Engine rpm's~

I'd been really anxious to get the diesel engine going. Even though its a sailboat and you don't really need an engine to travel, you kinda need it to get on and off the dock. Its also an important system in the boat from an electrical standpoint. Since we wont have a generator right away, our main engine will be the main charging system for our D/C power supply while underway and abroad.

Aside from this, I really wanted to get the engine going simply to hear the old diesel engine spin up some rpm's and produce some man made power!

Plus I really wanted to go sailing!!

So on to the wiring....

 These are the new engine gauges plus a key switch and buzzer with idiot light for high temp and low oil pressure. 

 This is the back side of the new engine panel I built. The wire harness is color coded because that is the way you do it.

Here you can see what the engine panel will look like once installed. Engine Tach, Oil Pressure, Water Temp, Key start switch, Glow plug button and finally a 12V outlet. I left space in the panel in case we want to add something down the road, maybe an ipod jack?  The panel is built of 5/8" white starboard and will be recessed into the cockpit wall.  This decision was made partly by accident when I began digging open on old repair looking area in the cockpit. Turns out this was where the original engine panel was located. 

This was the location of the old engine panel. You can see the old switch and buttons to the left. Only problem is you can't just screw in a new panel, thats way to simple... so I had to build a frame in which to mount the new panel. I built it with 1"x1" trim, and epoxied it into place, this will give me an interior frame to recess the new panel.

View from inside the engine room looking out. Otter wood frame with inner starboard frame.

 Getting ready to glue and screw it all together...

Ta Daaaa!!!  The new engine panel is complete!

Now were ready to fire her up!

Some progress ~

Digging deep into the bowels of this old boat has been an unbelievably interesting experience. Since I was working on the motor and planning on re-installing it after some cleaning/painting work, I figured it was a good idea to get that area of the bilge as clean as possible. The access to this area is greatly reduced when the engine is in place, so it was crucial to expose and remove anything unwanted at this point.

A view from the companionway looking down, way down into the bilge.

A bucket of material removed from the lowest depths of the bilge. Yes, that is a 12" pipe wrench!

More and more things kept being dug up from the bilge depths,  it was scary!

There were many, many pounds of debris removed from the bilge area below the engine. I believe this was due to an area aft the engine room, under the cockpit lazarette, where a hole let things fall into the bilge.  Among these things were nearly a dozen screwdriver handles, two pipe wrenches, a pair of glasses that appear to be sunglasses but their just covered in bilge gunk. Also an absorbent bilge sponge that felt more like lead.  The most bizarre items were things that I couldn't figure out how they got down there... a 3' piece of metal rod, corroded beyond belief.   I've seen some pretty gross things that are easily labeled boat nasty... however this bilge took the cake!!



Luckily, I endured through this stage of the cleaning process and was able to get the engine room pretty clean and organized. The engine was de-greased  and cleaned with wire brushes, then primed and painted. Followed by a rebuilt starter and alternator, the ol Universal was ready to sit on her new motor mounts in a ready space.

De-greased

Primed

Painted!

As it turns out Gold is a universal color, meaning the universe over.... gold is gold.   When I found the spray can of Universal Gold at North Bay Auto Parts I figured it was just luck, they just happened to have my engine paint color in stock!!!  Its doesn't look bad, ey?  We've renamed her Goldie.

Blake Hinely runnin the Wiggins Marina Bull

So, simply getting Goldie back in place was no small feat. I had help from Dennis Mayhew and the crew from Bluewater High & Dry  and their forklift. Thanks Blake!

Goldie finally back in her hole!

With Goldie back in her cozy little space, next comes the task of aligning and bolting her down, then bolting together the coupling and prop shaft to the transmission.  After a little modification here and then, she is all hooked up and ready to go! 

This is where I sit when I'm in the engine room.

  Next steps were the new exhaust system including new/used Vetus water lock muffler and new exhaust hoses, a new stainless steel custom built exhaust riser pipe, new fresh water cooling water lines and rebuilt heat exchanger, new Groco raw water strainer, fuel pump, new fuel lines and filters and a temporary fuel tank, I also made a new bracket for the transmission cable and mounted it on the motor.  

Almost all hooked up!

 With all this done, the only thing left to do is wire it up! 

Should be simple, right....?

Beginning The Restoration ~

I'm not quite sure how to start this...


Basically, Lindita sat in Bluewater Bay Marina static for a about 2 months before I was able to return and begin the restoration process. In my head, I was going to have her ready in a couple months, sail her down to Abaco before our wedding, and sail off into the sunset with my bride and start our new life together...  thats not quite how it worked out.

I returned to Niceville in late November after delivering my bosses boat back to Abaco. They were down there for a week or so, boating and enjoying a break from north Alabama in the early stages of winter. I spent a couple weeks doing some maintenance on Annie Lee before being graced with a little time off to begin our sailboat restoration project.

This being only my second boat i've ever owned, the first one being a 23' daysailer I bought for $500 and sold for not much more, I had great expectations of how fast I'd work through these projects. Like I said before, I thought I'd be ready to sail away after only 2 months... knowing what I know now, pretty much every little project that you think will take 1 day, takes 3. So if these projects were going to take me 2 months (in my head they would) they would easily take 6 months(multiply time by at least 3).

So I basically started deep, removed the mast and rigging, removed the inboard diesel, and continued to strip out every single thing inside the boat, whether it was bolted or screwed or not. Everything was going to come out! This process took alot longer than I thought it would. This was my first indication that my project boat may take longer than 2 months...

Following are some pictures of the beginning of the restoration process. Stripping and gutting out -

After we pulled the mast, we pulled the engine.

Mast~less

Then we spun her around and removed the bow rail and bowsprit, along with the dolphin striker and bobstay.

My buddy Mike towing me back to the slip.

First view of engine room after engine removal.

Layer of muck that was underneath the engine.

Jumbled wires and hoses everywhere!

The original motor - 32hp Universal Diesel

Removing the waste holding tank along with all the head plumbing

Galley fridge was on old engine driven Adler/Barbour

This is the plating connected to the bow eye tang that connects the Bobstay to the Bowsprit

Night shift supplies are crucial !!!

My friend Christoph on night shift cleaning out the cockpit lazarettes, being paid in beer.

Randy on night shift polishing the bronze anchor hauser cap

disassembling rigging for inspection/cleaning

Bowsprit undergoing some epoxy work

Mast spreader arms are mahogany

Stripping the aluminum spars

After I began the decommissioning/demolition process of Lindita, I suddenly had a much greater picture of just how much is involved with a restoration of a yacht of this size. Its not that any of these projects scared me... its more the magnitude of the projects that daunted me. Since suddenly I went from having 1 project (the boat itself) to having half a dozen projects going on at once:

1.) Mast and boom
2.) Rigging
3.) Bow
      a.) Bowsprit
      b.) Bob-stay and thru-hull tang mounting bracket
      c.) Sampson posts
4.) Engine
5.) Engine room
6.) Head
7.) Etc
8.) Etc
9.) Etc

Things were coming apart slower than I had expected, and putting them back together was bringing up more unforeseen issues I had not anticipated. This is of course how boat projects go...    

The Purchase ~

I've been scanning the internet for cruising sailboats for quite a while now. Not everyday, but from time to time every few months or so I'd browse through yachtworld and see what was out there. Some days I'd be a minimalist looking for the most stripped down version of this yacht I could find. Super basic, but with the design aspects I know and love, heavy duty offshore blue water cruising quality. Other days, I'd max it out! Browsing boats that were way out of my price range, just to see what boats were going for. And every once in a while, there is a steal out there waiting to be had.... But they don't last long. And I'm sure there are a few others out there like myself ready to live the dream, buy a boat and sail off to find their own little piece of paradise.

I had pretty much narrowed my search down and knew pretty much was I was looking for. Another factor that came into play was location. It didn't really make sense to buy a boat that was in California or Mexico, simply because cost of travel to inspect and survey it.  So that also helped narrow down the search to more local waters. I found my boat sitting in St. Pete at a little marina, where she'd been sitting quietly for about 5 years, waiting for her previous owner to fix her up and sail her away.... this never happened. Somehow the previous owner became "disenchanted" with the boat and was ready to sell her and get on with his life of not sailing. Lucky for us!

My good friend and broker Randall Hinely was going to be in the Tampa area doing business and said he'd find the boat and have a look. I spoke with him while he and his niece were checking out the boat and he had this to say   "Ben.... you have found your boat."   We made an offer which was accepted to hold the boat until I could get a look at it also.  About a month or so later, Randall joined me to bring my bosses boat back stateside for the hurricane season. We delivered the Annie Lee from Marsh Harbour, Abaco to Niceville, FL where we'd spend a few months doing maintenance and stuff. Along the way making a stop in St. Pete to spend the day surveying this old boat.

Randall, my friend and broker

We spent the better part of the day and into the evening going through every nook and cranny of this vessel. Of course there were issues that I was concerned about, but the boat had alot going for it. 1st, it was in the right price range. 2nd, it had the right interior layout. 3rd, it was an awesome cruising machine I could see making my own! 4th, I had a friend representing me as broker, who could help negotiate this deal. Which he did, getting the price down to where it needed to be.

I was in love! With the boat, and with the idea of actually owning my own cruising vessel.
 
We renegotiated and lowered the offer. Randy called the owner personally and got him to accept the deal. I was well on my way to being a boat owner!





A few weeks past before we returned to the boat to finish the survey with a haul-out to inspect the bottom. For this I brought along friend and shipwright Dennis Mayhew.  I also got Dennis to go over a few other areas of concern we had, nothing scared him.

Dennis, Cy and Randy surveying her bottom

The previous owner had named her     "WANDERLUST"

Other than the name, we liked pretty much everything we saw.

It was September 15th.

I wanted to take her home.

Stroked a check, shook a few hands, and she was all mine!







We spent the afternoon cleaning, prepping, fixing, storing old gear, buying new gear and finally grocery shopping for a delivery trip back to the panhandle.  We bought a couple hundred dollars of food and a few beers, loaded it all aboard and headed out towards the beach.  We made one stop at a marina to take on some extra diesel fuel, not really knowing how much we had or needed. After all its a sailboat, I knew we could get home somehow!  So just before dark, Cy Greathouse, Randy Hinely and myself sailed offshore on the first leg of our journey home. ON MY NEW OLD BOAT!!!!  I'd been owner for less than 6 hours and we were already offshore ready to cross the Gulf of Mexico heading for Panama City.

Crossing the Gulf in ideal conditions! First trip on the new boat!!

We spent 3 day sailing and motoring her home. Experiencing all sorts of conditions, everything from total slick calm to 20+ kts reaching boat speeds of 8 and 9 knots. Truly amazing sailing for her first voyage in well over 5 years. And we only broke a couple things!













Arriving home to Niceville and gliding into the Bluewater Bay Marina for the first time aboard my new vessel felt extraordinary! I had done it, I had found and bought my boat, and got her home safely.... time to get to work!

This is how it all started ~

Hello ~

My names Benjamin and I'm a yacht captain.

Ever since I've been able to hoist sail and harness the power of wind, I've desired to own my own boat.  From the early days in high school sailing the bay with my friend Matt on his sunfish, then racing with the yacht club on Wednesday nights for beer can trophies, to the later days delivering yachts to foreign ports of call, this has remained a serious endeavor of mine. Well friends, my glorious hour has arrived!

Sailing Wanderlust  from St. Pete to Niceville.

But first... a little history to get you caught up.

My first "real job" after school was working for Bluewater Bay Yachts, in Niceville, FL. at the Bluewater Bay Marina.  Back then it was called Cove Marine Yacht Sales, and it was my first experience with an actual sailboat dealership. My friend Randall had a dealership for a very fine pedigree of sailing yacht called Pacific Seacraft. There were a couple others: Nauticat,  Cabo Rico, but the first offshore sailing trip I had the pleasure of experiencing was on board a 40' Pacific Seacraft Voyagemaker. I was 21 years old.

Pacific Seacraft 40' (sister ship photo)

Since then I've made dozens of deliveries, basically as a hired captain or crew to simply get a boat from point A to point B... by any means necessary! The longest trip I've ever made was on a 43' catamaran from St. Augustine, FL. to Marina Del Ray, CA. by way of the Panama canal. The whole trip was about 5000 nautical miles and took over 100 days, we stopped in 12 different countries. That was by far the most crazy, hair raising, difficult near disaster around every turn, kinda trip! We sailed through two tropical storms in the Caribbean in the first month. It was fall/winter of 2005, the most active storm season in the past 10 years or so.

Flying Fish in Jamaica

The following year I linked back up with Randall from Bluewater Bay. He enlisted me to join himself and his father Raymond on an amazing adventure. One of Randy's clients had recently bought a 42' Cabo Rico Pilothouse world cruising sailboat. This gentleman had sailed his yacht across the Atlantic in 2005, needing to get the boat back to our local waters, he hired his friend and broker Randy to sail it back for him. I was one of the lucky few who made the trip. In mid-late March of 2006 we departed Portimão, Portugal en route for Antigua, Leeward Islands. That trip took us roughly one month with a brief stop in Lanzarote, Canary Islands. We arrived in Antigua on Easter. What an amazing trip! 

Shearwater III in Little Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas

Our encounter while crossing the Atlantic

Soon after this adventure I found myself in a very unique position, I was offered a job to run the Shearwater III as full time captain!  I immediately accepted the job and began sailing her with the owner (Milton) and his family. We sailed the boat through the Bahamas and then up to New England where she spent her next three summers in the mid-coast of Maine. 

Sunset sailing on Penobscot Bay with my friend Meg~

Life was good, spending summers in Maine and fall/winter in Abaco. Milton and his wife Alice had also purchased another boat that would suit their needs a little better, a 42' Sabre Express motoryacht.  Shearwater III had been on the market and finally found a new home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but thats another story (see A Whale of a Shark Tale).   As bummed as I was to no longer be spending summers in Maine with a beautiful sailing craft, things were pretty great being based in Abaco for the majority of the year captaining the "Annie Lee" and caretaking the "Door Prize".

Annie Lee in Little Harbour

The "Door Prize"

And just when I thought....


 life could not get any better....


I ran into Alicia Marie Liphard!

Alicia and I at L.J. Schooners

We both happened to be home for the holidays and arranged to meet up at one of the local watering holes. She mentioned L.J. Schooners and I thought.... Great!  ( Schooners is located in Bluewater Bay Marina, basically where I grew up )  SO, after exchanging a few  "how you doins?"  "what are you up to these days?"   we decided to join some friends for a little midnight cruise around the Choctawatchee Bay. It was the most beautiful night, besides being freezing cold.... everyone had an amazing time!

Our first boat ride together... All Smiles!

Now this is where life starts to get more interesting....

We began dating long distance between Atlanta and Abaco. It was difficult with such a distance between us ( 500 miles of ocean and earth ) yet somehow we managed to make it work.

After a year of that I decided it was time for a change! I proposed marriage and she accepted!!!

Next order of business.....  I've gotta find us a boat and then get us married!!

The desire to own and live aboard a cruising sailboat was now the ultimate goal in life. 

And so the inspiration for Lindita was born.  ~