January 15

Sweetest Thing - She is a 2009 Fountaine Pajot 48 we purchased on 12-28-10. Since then, she has been under the daily effort of one Peter Lunde of Lumbar Marine who has done all the work specified in the survey, and many other improvements to make her ready for crewed charter duty. We added a freezer, ice maker and water maker to a long list of additions placed into service by the previous owner - 4 zone heating and cooling, radar, chart-plotter, flat screen TV, electric heads, diesel gen set. We upgraded to allow flushing on seawater, put float switches on the bilge-pumps with a visual and audible alarm if the pump fails to keep the bilge free of water. We added twin fuel filters on both engines with a valve, backed all the stanchions with plates, up-sized the davit system, replaced the main halyard, jib sheets and topping lift, changed 20 blocks that were poorly engineered, undersized, and more I cannot remember.

We tried to have her pulled, scraped and painted, but she is 6" wider than any lift available in the Chesapeake. We ran her 8 hours to a lift that is indeed 25'6" wide. Her specs say she is 25'2", but she did not fit -- we think her beam is actually close to 26'.

As of January 15, 3:15 pm, she is under way to St Thomas where she will be available in crewed charter service, along side Catatonic. You can book a charter by contacting me at wade@yachtsweetestthing.com, or our agent in St Thomas Pamela at pam@yachtsweetestthing.com.  

Captain Kristofer Burton, crew John Liggett (my brother in law), co-owner Bob Thomas and 15 year old crew Dylan left after a day and a half of preparations Saturday, January 15. Not bad considering we closed December 28. After a day of progress, Weather Commander advised that a storm would hit late Monday with 30 to 50 knot winds on their nose - so they decided to hole up in Norfolk until Tuesday.  

The water is a balmy 39, so they are going to see if they can find a diver to scrape her on Monday, which will take a day off transit time to make up for the day spend in Norfolk and another in Annapolis preparing.