SV Windrifter42

Vessel Name: Windrifter
Vessel Make/Model: Westsail 42
Hailing Port: Portland, Maine
22 September 2014 | Boston, Massachusetts
22 September 2014 | Boston, Massachusetts
13 April 2014 | Charlestown
16 December 2013 | Boston, Massachusetts
03 October 2013 | Boston
03 October 2013 | Boston, Massachusetts
23 April 2013 | Boston, MA
23 April 2013 | Boston, MA
28 January 2013 | Boston, MA
28 January 2013 | Boston, MA
28 January 2013 | Boston, MA
04 December 2012 | Boston, MA
04 December 2012 | Boston, MA
28 November 2012 | Boston, MA
28 November 2012 | Boston, MA
18 October 2012 | Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston, MA
18 October 2012 | Boston, MA
01 September 2012 | Boothbay, Maine
01 September 2012 | Boothbay, Maine
Recent Blog Posts
22 September 2014 | Boston, Massachusetts

Ah! New Bottom Paint

We just repainted the bottom, finally switching from the dull-but-functional black to bright and flashy and hopefully also functional red.

22 September 2014 | Boston, Massachusetts

Boston Harbor

Here we are sailing down Boston Harbor. Photo courtesy of Ben Carey of Sailing Simplicity http://sailingsimplicity.com. Thanks, Ben!

13 April 2014 | Charlestown

Spring Arrives

After a bitter winter, we big goodbuy to our shrinkwrap for another year

16 December 2013 | Boston, Massachusetts

Shrinkwrap season again

Weather is getting colder ...

03 October 2013 | Boston

PlanetSolar Visits Boston

Earlier this year we were fortunate to visit onboard the PlanetSolar boat when she called in Boston. She is the first boat to circumnavigate entirely solar powered with electric engines.

03 October 2013 | Boston, Massachusetts

July 4 - Turning Around the U.S.S. Constitution

"Old Ironsides" out for her July 4th trip to greet well-wishers and to turn her in her berth.

Winter Make Over

22 November 2011 | Spice Island Marine, Grenada
Boats, someone said, are like fine antique cars that require a lot of care and attention. I don’t know if Windrifter, at 35, is really an antique, but she is calling out for some maintenance. We had planned on doing our yearly haul-out up island in St. Martin or even in the British Virgin Islands. I had put in some calls for prices to haul-out at both Bobby’s Marina in St. Martin and Nanny Cay Marina in BVI, both getting good recommendations from the cruiser grapevine. We started to think about scheduling to be in such and such a place, at such and such a time for the potential haul-out. Could we delay our maintenance until February or March? The sail over from St. George’s told us the prop, covered with barnacles and shaking a bit, would not be happy being ignored. And each time we rolled with the waves in Prickly (and that’s pretty much every day) I could see the sea colony we had been supporting on the bottom of the boat.

In Prickly Bay we pass by Spice Island Marina and Boatyard every day in our dinghy. We were told they were a good place to get hauled out, but that they were very very busy. We heard from a lot of cruisers that they had emailed or phoned Spice Island, but were told there was no room at the inn. I thought, why not ask in person anyway? We could be very flexible with our schedule. Oh yeah, we don’t really have a schedule anymore!

I stopped by the Spice Island office on a Monday and voila, a haul-out date appeared. Well, it actually went more like, “can you haul us out anytime in the next two weeks?” “Can you do Thursday, we have an opening 8 a.m. on Thursday.” Internal thoughts: could we get all the supplies we need and be ready in just three days? External thoughts, “Yes, of course, Thursday would be wonderful!”

We were lucky to get a haul date on such a short notice, but we needed to get some bottom paint to make the haul-out worth doing at all. Oh, you say, just go to the store and buy some. Well, if things in cruising were that simple. You see, bottom paint is expensive – not just a little expensive, but $300 a gallon expensive – and it takes over two gallons to put just one coat on Windrifter’s 42 foot bottom. Then there is the issue of compatibility. Bottom paint sticks only to similar bottom paint – so whatever brand you put on last season, you should use the same brand this season. For our last haul-out we were in Maine and used Interlux Micron CSC, a great paint for northern waters. It must not work in the Caribbean, though, because they don’t even sell it down here. Here they use Interlux Micron 66, the more expensive paint in the Micron family (go figure).

The other little complication was that all of the marine stores on the island were out of this paint. Budget Marine said they had some that was supposed to have arrived that day, but that it hadn’t arrived that day, but that the shipment was on the island, but it was stuck on a ship due to a dock strike and they didn’t know when it would be delivered. So the big question was, would it arrive by Thursday?

And the final problem was that many of the gallons of paint in this shipment were already spoken for. They had been on order for weeks for others who were obviously better planners that we are. Worse yet, all five gallons of the red paint, which would match our current color, were spoken for. Oops. We could reserve two gallons of black, though. Uggh, a black bottom. I was not too happy, but as John reminded me, it would be underwater. And we would save about $500 by hauling out in Grenada. So we placed an order for black and hoped that it would arrive by haul-out day.

Luckily for our schedule, the strike ended the next day and the paint came in. With quick trips to the local Ace Hardware for paint supplies and a few more dollars spent on spares at Budget Marine, we were ready to come out of the water after twelve months at sea.

This picture shows Windrifter being hauled out. Due to our huge back arch John had to back the boat into the slipway and they had to haul us out backwards. Things were certainly easier at PYS in Portland.


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