The new owners are from Alaska and I wish them well with their new N47.
If you are wondering where in the world Sea Eagle is, you can always check up on her through the AIS transmitter at Marine Traffic.
Good Luck
The new owners are from Alaska and I wish them well with their new N47.
If you are wondering where in the world Sea Eagle is, you can always check up on her through the AIS transmitter at Marine Traffic.
Good Luck
On Sunday a pair of Nordhavns showed up on the breakwater. Pacific High (another Nordhavn 47, without the flybridge, owned by Marc Vanderbilt ) and Paradise Found ( a new Nordhavn 60). Both boats were beautiful.
After reading the James Knight interview on Pendana’s blog, his answer to the question, “if there was one thing Nordhavn owners should check religiously and don’t what would that be?”, really hit home. Yep, it’s the Wing Engine, specifically, exercising the Gori folding prop. I put my dive gear on to check mine, and sure enough, it was a mass of barnacles and muscles, so fully encrusted that it was stuck in the open position. Damn It Scott! Thirty minutes of chipping away at the growth underwater didn’t rectify the situation, so it was time to pull the boat.
Swantown Boatworks was pretty busy, but they squeezed me in (literally) right in front of their office. Once the boat was up in the slings, I was impressed to see that my underwater work had allowed the folding prop to fold-up, but it still wasn’t really functional. Compare that to the main propeller (see photo above), which had been coated with Barnacle Buster last year. I had mistakenly left the Gori prop bare and you can see that the marine growth LOVED it!They pressure washed the hull and running gear for me, then set the boat on the hard about one foot from the front door of their office. It was rather funny to watch the yard workers ducking under the swim step in order to get to the restrooms.
I spent the next few days chipping, grinding, sanding and eventually painting the Gori Folding propeller with outdrive paint. It was a bit of a miserable job, with air temperatures around 40° F and rain squalls every hour or so. Once the prop was good to go, I lubed up the mechanism and then went to work cleaning the keel coolers, replacing zincs and touching up a few spots of bottom paint that were bare.Prior to putting Sea Eagle back in the water, I pulled and replaced the 7/16″ packing on the main shaft and inspected the shaft/bearings/etc., finding it all to be in excellent condition.
For those that didn’t see James Knight’s interview, here was his advice on what Nordhavn owners should check relegiously: “I would say that placing their wing engine into and out of gear while its running is something most are guilty of not doing. When we pull boats from the water we often see that the wing engine propeller is jammed i.e. the propeller doesn’t fold / unfold correctly.” Busted!
From Milt:
It’s rare to see four Nordhavns rafted together on a mooring, and even more rare when they’re all the same model, and each of the boats is just one hull number apart from another. You just can’t plan something like that, yet it happened at promptly noon two days ago in Southwest Harbor, Maine, when the following Nordhavn 47s were cheek-by-jowl, port to starboard, on my big heavy ol’ granite block mooring:N4715 Happy – Wytie and Sally Cable
N4716 Dragonfly – David and Susan Odell (with Havanese dog Coco)
N4732 Bluewater – Milt and Judy Baker (with Schipperke dog Katy and Havanese dog Breezy)
N4733 Imagine – Greg and Kathy Beckner
Pretty cool!
We ran into quite a collection of Nordhavn Trawlers in Montague Harbor at Galiano Island. Montague Harbor Marine Provincial Park is located in the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia and is their oldest marine park.
As we arrived in the harbor, I spotted Enterprise III (N5503 – Hobart Australia) and picked a spot to anchor next to that beautiful 55′ Nordhavn. Not long after getting settled in, Martin Brooks paddled over to say hello and we discovered we shared some common history, having both worked extensively in Perth and Broome (Australia).
One unique feature of Martin’s N55 was a clear boat dock (no dingy chocks) with an elaborate sun shade. He uses a folding boat for a dingy and kayaks. I also spotted two large commercial airline containers on the back rail that held folding bicycles. Very intriguing setup!
The next morning, as we were hiking around the Provincial Park, John Zimmerman and sons showed up in True Blue (N6302 – Sausalito) and anchored next to Sea Eagle. We putzed over just as they finished launching their dingy and made arrangements to visit the Hummingbird Pub, en mass, that evening.Later, I was treated to a tour of the brand new 63′ Nordhavn, and she is indeed a beauty! Lots of room and spotlessly clean! John loves the layout of the Nordhavn 63 much better than the N62 that he previously owned.
That evening, Alan and Jane Fantel, pulled into the harbor on Sedna (N4024 – Decatur Island) and anchored near what was now a cluster of Nordhavns. I motored over for a chat and invited the crew to join us at the Pub for dinner.
Heading across the Straits of Juan de Fuca when there are Gale Warnings is always a little dicey, but we had good luck and saw nothing bigger than 4 footers, so had a relatively easy crossing.
On the way down Admiralty Inlet, we spotted Serendipity (N86) steaming north. She’s quite an impressive ship!