Monday, March 28, 2011
The morning after
Mike and Gloria brought Windfree to West Palm Beach from Double Breasted, Abacos, Bahamas to purchase some parts and see family. Patti and I joined them aboard with their daughter and son in law, Lauri and Chuck and their friends, to watch the fireworks celebrating West Palm's new waterfront facilities. A wonderful evening.
Clouds in my cofffee
After spending a few weeks in St. Mary's with friends Mike and Gloria Peters from Windfree and being visited by my special friend Patti Marshall, I made the long solo slog down the ICW ( Intra Coastal Waterway ) to my home waters of Palm Beach County. Up until this point I certainly never contemplated a blog and so please forgive the lack of pictures and the poor quality of the Blackberry phone photos.
Fortunately we found a berth behind a nice home in Palm Beach Gardens at a reasonable rate and there I have been working daily to add equipment to my good ship. We now have a new electric windlass to handle the anchor chain duties and a reverse osmosis watermaker to convert the ocean into our drinking water. At Riverside Marina in Ft. Pierce, a great place to work on your boat, the bottom was painted, a new cutlass bearing, fuel tank, solar panels and a myriad of other things installed. Joey, at the yard did a great job fabricating a fuel tank and making mounts for the solar panels on the bimini frame.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Company
We left the Cape Fear sea buoy astern on September 24 at 1400 and enjoyed three days of squalls and lumpy seas. We made landfall at St. Simons, Georgia on Sept.26, at two o'clock in the morning. The entrance was well lit with lightning and booming thunder. Contrary winds encouraged us to enter at St. Simons instead of St. Marys. The next day we motored the ICW to St. Marys and rendevoued with Mike and Gloria Peters on Windfree. It was good to get to sea again on a sailing vessel after a nineteen year hiatus. This was nothing like the thirty knot race to the Bahamas on the Intrepid 32.
Ron's first solo to Wrightsville Beach
After the survey but while still awaiting insurance coverage, so that I could assume ownership, Derek agreed to allow me to stay on DT. We launched her from the Core Creek boatyard and motored her up to Matthew's Point on Clubfoot Creek. Joe Naset, Derek's broker and a terrific guy, made arrangements to berth Dawn Trader at the most favorable rate. Having been in a motel for weeks, this was good news and gave me a chance to know my soon to be, own little ship.
We finally got the sale closed and then Derek assisted me in getting DT down to Beaufort, retracing our wake past Core Creek. We spent a few days making Dawn Trader ready for sea before I set out for Wrightsville Beach alone on September 21. This was the beginning of the approximately seven hundred miles back to Palm Beach County Florida during the peak of the hurricane season. Derek was to meet me in Wrightsville Beach in three days and crew for me offshore to St.Mary's Georgia.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Ready for launch with new bottom paint, canvas and sails back aboard
The purchase of Dawn Trader was complicated by the arrival of Hurricane Earl on September 2, 2010. The Marine surveyor was too busy prior to the storm and then delayed by the storm. I had already made two trips to North Carolina trying to complete the purchase of my dream vessel. While needing some cosmetic tender loving care (still in need) she was in excellent structural and mechanical condition. At seventeen years old there are few vessels built to this high standard. With Hurricane Earl approaching within 85 miles of the Outer Banks, Derek and I battened down the hatches, stripped off the gear on deck and prayed. Anyone that has seen what havoc these storms wreck knows our vessel's fate was in God's hands. I left my plywood motel room and drove a hundred miles inland to the junction of I-95 to both get away from the destructive potential of Earl and meet my good friend Mike Smolak on his way to Canada to see his lovely Patricia. Mike brought all my hundreds of pounds of tools and sailing gear to make my trip down to Florida possible.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Dawn Trader
This is the story of Dawn Trader, a Tradewind 35 built in Manchester, England in 1993. Her original owner-builder, Mr. Farr sailed her around the Mediteranean Sea with his wife before selling her to a short term owner. Dawn Trader then came into the capable hands of Mr. Derek Beckman. Captain Derek sailed her across the big pond with a lady friend to the Caribbean. Eventually Derek and Dawn Trader ended up in Morehead City, North Carolina sans his female crew. As often happens to lonely sea captains, Derek was captivated by one of North Carolina's lovely ladies and swallowed the anchor. We really begin this part of Dawn Trader's history with Derek and Karen sadly parting with DT to the great joy of her new owner Ron Hyman.
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