that?  She’s a Krogen.  A what!?  A Kadey Krogen 42.  We were stunned… Cynthia had palled around with Kim Krogen during Newport’s America’s Cup glory days.  To be more accurate, Cynthia’s husband left to marry Kim, on his way to the third of four marriages… yet, Cynthia and Kim forged a deep bond… but we’re saving that story for our pulp-faction efforts.   Cynthia knew that Kim’s father was a naval architect and boat builder, but really had no idea what we had here.  Cynthia’s son Josh played with Kim’s visiting brother, Kurt, during those lazy, seaside summer days that kids enjoy best. 

 

Do you believe our luck?  We’re having lunch with Kim in Miami.  Kim, can we go to the boat yard and, you know, get the tour, go inside one of these?  Sure, I’ll set it up with Dad.   Jim was gracious, patient with the Greenhorns.  And we got one heck of a tour:  First the office, then the yard, a wide-body in its final prep stages, and finally Jim’s own Manatee.  We were hooked on the 42.  Can we ever afford one of these?

 

In late 1992 we bought an Albin 34, cruised and lived on her for seven glorious summers, making our mistakes, learning the ropes.  In 1999, after countless hours researching the Internet, talking to brokers, and corresponding invaluably with Grant Breining by email, we bit the bullet in March, 2000, culminating life-changing, pre-retirement transactions:  Sold the house of 30 years, sold the Albin, bought THE DREAM BOAT, KK42 “Sasha”, from Jim and Kay Peterson in North Palm Beach (thanks to Dick Jurgensen on “Orion II” for the lead), packed every possible nook and orifice in the 16-year-old Saab for its last trip, including our “cabin boy”, an eighteen-month-old Chihuahua, Benito “Beni” Juarez.

 

The Ditch

The new boat and trip back to Rhode Island presented intimidating prospects.  The move up from an Albin 34 to a KK42 is semi-quantum.  This baby is big.  This ain’t just a coastal cruise of several days over familiar waters.  So much to do learning new systems, starting the changeover in safety, electrical, and navigation systems from a dock boat to a cruising boat.  We had three weeks to get the boat ready with new radar, gps, nav software on the Dell, and other fixes and refits either confirmed or uncovered by our surveyor, Adrian Volney, out of Sarasota.  And then there were the get-comfortable hours with practice maneuvers, equipment checks, poring over charts, books, and equipment manuals, among these Jim Peterson’s own extensive system notes, Grant and Astaar Breining’s Chuggin’ Along, Skipper Bob’s Anchorages Along the Intracoastal Waterway, the Northern Waterway Guide, John and Leslie Kettlewell’s The Intracoastal Waterway Chartbook, Jan and Bill Moeller’s The Intracoastal Waterway, and various Embassy guides and chartbooks. 

 

And then… Beni died in a tragic, freak accident.  What can we say.  It enveloped our uncontained excitement with profound sadness and guilt.  It felt like losing a child must feel.  Not that it’s comparable, we do  have grown children, but it’s hard to imagine a more intense, devastating experience.  We buried him in a beautiful island park and marked the deep, sandy grave with a vibrantly-live gardenia shrub.

 

And so we moved on… and what a move it was!  North Palm to Wickford in 25 cruising days over 34 total days and 1464 nautical miles.  From the ship’s log:

 

 

Along the way we sighted three KK42s that we could not hail on the radio, but did have long, informative, and delightful conversations with fellow Krogenites Bill Heidrich aboard “Traveller” and Bob Bean on “Alexander.” 

 

Yes, we did ground the bow just north of Charleston, but backed off easily enough.  Richard spaced it, thinking he was looking at a Course Up display that he had changed into a North Up.  Don’t leave home without it:  Nobeltec’s Navigation Suite (or other navigation software) interfaced to a differential GPS considerably reduces the likelihood of straying into shallows and other obstacles.

 

The Bubble

The security of the home slip in Wickford felt good, not to mention the relief of getting back without sinking or otherwise damaging our new year-round home, now renamed “Sinterra” thanks to Josh’s take on “Without-land.”  Our first summer aboard disappeared fast, with refits, redecorations, three-steps-forward-two-steps-back activities, some local cruising, and showing off the boat to family, friends, and interested strays.  Among the latter are new Krogenites Jack and Evie Collard, who as of this writing are bringing their just-purchased KK42 from Fort Myers to Georgia, laying over until the Spring Migration back North.  And… we have new “cabin boy” Eduardo “Eddie” Juarez.

 

And then came Winter… Non-boating acquaintances ask: Just what do you do all day on a boat?  The response goes something like:  Just what do you do at home all day?  Actually, there are some differences.  We don’t cover homes in plastic, unless we’re chasing down termites.  On boats, we have to keep water taps open when temperatures fall below freezing, unless we relish thawing the dock’s water feed hose with boiling water or dangerous heating appliances.  Houses don’t have brown juice flowing out of their pores from condensation in strange places.  Keep the inner spaces heated! 

 

And, oh yes, we do have to count our amps.  We slept six over Thanksgiving and fried both ends of the two 30A power cables feeding into the 50A Y-adapter.  These can be serious sources of fires, especially at the boat inlets.  The aft circuit lives on the amp-edge, falling off a cliff if a 750W space heater competes with simultaneous demands from the Sub-Zeros, hot water heater, inverter, genset charger, and microwave or toaster oven.  The circuit breakers protect the boat’s internal circuits, but not the outside hookups.  And while the reverse-cycle air worked great until the harbor’s water temperature plunged below 45, the manipulation of appliances required the dexterity of Houdini.  

 

So, here’s how we stand mano a mano with what looks like a serious Winter ahead.  The first line of defense is the shrink wrap that covers the entire boat.  It’s like we live in a fancy tent, but it’s bright and not claustrophobic (Richard is a bit phobic here and has no problem, so far).  The plastic is translucent, has strategically placed clear zippered windows, and promotes a greenhouse effect at 55-70 degrees inside the afterdeck, on sunny days with ambient temperatures of 10-30 degrees.   The two sleeping cabins are easily heated to 65-70 degrees by small electric space heaters at their low 750W settings.  The forward circuit has low amperage demands, meaning that it’s OK to run these heaters simultaneously, or one or the other when the washer/dryer is operating. 

 

Two heaters live in the main cabin (heating the pilot house by default), although just one is required at any one time:  an electric space heater, with its own #12 outside extension cord running to a separate 30A dock box with a 30/15A adapter; a catalytic propane space heater, fed from a 20lb tank on the dock.   We scoured the RV Internet discussion sites and came up with the catalytic heater of choice: Olympian.  These heaters can be placed on floors or mounted to bulkheads, don’t require venting, are silent, cool to the touch, mostly give off radiant heat, and operate at low temperatures that generate heat by the catalytic reaction of propane flowing over platinum.  This flameless process does not create carbon monoxide directly, although it can if oxygen is depleted in the space.  We crack the galley port, a saloon window, and a pilot house door to supply the necessary oxygen… and have propane and carbon monoxide sniffers on board.  The 8000Btu model Wave 8 cost under $300 at campingworld.com.   The main cabin’s electric space heater is a LifeTime 5200Btu ceramic, bought at West Marine for about $80.  This heater bypasses the boat’s AC system by directly connecting to the dock, thereby giving up circuit-breaker protection on the boat, although the thick 100’ extension cord “runs cool” and the heater itself has overheat safety protection.  As an additional precaution, no heaters are run while we’re away.  Over eight-hour or so periods the temperature drop has not exceeded 15 degrees.  After one month of this setup, the power line connections look good, the circuit breakers are behaving perfectly, and we’re toasty enough.

 

And the engine room?  We can’t read the handy thermometer tethered by a line through the starboard scupper because it’s solid ice out there, so let’s figure something a bit north of 32 degrees kissing the cored hull.  The Holy Place reads 45 degrees, somewhat kept aloft by heat from the chargers, batteries, and  hot water heater.  Supplementary heat in that space might be needed sometime this winter?  For added propane-explosion safety, an ignition protected heater such as those put out by BoatSafe would be best.

 

We also considered dropping a 25 gal water tank into the engine room for the winter and attaching the air conditioning inlet and outlet hoses to this tank.  We know a trawler owner who was happy with this arrangement, although it does require heating the engine room to 55 or so.  For him it worked nicely because already-installed engine block heaters kept the engine room at the required temperature.

 

A somewhat more elaborate alternative it to install propane or diesel cabin heaters such as those put out by Force10 or Dickinson.  The larger units run $600-700, and do require the usual venting accessories, fuel lines, and pump.

 

The ideal solution for a northern boat would be a diesel central heating system such as those put out by Webasto or Espar.  (See the article in the May/June 2000 issue of Passagemaker and the letter by Bob Bean and Cynthia Hammer in the July/Aug issue.)  An installer for Espar came by to scope the boat.  After two hours of crawling around and brainstorming the duct layout, he concluded it was difficult but do-able (we’ve seen one on another KK42), but it would set us back about $4700 with a do-it-yourself installation or $7700 installed.   With just two winters left aboard before retirement and images of more congenial climes in Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean dancing in our heads, we respectfully declined.

 

Meanwhile, if you get up to Narragansett Bay, stop by for a chat or cruise.  Wickford is a full-amenity, small colonial town that’s high on the list of many cruisers.  And it’s just across the bay from Newport.  Give us a holler at cynmello@yahoo.com or mojena@uri.edu.

 

Richard & Cynthia      “Sinterra”   KK42.91

 

 

“Sinterra” Under Wraps