what do you do...

When no one seems to be in a big hurry but you?

As you may have guessed, the lack of posts around here has much to do with the fact that Interlude is not yet in the water. She went into the shop around the first of the year and up until mid-March, we were told she was being serviced. The purchase agreement had a laundry list of things to be fixed and we were told the service department would address them all and let us know when repairs were completed. Around the end of March, Josh received an email update complete with photos of the king plank and bowspirit being replaced, as well as the compression post being replaced. We assumed that all meant the boat was in tip top shape. Josh took a trip up one Saturday following that email to look over the work. Lo and behold, during his inspection he saw that the chain plates had not been cleaned, replaced, or in any way serviced. He also noted that the sea cocks hadn't been replaced (both issues are troublesome and need attention before being launched). He followed up in person by showing the head of the service department the lack of action on the issues. He subsequently sent an email with photos of said problems. No response. 

Fast forward to last Saturday. Our surveyor wanted to take a look at the work that had been done in order to get insurance all squared away and felt a boat in better condition would merit a lower insurance rate. Great. We like that idea. We still haven't heard any more from the service department but I think we both assume they'd seen the email and had taken action. Guess again. As of last Saturday, the boat's still not completely fixed. We are back to the drawing board and the next steps are to involve the salesman who sold us the boat and probably the owner of Larsen. It's a super big bummer because we were really hoping to have Interlude back in last week. Will keep you posted. 

in for the winter.

This post is oh, about a month overdue. Apologies for that! Life has been hectic, shall we say?

At the end of last month, we took the trek back down to Larsen Marine to have Interlude pulled for the winter. Why did we go alllll the way back down to Waukegan to have the boat pulled when there is a lovely facility for boat storage just across the marina, you ask? Well, Interlude is having some work done over the winter. When we had the survey done, the major issues were major, yes, but nothing to keep us from enjoying her for the remainder of the season, and after all the waiting we'd done to finally own her, we weren't exactly happy at the prospect of having to wait 6-7 months to get a feel for her. As part of our storage agreement, Larsen would pull her out, do all the engine winterizing and then have her repairs done, hopefully by year end, at which point, we'd be able to begin doing our little projects on her. Here's hoping January, February, and March are mild months!

Josh's mom and dad drove up on Thursday night so we could be aboard her bright and early Friday. We left a car at Larsen and one at the marina in Racine and sailed, or rather motored down all day Friday. I was down with some seasickness, which is the second time it's happened on Interlude and I think the trick is to have a full to the brim stomach. I'll do more experimenting in the spring, otherwise it could be an uncomfortable life :( We got to Larsen around 5:30 and docked with the greatest of ease (a skill we are working on. 36' is a whole lotta boat to dock!). Josh's mom and I drove up to Racine to get the second car while Josh and his dad unloaded the boat, took down the sails and got her a little closer to ready for winterizing. According to Paul, Josh's dad, taking down the sails was a pain, so we've got that to look forward to when we launch in the spring.

Saturday, Josh and his dad went back and winterized some of the systems. They drained the water tank and filled it with "pink stuff", basically antifreeze, emptied the sump and filled it with more pink stuff and did more work to get the other systems prepared for the cold. I should have been there, but Josh said it was tight quarters with the two of them, let alone four of us. And hopefully we'll only have to do the winterizing bit one more winter after this!

So Interlude is by now out of the water, her bottom cleaned, engine flushed, and she's probably in the shop. We haven't had any updates on the progress but once we do, we'll go up and check on the workmanship of the repairs and start planning our projects. 

survey says....

Our survey, which took 10 hours over 2 days ("thorough" is the word of the day if you plan to make such a huge purchase and want to know without a doubt that your future home will, in fact, float while you are living aboard it) turned up various issues on the boat we are under contract to buy. Some of them we knew about and some were a surprise (not the good kind, mind you!). We used a gentleman out of Green Bay, WI named Ben Miller (who I highly recommend. I am happy to pass along his contact info for those in the market for a survey.) and after lots of discussing with him and between us, we approached the seller/brokerage with our list of "issues". We fully expected they would fix at least the very minimum problems in order to move forward with the sea trial. Those issues were more safety and structural in nature and ABSOLUTELY HAD to be addressed before putting the boat in the water, mast up, sails on, etc. Surprise of surprises, they have agreed to fix almost all of the items on the list! We should hear back today or tomorrow about the schedule of the maintenance and when we can get her into the water to complete the sea trial. We are beyond excited with the response and are already making our own little "to do" list of things we want to upgrade once she is ours :-)