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

Tank Tested

One of the last steps the yard performs is tank testing. There are a few systems on Blossom that can't be run until she is sitting in a nice pool of cooling water. When run, these systems suck in some of this water and use it to keep cool. Very much like air passing over the radiator of a car. The systems on Blossom that needed to be run were the wing engine, both generators and the air conditioning. We opted for chilled water air conditioning - the first on a 55/60/63 for some time. Enough time, in fact, that Dometic had to re-engineer the system and then chose to send some engineers out to Xiamen to make sure all worked according to plan.

The good news is that all worked well. There was excessive wear on the main engine's alternator belt, most likely due to the up-sized alternators. This was easily resolved by installing a heavier duty belt. We'll just need to remember to stock the larger belt in our spare parts bin.

One other test was Blossom's trim. How was she going to sit in the water? As it turns out, nice and level. This is with empty tanks, so that may change as the fresh, grey and black tanks fill and empty, but at least we shouldn't need to use fuel for trim ballast. At 5 pounds a gallon, that's not the cheapest material to use. The tender, weighing in at 400 pounds or so, will sit fairly close to centerline so that shouldn't upset things too badly, either.

Lots more pictures after the jump!

Even closer...

Another set of pictures came in the mail today.

Blossom is nearly done!

You can see that the inside and outsides have been cleaned up. That's usually one of the very last things that's done, as it doesn't happen until all the dust making activity is over. She's also been moved to the end slot, where dust from the other boats under construction is less likely to blow over Blossom.

In other news, I've been working with our electronics installer and the electronic package is almost defined. Just a few minor tweaks before we start to order the gear.

We're also working with Yachtsign to finalize our boat name signs. I asked an old school mate to help with the design and happily, she agreed. She does really great work. I have high hopes. No pressure C. :-)

Blossom's so close that I'm going to point out the things still waiting to be completed in each picture, rather than the things that have been done. If a picture has no comment then, as far as I can tell, that's how she's going to look!

Lots of pictures after the jump!

Oh so close... (picture heavy)

I must apologize to the handful of you out there who've actually been waiting for this post. I went to the yard, along with Jeff Merrill (our salesman) and Steve D'Antonio (Systems Engineer extraordinaire) a few weeks ago for the final yard inspection. Since I got back I haven't been home for more than a couple of days in a row and other "life-stuff" got in the way of my putting up this post. We got back yesterday from the Ft Lauderdale International Boat Show (FLIBS). It was a very productive week in Florida and I'll discuss all the things we accomplished in preparation for commissioning in a later post. While at FLIBS we were able to see the latest 60 to cast off the commissioning dock - Chopin - and she's a beautiful boat. It only amplified our anticipation even more!

Back to the trip!

Before I walk through Blossom note that all the pictures are clickable for a larger version. If you've any questions or comments on what we've done - or why, please don't be shy to ask. We're proud of what Blossom is becoming and almost everything in her has been the result of much discussion and consideration.

This is also a very picture heavy, with over 200 in here, so I'm not going to start any until after the jump. Those of you that are bandwidth impaired be warned!

To Blossom!