The Voyages of Kamaloha

Vessel Name: Kamaloha
Vessel Make/Model: 1988 Tayana 37 #542
Hailing Port: Lebanon, New Hampshire
Crew: Charlie, Maureen, Brendan, Beth, Cariba, Saba
About: Charlie - the Skipper sailing the boat Maureen - the Admiral running the show Brendan - boat boy, swings from things Beth - boat girl, smiles a lot Cariba - Boat dog, wants to go back to warmer places Saba - Boat dog, would rather be swimming than anything
27 September 2010 | St. Davids, Grenada
19 September 2009 | Rockland, Maine
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27 September 2010 | St. Davids, Grenada

Belated "And now for the rest of the story"

Wow, having too much fun to blog. Where was I? Oh yeah, in Sint Maarten...

19 September 2009 | Rockland, Maine

How it all began...

I grew up sailing a 17 ft. O'Day Day Sailer in San Francisco Bay. The boat was half the size of anything else found in the slot. My Dad was a little nuts. I spent a lot of time bailing. It was great.

How it all began...

19 September 2009 | Rockland, Maine
Charlie
I grew up sailing a 17 ft. O'Day Day Sailer in San Francisco Bay. The boat was half the size of anything else found in the slot. My Dad was a little nuts. I spent a lot of time bailing. It was great.

When I went to college I taught sailing for four bucks an hour at the sailing pavilion, and got the chance to race a 32 footer in the summers with a skipper who really knew his stuff. I even got to keep some of the trophies.

A chance visit to the sailing pavilion twelve years later led to the opportunity for my wife and I to "cruise" for the first time along the Maine coast aboard a tired old Hinckley 38. We were hooked.

For our tenth anniversary she gave me a gift of a bareboat charter in the BVI. We were even more hooked. I never liked hot weather until this point. That would change!

Another chance visit to the BVI in the spring of 2001 led me to Kamaloha. She was owned by a former liveaboard and was up for sale in Nanny Cay. Perhaps because the previous owner still had all his stuff aboard, I could really visualize living aboard this boat. Cozy teak glowed from the walls. The bowsprit and full keel gave her a look of solidarity and blue-water capability. This was a boat built to go places.

On September 11, 2001 we were on board getting a pre-purchase survey when someone ran down the docks yelling "you gotta come see this!". We watched live from the TV in the dock bar as the second aircraft crashed into the WTC, turning our whole world view around. The chaos turned our two-day purchase trip into nearly two weeks of the unknown, eventually going broke and sleeping aboard a derelict sailboat in Trellis Bay for lack of funds (overseas credit card transactions all went through the WTC and thus the cards all stopped working).

While the previous owner had done a good job taking care of Kamaloha, the wear and tear of the liveaboard life and the effects of the tropical sun had taken their toll. Kamaloha had a good survey but had some problems and was in no way ready to cross the Atlantic back to New England. We managed to replace the standing rigging and sails, but discovered that doing any serious work on a boat in the BVI was nigh impossible for lack of well-stocked chandleries, and ended up sailing to Sint Maarten that first year. This proved to be the Mecca of refitting and we were able to accomplish what we needed. Soon she sported new chainplates, radar/chartplotter, wind generator, wind vane... and we decided that we really liked it down here and would leave her here for the time being, taking "vacations" to visit and see the Caribbean.
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