Neil Scheuerlein

Monday December 20, 2021, La Cruz (NEW SAILS!)

Up at 7 am, breakfast, the Net and our bible reading. Listened to the Panama Posse call as well.
I contacted
Maureen Chadwick

Coastal Climate Control, Inc. – Veco NA

Annapolis MD USA

301-352-5738

About our freezer issue. I found out that our freezer is almost certainly overcharged, and I got instructions on how to “fix this”. The advice I have had locally has been to just replace the compressor (about $1200 +/-) it appears I just need to let some freon out.

Our new sails were put up! We started the order process in March, we were promised September, and kept getting told “about 3 weeks”. So, today they went up. Slight issue when the staysail was the wrong size, the guys putting the sails up started with that sail as it is the smallest. They had it all the way to the top, but still had about 10 feet of sail on the deck. Turned out, the company making the sails mixed the bags up, and reversed the staysail and the mainsail. Anyway all the sails are up. But we found that the boom vang is stuck. This is a spring loaded piston used to support the boom. So, they took it back to the shop. If it isn’t one thing it’s something else.

We had planned to take the engine control cover in to Puerto Vallarta to get it replaced. This is an example of just how much harder things are to do while in cruising. We have found 1 company that can do this, the guy is only available between 4 and 6 pm. The location is in Puerto Vallarta so it means rush hour traffic to get there and the last time we left here at 5 pm, it took 2 and half hours to get across PV (~25 miles). When we get there, he will look at what we have and tell us if he can do it. Also, he said he is pretty busy, so we don’t know how long to do this. But, while we planned to go at about 3pm, to head off, that was when I was getting info about the freezer, so this has been deferred until tomorrow.

We took a walk at sunset out to the beach and then into town. Finally called it a day and went back for a game of cards and bed.

Sunday December 19, 2021, La Cruz

Reneé was up at 3:30 to continue with the rolls, I did not sleep well at all, not really sure what I was thinking about but every time I closed my eyes there was something else going on. Anyway, we got off to the bus and church which was a breakfast and then a service. We left after the sermon and headed back to the bus and the marina. We needed to check in, as they were closed by the time we got tied up yesterday, and they are only open from 9 am to 1 pm on Sunday. We checked in and walked through the shops on the breakwater then back to the boat. A nap for me and Reneé went to the other market in town, then back to the boat. A quiet day, while I continued to nap. At the end of the day a dinner, a movie (A Soldiers Story) and bed. A pretty quiet day.

No pictures today.

Saturday December 18, 2021, La Cruz

Up at 7 am breakfast, the net, and bible reading. That is how we start our day. We organized our stuff and checked out of the Inn, We will splash our boat today! We have a wagon that we use to move things and so we were able to get it all in one trip. Back to the boat, and hauled everything up to the boat. We spoke with Peter Vargas, the guy in charge of our boat repairs and verified we were ready to splash, we paid our bill with him and with the yard and by then it was time to lift the boat (about 11 am). Once the boat was in the straps, the touch up to the bottom paint was completed and then left to dry for a few hours. We went out and had lunch and arrived back at about 12:45, a friend we had helped the other day (Pat) was on hand to help us move the boat. An uneventful move from the spot in the yard to the water, then across the marina and back into a slip. The boat was tied up and we got a key to the gate from security, then we washed the boat, it is amazing how dirty a boat gets in the yard.
We got showers and headed into town for dinner and found a new (to us) restaurant next door to the Red Chair place (so named because of …. Oh yeah the red chairs!) finally back to the boat. Reneé started making cinnamon rolls for church tomorrow. Then off to bed at the end of a pretty productive day.

No pictures today. (They all wound up in the post titled ROCKS).

Thursday December 16, 2021, La Cruz

Up slow, breakfast and the net then our bible reading. Plans for the day, I will be going to the boat and working on our list for a boat survey. Potentially, helping a friend move his boat out of the yard, and spending time with our friends the Peppers.

We got a call that the catamaran we were helping was already in the sling (this was a couple of hours before we expected it to splash) so we headed over to the yard. On the way, I got a call from our survey guy who wanted to get some pictures for the survey. As it turned out, while the boat was lifter, they had all gone to lunch/siesta, so we were able to deal with the survey first, then the catamaran.

So, we did help Pat move his Leopard 46 Catamaran out of the Yard and over to a slip. Wow those are big boats! We have helped two boats in/out of the yard, the other was a 47 foot Catamaran, they are about 10 feet wider than our boat and about the same lenght. Which doesn’t tell the whole story. While they are about 10 feet wider than our widest part, out boat is narrow at the stern and pointed at the bow, catamarans are almost rectangular, that is just as wide at both ends as they are in the middle. The one we toured today has 3 cabins and 3 heads, the port forward cabin actually has a small cabin forward of the main cabin with a small bed in it, which is designed to be “crews” quarters. But would be suitable for a Childs room off the parents room. The beds in the two main cabins on the port side are probably about the size of the beds on our boat, which is to say queen sized. The master stateroom on the starboard side has a huge bed in lots of locker space and a huge head, with a separate shower that is probably almost 4 feet square. The salon is up from the staterooms and is wide and has lots of room. They have room on this boat to put up lots of solar (2,200 watts!) which is important, as they have 3 refrigerators and a large ice maker. There are two engines 54 mph each like I said a much bigger boat than ours, I think a comparable mono hull would have to be about 60 feet long to begin to have as much room.

After moving the other boat, we went back to our room and showered and got ready then met the Peppers at the upstairs patio and had dinner and listened to music. Afterwards they came back to our room and we played Flub (a dice game). Which was the end to a pretty good day.

Dinner with the Peppers (Deny and Steve)

Rocks! November 28 – December 18, 2021

Let me start by saying, this is a very long post, and it is somewhat embarrassing to write.

We are on the hard, we had ordered new sails last March, but they were late getting here. Always “just a couple more days away”. Anyway, we needed to be in Barra de Navidad on December 2nd for the Panama Posse seminars this year.

So, we finally said “put the old sails back on, and we will head out from Puerto Vallarta on November 28th”. The sail loft that is getting our new sails had our old ones and told us to only use about 1/2 of it, he marked a spot near the top on the leech to not go out any further.

It is about 160 miles. We really don’t like doing overnight passages, so we had mapped out a couple of stops.

The first one was at Ipala a point about 40 ish miles from La Cruz, the marina we were in. We have been there a couple of times, and it is an adequate anchorage. There are a couple of obstacles in the little bay. There are pangas (fishing boats), fish pens, (netted areas) and, oh yeah there are ROCKS. We got there mid afternoon, and set up to anchor, this means my wife takes the helm, I handle the anchor, she has two phones running the anchor alarms, and an iPad with Navionics running, so she has better detail than just the chart plotter.

I had reviewed the chart before heading forward to the anchor, but reversed the fish pens and the ROCKS in my head. We headed in and were just about to drop anchor when I saw the rocks behind me and slightly to stbd. We turned and moved away from them, but still managed to bounce a couple of times. Reneé misjudged where we were and I could not back her up from where I was.

We found a safe spot to anchor and after getting setup, I went snorkeling to see the damage. There were a couple of chips the size of silver dollars that I saw, but nothing “major” we debated continuing south to Barra de Navidad, but thought about being 160 miles from the nearest boat lift with a potential problem. So, we turned around the next day and headed back to La Cruz.

Of course there was no cell service, and the satellite phone was being finicky so we could not call ahead to the boat yards until we were in Banderas bay. On the way north, we had the normal sailors wind, that is to say it was coming from exactly where we wanted to go, and it was way too fast. We had 35+ knots on the nose with gusts to 48 knots. Our OLD mainsail, has had issues for some time, and as I mentioned before, we could not use very much of it anyway. We had it out straight back to stabilize the boat while motoring into the wind with probably 3 to 4 foot waves. A couple of hours of this, and Reneé said something about the sail and I looked up and saw it was ripped from the leech forward about 4 feet. So, we rolled it in, and kept going. Once we rounded Cabo Corrientes things calmed down and it was relatively peaceful getting to La Cruz. We even saw a pod of whales.

There are two yards here that could haul us out Opequimar and La Cruz. Neither could take us right away, so we headed to La Cruz as they thought they could get us this week, whereas Opequimar needed someone to leave to have room for us.

We were scheduled to haul on Dec 1st, at 3:30 pm, we called about noon to check in. They said there was a problem with the brake on the travel lift, and they were unsure about lifting our boat. As a side note, a friend had posted a picture from San Carlos yard on November 30 (as in the day before) of a boat getting dropped there due to a broken strap. So, we were really okay with the delay. The yard had parts coming on Saturday, and would need a few days to get back on schedule. We rented a car, coordinated with some neighbors to watch our boat and drove to Barra.

When we got back to the boat, we checked in with the yard and we were told that it would be Saturday December 12. We tried to get the old sails down, actually we tried to get the loft to take the old sails down (our new sails are here now!) but due to other work going on they were not available.

Finally, on Saturday 12/12 we got hauled out. The people doing the repair were ready, and immediately ground out the scratches and cut two holes in the bottom of the keel to let the water out, about 5 gallons. I videoed the water draining, I started about 30 seconds after it started for 7 minutes and then watched for a few more minutes. The first estimate from the repair guy after looking and before the grinding was splashing on Tuesday 12/14. Well, that didn’t happen, they have had someone with a heat-gun drying this out for two days so far.

In the meantime, today the sail loft came for the sails. Three guys at 9 am, they took down the jib, then the staysail, then started in on the main. They took a couple of hours off when the wind came up early afternoon, but 5 of them came back and worked until after 6 pm removing the old sail. I think the biggest piece might have been 10 square feet. It didn’t come out of the mast easy. Most of the time one of the guys was up the mast pulling bits and pieces of the sail out.

Right now, the boat is in the yard, we have no sails (yet), the keel is open and draining/drying and we have shore power.

I communicated with Bill Bolin (previous exec at Island Packet) about how much water was in the keel:

My question to him:

Hello, we bumped our keel on some rocks here in Mexico. We got hauled out about 2 weeks later and when they ground down the two worst areas they cut into the keel and water gushed out. Probably on the order of 5 gallons or so. The water was clear, and did not slow to a trickle till it had been running for about 10 minutes. (I have 7 minutes of video and missed the first 30 seconds and it was several more minutes before it stopped).

My question is, about this void, is it supposed to be there, or do I have another issue to look for?

IP 445-11.

Thank you for your time

His response:

Neil, sorry to hear that happened! there is typically a gap between the sides of the ballast material and the molded keel. I suspect on a 445 that might equate to 5 to 10 gallons of space for water to get into. That water would’ve been pressurized coming into the bottom of the keel and would find its way into any nook and cranny. Just need to let it dry out a bit, don’t think you need to force Erin “air in” or anything else. And make a glass repair as appropriate.

Bottom line, the boat is safe, the damage to the keel is repairable, the new sails are here and will be put up when we are back in the water, our pride, well it goes before a fall anyway, so it will recover.

Today (Saturday 11/18/2021), they applied the resin and fiberglass repair to the keel, and we have a tentatively scheduled splash date of tomorrow. We will get some touch up to the bottom paint as well. I have spoken with Mike (the sail guy) and our sails should be on the boat prior to splashing the boat, and will be put up on Monday. He only has workers until 2 tomorrow (Saturday) and the wind comes up in the afternoon. So, next week we should have sails, and the repairs done on the keel. Only issues left are maintenance/normal repairs that have to be done because it is a boat!

On Saturday, the final touch up of the bottom paint was applied and we splashed at 1 pm right on schedule. Total costs for this repair was:

$900 for the work,

$1148 for the Yard

$490 for the inn

About $37 per night in the marina, figure at least a week more than if we had been able to stay in the anchorage. So at least another $300.

So, ball park of about $3,000 for this repair.