Commissioning

Blossom at the commissioning dock.

We've been in Stuart almost a month and commissioning has been ongoing. Unless you've had the fortune to buy a new boat, you'll probably have no idea what commissioning is all about.

Allow me to explain :-)

For us, here at the Nordhavn commissioning dock, the process has been an immeasurable number of tasks that can be grouped into a few main categories:

Checking and Fixing

Like any complicated product made of many moving parts and assembled by a large team, there's going to be things wrong. Some the yard knew about but didn't want to hold up shipping until completed. Some the yard just plain missed. Nordhavn have a thorough commissioning process and part of the process is going through the boat checking that everything is correct and fixing that which isn't.

A good example of this would be the Charles dual alternator regulator. The commissioning guys found that this was wired incorrectly and have since corrected the wiring. Now we're getting a nice 9kw charge to the house banks when we run the main engine.

Identifying missing construction

There's always something missing. Hopefully small and hopefully easy to add. As Chris, one of the commissioning guys, said "We're pretty handy guys." Finding the missing stuff is going to be an exercise and a half! There are 11 pages of standard specifications. To that we added and modified to the tune of 13 additional pages plus 6 architectural diagrams. If that wasn't enough, we further added, modified and deleted to the tune of another couple of hundred lines.

These all need to be checked. For anything not according to the contract a decision needs to be made. Do we leave as-is and then negotiate a refund (the boat is 95% paid for at this point) ?; Do we get the item added or corrected?; or is there some middle ground to be found?

Adding new stuff

This has been the bulk of our work so far. As almost everything we want to add to Blossom involves finding the right vendor to supply the equipment and, in many cases, install it. A short list of the things we've been working on:

• Electronics (navigation and audio/video)
• Electronics (monitoring)
• Canvas
• Tender
• Kayaks and SUPs
• Boarding ladders and steps
• Boat name signs
• Diving equipment (tanks and filling stations)
• Window treatments (blinds and curtains, maybe even UV cutting film)
• Helm chairs
• Mattresses

It seems like a day doesn't go by without us identifying yet another thing we need to call somebody about!

Equipping the boat

I separated this section out from the previous one using one main criteria. Do we need to drill or cut a hole in the boat? All the items in the earlier section require some form of installation. Even the kayaks are going to need something to tie them onto and that will need mounting. All the stuff in this section doesn't. Stuff like:

• Furniture
• Plates, silverware, glassware
• Lines and fenders
• Cookware
• Bedding

We've barely begun thinking about this kind of stuff. The approach we've taken has been to equip our apartment with the least amount of stuff we can get away with and, wherever possible, only buy stuff we intend to bring aboard Blossom.

Steph's headed down to Boca (or somewhere) with Louise to go get a selection of containers we can use inside drawers and lockers to help organize things once we're aboard. She spent the last few days measuring the insides of everything!

Goodbye to our dear George, RIP

The past week has been a difficult one and so we haven’t been very involved with Blossom. Our 16 ½ year old cat, the ever handsome George, took an abrupt turn for the worse last weekend. After several non-invasive tests, we discovered that he had metastatic carcinoma effecting several organs throughout his digestive system. In true cat fashion, he was a trouper and showed few signs of distress until the end.

It was a heartbreaking decision, but we let George go on Friday so he wouldn’t suffer any more. George came to me at about 5 days old, eyes still closed, found by a neighbor up in the Berkeley hills. Bottle-fed, spoiled and immensely loved, he has been my faithful friend and companion for a third of my life.  He quickly stole Martin’s heart and, along with his sister, Bean, we made quite the happy family. We hope he’s happy, eating heartily, pain-free and has found Bean. She may not be so happy about it, but he’ll be thrilled to stalk and annoy her once again.

We’re so grateful to our friends Sean & Louise for helping us through this transition. They’ve been a great emotional support, providing love & hugs and engaging distractions when needed.

I keep hearing his bell and expecting to see his bright green eyes watching me expectantly. It’s going to take time to adjust to his absence and the empty house. We will miss George more than words can describe.  RIP my sweet pumpkin… 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

Back in ’09 we kept a “pic of day” Picassa album linked to our blog (thank you Judy for such a great idea!)  The idea was to post 1 photograph every day for the year we would be living aboard I Got Lucky.  In practice, there were days when I had nothing of interest to post and more often, ended up posting multiple photos for a day.   I wanted to share our experiences with family and friends and thought that it would be cool to have a visual as well as written blog.  It turned out to be the best keepsake we could possibly have from that year.

Once we were back home, we used the album as a screen saver for the computer in our main living area.  Over the next four years, we enjoyed those photographs randomly popping up throughout the day, every day.  We revisited friends and places and relived amazing memories.  It both motivated and encouraged us as we planned our next adventure aboard Blossom.

I’ve been anticipating starting up a new “Pic of Day”, and it’s time!  We’ve added a link to our main blog page. I’ll be uploading photos as often as I can, with the goal of capturing at least one photo a day.  I’ve all ready missed some prime opportunities for photo opts. I have to get back into the habit of taking pictures!

A man. A plan. A canal. Panama!

Sunday evening found my wife and I tensely sitting in front of the computer watching the live feed from the Panama Canal camera at the Mireflores locks.

Stephanie had got a notification that M/V Trinityborg had started moving from the anchorage just south of the canal and was headed towards the locks.

We were tense not because of Trinityborg, but because the San Francisco/Seattle game was in it's nail-biting 4th quarter.

In the end we were rewarded with a glimpse of Blossom aboard Trinityborg as they passed through the lock:

Blossom is circled.

The game, alas, did not end so well...

Next Steps: Moving East

Happy New Year!  2014 is starting off with a bang as we prepare for our move to the east coast.  I thought I would write a bit about the process since this is what we’ve been up to for the past few months.  I’ll start with finding a place to live…

This will be a two part move for us:  first we’ll move into an apartment for the commissioning period, and then we’ll move aboard Blossom.  We spoke with several people who have gone through the commissioning process and were advised to be there if possible.  This will give Martin the opportunity to learn more about the boat and to be present when the electronics are installed (he’s especially excited about that!)  It will also be easier for me to work with local vendors and have a bit more time to shop for soft furnishings and outfit the inside of the boat.  

Finding a place for us to stay in Stuart was tricky.  To begin with, we didn’t know when the boat would arrive, and therefore, when we’d be arriving.  Originally we were thinking the end of October but by mid-November we were relatively sure the boat would arrive around the end of February.  Secondly, we didn’t (and don’t) know how long we’ll need to stay in the apartment as this depends on how long the commissioning process takes.  We’re guessing 2-3 months max. Adding to the complexity was the fact that this is occurring during the “high” season in Florida so furnished rentals are at a premium and hard to find – especially on short notice.  And lastly, and perhaps the most option-limiting of all:  we have a much loved, geriatric cat and we’d like to ease his transition to ‘boat cat’ as much as possible.   

There were a few hotels nearby that said that they accepted pets. These options were extremely pricey, especially if we needed to rent for months, but we thought they could be a backup plan.  When I did a bit of research, however, we were disappointed to discover that even if a listing said “small pets welcome”, it actually meant “dogs welcome, not cats”.  A true cat lady, I was offended. I don’t think cats are potentially any more destructive than dogs, but that’s what we were told!  We also found two furnished apartments but they were equally pricey and lacked flexibility – for example, you couldn’t necessarily extend the rental time if needed because someone else may have reserved the unit – so these didn’t seem like the best options either. 

After a lot of research and an extremely productive visit to Stuart in late October, we found an unfurnished apartment available in early January with a short term lease that accepts pets and had a 45 day flexible move-in date.  As a bonus, it’s just a few miles from where Blossom will be docked and they have climate-controlled storage units for rent as well.  We found that it’s much more economical to rent unfurnished and then lease a few pieces of furniture.  The rest of the apartment will be filled with furnishings meant for Blossom.  It also means that we’ll be comfortable, having a home to live in rather than a room.  George will even have a lanai to lounge in where he can watch birds and smell the outdoors!

We’re heading out for a short visit today to set up the apartment and make it cat-ready.  We’re also looking forward to seeing Martin’s Mum and her partner, Michael, who will be visiting Florida while we’re there.

Happy New Year everyone!

Shipping Update and a note about AIS

Those of you trying to follow the progress of M/V Trinityborg will have noticed that she's been off the coast of Taiwan for several weeks now. This, of course, isn't actually the case but illustrates one of the limitaions of AIS. More on that in a moment, but first an update.

We get fowarded an email sent from the shipper to PAE with the latest update on Trinityborg. The latest read:

01/January/2014 – noon  (24 :00hrs UTC)

20*39.0 N  -  171*21.2 W

wind : W-3  -  sea-state : slight – swell: W 0,5m

speed: 14.6 knots

distance run last 24hrs: 349,6 miles -  distance to go Balboa 5541 miles

eta Balboa 17/Jan/2014 PM

eta Port Everglades 25-26/Jan/2014

That puts her a few hundred miles west of Hawaii:



Link to full map

AIS Limitations

Which brings us neatly to the limitations of AIS. Without going into too much detail, AIS is a system by which ships can broadcast their position, speed, and other details over VHS radio. In order to be able to receive this signal, the receiver must be within line of sight of the ship's antennae and have an receiving AIS system. In addition, in order to show up on the various websites, they must also share the AIS data they receive somehow.

For a ship the size of Trinityborg and a ground based antennae, line of site is probably not much more than 30 miles. This assumes that both sending and receiving antennae are 100 feet off the ground and that the sending radio is powerful enough for the receiving antenna to hear. 

We were hoping that that would happen near Hawaii, but apparently not.

I assume that the ship has been sending positional data to headquarters using satellites - radio or internet - which is how they know the details they know. AIS does not transmit wind or sea state.

I'll post up updates as we get them.

Shipped!

Today we got the news that Blossom has been loaded onto a cargo ship and is bound for Florida!

The ship she is loaded on is the M/V Trinityborg, operated by the shipping line Wagenborg.

She's a new ship - launched November 14th and this will be her maiden voyage the US. She's spent the last month running up and down the Asian coast - all the way to South Vietnam - and is currently heading to Taiwan. Her expected arrival date ion Florida is the 25th of January.

You can track her progress using the following link:

http://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9546485