Brooke Smith
11/22/2009, DELTAVILLE, VA

Susan & I came down last night and brought our dog to stay a at a kennel near here. That was nice not having to take her the opposite direction and she got some car time with us too. Our goals for the boat this weekend are to change the transmission cooler, install a new battery switch any hoses of opportunity.
Friday morning I started out replacing the bulb in the engine room light that I discovered last weekend. I am kind of working my way up out of the bilge projects and the light discovery was wonderful. Still my favorite tool is my head led light. Susan and I started out by changing 1 thru hull for the macerator pump. I was going to change the hose too. That hose was fine. Now i have only one more hose in that area that is suspect and anthat is the waste hose from the holding tank to the deck. My bruised ribs will not let me do that one this weekend. Once done though that area of the bilge will be complete. I discovered that there is only one thru hull connection for both heat pumps. One strainer and one raw water pump that has a splitter on hte output side to both heat pumps. That will be nice when in the summer I start sucking up jelly fish into the strainer. At least i will only have one place I have to deal with.
I like the yard here at Deltaville Marina. Deltaville Boat Yard is top notch. I got a bill for the work they did getting the boat going and consultative plan of maintenance. Very detailed. Very good craftsmanship in the battery cables and neatness securiing them. Just a top notch outfit. They said the transmission cooler must be leaking into the transmission. I made my trip to the other top notch engine experts AMERICAN DIESEL in Kilmarnock. I had a list for Brian at American Diesel. Brian had the transmission cooler, spare belt, air cleaner and two heat exchanger gaskets for me in a jiffy. He also told me how to properly install the transmission cooler, how much antifreeze the coolant should have, how to bleed the coolant to prevent air pockets in the block. Brian also handled to field calls while ringing me up. I'm really glad American Diesel is so close by. I'll install that tomorrow.

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Brooke Smith
11/15/2009, DELTAVILLE, VA

November 15 , 2009
Foggy on Jackson Creek this morning. At least Nor-Easter IDA has left the area and the tides are getting back to normal. Our transient Canadian friends, Jacque and Nicole, have left for the Exumas.
I'm here on the boat alone this morning after the band, Flashback ( www.flashbackwebsite.com ), played at Indian Creek Country Club's Commodore's Ball last night in Kilmarnock. Delatville was close enough to Kilmarnock for me to stay on the boat rather than drive back home through deer county @ 1:30 AM. Slept good on the boat. Warm and cozy, but missed my mate.
Lots of projects to do on the boat. But, I'm always beat after a band job. Just lots of expended energy, excitement and fun. But, very tiring and muscles need to recover the next day. So, a little planning time, coffee and some light bilge pump hose replacement is about the extend of my work here today.

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Brooke Smith
11/13/2009, DELTAVILLE, VA

Un-lucky day? Well we are riding out the remnants of Hurricane IDA in our slip with the water over our docks. We waded to our boat yesterday afternoon. Winds were constantly blowing 30+ KTs and gusts over 40 were common. Low tide here the water was 6" deep above our dock. High tide last night and today have been about 2 ' higher. We slept fine last night between our two sleeping bags. We are relatively warm, being heated by the Lehman engine with our hatch removed. The power was cut off at the dock as the water was dangerously high. So, we are getting by with 12v. We've not had a chance to refill or otherwise check out the LP gas stove. So, Susan made us tuna salad for dinner last night. Also a candle or two on here could have helped with lighting and heat. I'm going to work on the blocked bilge pump hose this morning and when the tide goes below the dock I may drive to get a replacement length of new bilge pump hose. Found the bilge pump hose was pinched between the hull and the plywood mounting board for the A/C. It must have been like that since the A/C was installed. While I was in the area I found another seacock dripping. It was the water intake for one of the A/C units. Instead of double clamps there were NONE. I put one clamp on as the hose and stopped the dripping. The hose needs to be replaced soon. All the hoses on this old boat should be replaced. I've so far replaced the forward head hoses and the forward sink drain. Making progress! We are waiting for the tide to go down and will head home. I will be back Saturday night after the Flashback plays in Kilmarnock for the Commodores Ball at Indian Creek Country Club. Sunday I'll install new bilge pump hose and plan the next hose route. I'm posting this from the bridge of Liquid Therapy starring at Gromit. We saw the crew of our Canadian friends leaving yesterday as though they were staying ashore. They probably needed a break from this 3 day storm. Low tide is 2:15 and we will will jump ship then.

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Brooke Smith
11/11/2009, DELTAVILLE, VA

. October 10, 2009
SO, why does the bilge pump come on about once an hour. Today was the day to find out. I went to the boat and started by noticing the bilge pump had not come on as I stepped on board. I asked my neighbor if he had noticed the bilge pump run and he said not since we left Sunday. I turned on the fresh water pump and looked in the bilge, no sign of any water entering the bilge. Checked the prop shaft. It was not dripping. Turned on the galley faucet. Not it. Turned on the forward head sink & that was it. Now WHERE IS the drain leaking? I could see water running into the bilge along the port bow. Of course it was inaccessible without removing the floor of the head. Because I had to undo the hoses from the head and remove the floor, it would be a good time to replace the floor. It had been saturated by the water hitting its plywood edge for years thus causing de-laminating. Might as well change the head hoses, too, which WAS to be a future project. Targets of opportunity! But, even though the scope of the job was creeping to other areas, I needed to take care of the leak. It was directly under the pull out sink and was connected to a seacock! Yes, a below the water seacock is how this sink drains. Very dangerous. If that hose breaks the boat would sink. This hose WAS broken just above the nipple of the seacock and just above the level of the outside water. Usually sink drains use lower quality hoses to drain through an above the waterline through hull fitting. And, suppose something goes down the drain that floats. It could float at the waterline and not exit a seacock. Next off to West Marine to get some proper hose. I purchased the 1 1/2" hose and as it turns out it is too thick and stiff to allow the sink to slide in and out. I'm now considering running this to the galley sink drain hose and putting a T there or possibly running it to the sump pit that pumps shower water out. I don't like that seacock original drain engineering. I COULD have the seacock removed and the hole in the hull filled in. This brings up another point. I have two heads that originally discharged through seacocks. Then the pollution guys required holding tanks. LIQUID THERAPY has T fittings at both of these former discharge seacocks. The seacocks are closed and therefore the waste goes into the holding tank. The seacocks can not ever be used in US waters. I'm going to have those removed and the hull holes filled in too. Then there will be 3 fewer holes in LIQUID THERAPY's hull. Three places that can on longer leak, or, seep, or have to be bonded and three less seacocks that have to be periodically replaced.

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Brooke Smith
11/09/2009, Urbanna, VA

The trip getting Liquid Therapy from our seller's dock to Deltaville Marina occurred October 20 after delaying one day due to small craft warnings on the Chesapeake Bay. Nelson Rosser, Susan & myself were driven to the starting point in Portsmouth, VA by Nelson's wife Carter, October 20, 2009. We left the dock at 11:27 local time. We traveled up the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River and motored on past the commercial and Navy ships. The boat did great with wakes. The funny thing was that EVERYONE we met was heading south and gave me looks as though I had lost it. Sail and trawlers mainly were what we met headed south. No one ever passed us headed North. We pulled into Salt Ponds Marina for my first docking. It was a pull in to floating docks. Still was kind of tricky but I got it there. Nice dinner at the marina and the next day on to Deltaville.

We departed Salt Ponds October 21, 2009 a little after 9 AM. Another great day of trawling north. We had quite an air-show from the fighter jets & helicopters from Langley. A gorgeous clear day with little wind and the boat made ~7.9kts @ 1700 RPM. We arrived at Deltaville Marina @ 1:50 PM. We headed to the gas dock to let the mast down for the first time. I had to down the bimini first, then undo the back stays to let the mast and boom pivot forward. Nelson, Susan and I discovered that the mast hadn't been lowered in years but got it down. Now was the time of reckoning for me. I need to back this thing into a covered slip down a fairway between another row of open slips in front of me. I only got the boat turned to the right maybe 30 of the 90° before trying to back in. Backing to port was not working as I thought it should. I had to try an 2nd time. But I was getting further down the fairway near a bulkhead at the end. I backed and forwarded until I got it turned around and got it close enough to be pulled in from finger pier by Jacque, Nicole (transients from Canada) and Paul from Vermont. These were people I never met before. So, thanks were in order and I wondered if docking was going to be this bad every time. I was clueless as to what I should have done differently. I was really missing my twin engines. Wondered if I should get a bow thruster or what. I spoke with a fellow 36 Ablin owner at our marina about propeller torque and how the boat didn't seem to want to back to port. I told him it appeared to want to back to starboard. He said that's correct. Our Albin has a left turning propeller. A bolt of lighting hit me that I had been trying to use propeller torque just backwards. Next time I would do better! In the scheme of things I was satisfied with my docking, and as I usually proclaim after getting in safely "ANOTHER DOCKING MANEUVER WITH NO INSURANCE CLAIM". So, I had a good docking for the first backing into a slip. It really doesn't matter how many people come out to watch you struggle, take pictures, point, gasp, bite their finger nails and be entertained with your docking. If there is no insurance claim it is a successful docking. I don't even get embarrassed.

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Brooke Smith
11/09/2009, DELTAVILLE, VA

In 2002 Susan and I had enough. I was jobless and the boat was not being used and it was coming down to "KEEPING THE BOAT, OR KEEPING THE HOUSE". We had owned our 33' Carver, SUSAN ANNE, for 11 years. We had great times on her and had great memories. She was just being neglected. We had cruising friends, power and sail, that said come aboard and crew for them. We mainly crewed a 41' Jeanneau. Great boat and we went to many of our favorite spots on the Chesapeake Bay with our friends. I also helped out a few other power boaters too. Fishing some and instructing how to operate twin engine boats. I kept my skills.
Yet Susan and I yearned for another boat. We knew it should be a trawler. So, we started searching and searching and visiting boats. We fell in love with the Albin line. In fact, we almost bought a terribly neglected 36. We just felt sorry for it. But, someone else bought it out from under us. (Some crazy broker negotiations.) It was our luck because we found a much less neglected 36 Albin Double Cabin that we purchased October 15, 2009 in Portsmouth, VA. We have named our boat LIQUID THERAPY because that's what it feels like. Boating is liquid therapy.

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