Ahoy! November finds me stepping out a bit beyond my normal comfort area by purchasing a new used boat and sailing it single-handed north... Keel-N-Time is berthed in Bridgeton, NC while I am down in Florida, snagging a newer boat... a 1988 Island Packet 38, Artemis.
Where to begin? I've wanted an Island Packet for some time as they are comfortable, well-designed, solid, and (like Keel-N-Time) do not snag lobster pots and similar. When I searched before, they were all far out of my price range... and I did not have AI to do a search for me! This time a quick request to Google found this listing for 10k less than my last boat. It DOES require about the same amt of work, but I'm quite pleased so far... and it has a LOT of extras that are very nice, like a dinghy, autohelm, and Monitor wind steering.
What needs doing? LOTS of tiny items... like dealing with some SHARP cotter pins that have already ripped my integument (I should probably clean up the blood!).... and, well, the dodger is shot except for use as a rough pattern.
The bimini needs to be replaced fairly soon. I need a solid rack for the solar panels. And (biggest job!): the chainplates of most boats produced in that time were made of a metal that often fails at about this age (or ten years sooner as on my 1985 Catalina 34). And Island Packet chose to make the chainplates 100% uninspectable: there is NO way to detect failure before it happens!
How does one replace these? One must remove the cabinetry hiding the hull interior, grind out the fiberglass encapsulating the chainplates and remove them, install new ones, carefully clean up the glass dust, and reinstall/repair the cabinetry. One can either install new identical ones (of a better stainless) OR install some on the exterior of the hull. Many frown at the sacrilege of exterior chainplates on an IP, but given that this boat has sailed the world and has been heavily modified, I'm OK with it... and really like the idea of being able to see how the plates are doing. I'm undecided...
Anyway, I bought the boat early this month and am TRYING to get it up to NC, both to avoid the high sales tax of Florida (waived for BIG purchases, of course: the rich would otherwise modify their transactions to avoid tax), I have lots of contacts there, and because I have work to do on both boats that will be far easier if I have the other nearby. I motored (50hrs?) and sailed (10hrs?) from Tampa area to Key Biscayne and am now waiting for a favorable wind to take me up the Gulf Stream. I'm eager to sail, but it would be dumb to sail north AGAINST the wind!
I'll wait here for a bit, sew a new dodger (or create a rough sailcloth version), make other fixes and improvements, and try to be patient.
I have hopes that I will fairly soon be sailing this boat down to the Virgins... and the extra sails that came with it might make repairs on my friend's CSY44 much more reasonable. In the meantime, I'm enjoying trying it out and enjoying stars and sunrises...
