The Game

Stuart, FL
No LL

We're back in Stuart. It was great to see Dave and Cathy again. Savannah was an ideal place to meet.

We got back in time to see today's hockey game between USA and Canada for the Olympic gold. Wow, what a game. When the US pulled their goalie with one minute to go, I thought it was all over. Not so. The last minute goal was thrilling. Too bad Canada won in OT.

The crowd watching the game in the captain's lounge was 50-50 American-Canadian. That made it even more exciting. When Canada scored the winning goal a man shouted out in jest. He said, "All you Canadians get your boats out of here." :)

p.s. On the way back, Libby found a place to replentish her supply of pine needles. More baskets on the way.

Savannah Bound

Stuart, FL

No LL

An now for something completely different. We rented a car, leaving the boat in Stuart, and are driving north to Savannah, Georgia for the weekend.

The occasion is an opportunity to meet with our son David and his wife Cathy. I think it has been at least two years since we've seen them.

Dave and Cathy live in Fairbanks, Alaska. They are going to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina. Cathy moved first, and she'll hunt for a house. Dave will follow in July. Dave is flying down to spend a week with Cathy, and they graciously offered to meet us halfway in Savannah for a weekend.

No more blogs until we return to Stuart next week.

Bonehead Stunts

Stuart, FL

27 11.93 N 80 15.67 W

Regular readers of this blog know well that I do more than my fair share of boneheaded stunts and create my own snafus. Well, nothing has changed. Here's two of my most recent.

I love Honda small motors. We have a Honda outboard and a Honda 1000 generator. They run very well. The generator is exceptionally quiet which is a valuable quality.

All Honda small engines have a kinky system for draining and refilling the motor oil. They have a tilted spout, that it capped with a threaded plug. The top of the plug is narrowed to make a handle for thumb and finger. The design is kinky because one normally twice as much dirty and clean oil than spills rather than getting to the desired container. I bought a sort of spigot that claims to make the process no-spill.

Last week, I was changing the oil in the generator. I put down the filler plug. It rolled off the bench into the cockpit well. From there it went down the cockpit drain and into the sea. Of course it didn't float.

I tried all the lawn mower and auto parts stores in town to buy a replacement, but of course none of them are compatible. Now, I have an exact replacement on order from Honda and in a few weeks I'll have it. Meanwhile, I have to share one filler plug between the outboard and the generator. We can only run one at a time.

The other stunt happened as I was repairing a leaky sink drain in the head. I took the drain apart, cleaned it off, and prepared to put it back with a bead of silicone tub and tile sealer. As normal in such cases, the project required several trips to my tool box to fetch yet another tool.

Soon the job was done. Good. Then I turned around and looked. There was white silicon all over my shirt, my pants, my shoes, and white footprints all over Tarwathie's head, cabin and ladders. Oh no! What a mess!

I figured out what happened. I used a 6 ounce tube of sealer that I bought at Ace Hardware. It was brand new. What I didn't notice was that the bottom of the plastic tube had a crack. As I squeezed the tube to get a bead of sealer to squirt out the nozzle, a bigger quantity was squirting out the back of the tube onto me and on the floor where I was stepping. Of course I didn't notice until it was too late. As Ricky Ricardo used to say, "Ay ay ay, ay ay."

Squeak Squeak

Stuart, FL

No LL

I've mentioned before that Libby and I are both fond of rowing in our dinghy. When the run between boat and shore is not too long, we don't mount the outboard engine at all. We have the advantage of having a nice 8 foot Fatty Knees brand hard dinghy with 7.5 foot oars. If we had an inflatable boat with 3 foot oars, we wouldn't like rowing at all.

Libby is especially fond of rowing at night when the air is totally still. One glides silently through the water and admires all the sight so intensely. The silently aspect is my topic today.

Our oar locks go squeak squeak with every stroke of the oars. The squeaks from from the metal-to-metal contact between the movable part fastened to the oar and the fixed part fastened to the boat. I hate that squeak , and it has been my habit to use special marine grease on the oar locks to silence them. I need to re-grease them about once a week.

The other day I was rowing ashore. When you row, you're looking backward not ahead. I usually don't worry about running into other boats. Motor boats can see me coming and maneuver around me much easier than I can avoid them.

That day some sixth sense made made me turn around and look. There was a man in another dinghy rowing toward me. We came within 3 feet of a head-on collision. Luckily both of us sensed the presence and looked around just in the nick of time. Libby had about the same experience on a different day.

What was the sixth sense? It finally occurred to me. It was the squeak squeak. That, along with a little creaking and little splashing noises is what alerted us to the proximity of another boat.

As much as the squeak annoys me, I've changed my policy and I no longer grease the oar locks. It is analogous to the problem of introducing noise to electric vehicles so that blind pedestrians can hear them coming. As an alternative, I could grease the oar locks and compensate by singing "Row Row Row Your Boat..." as I move along, but then I'd annoy everyone else.

The Survey: Background

Stuart, FL

No LL

Check the byline. We're not in Vero any more. We moved to Stuart in preparation for an auto side trip next weekend. However, on Friday and Saturday we got a new professional yacht survey for Tarwathie. That's what I'll talk about today.

Why a survey? Because our insurance company requires it. The whole process of how we got here tees me off and it put me in a foul mood before beginning.

We renew our insurance every March. Last year, with our portfolio value plunging I sought ways to reduce our insurance costs. I emailed IMIS, our insurance agent, and asked about some options. They promised to look into it and get back to me. They never did. Instead, we got a renewal notice at the old price and a statement saying that in 2010 we would need a new survey. (I didn't know before that they require a new survey every 5th year.) They gave a web URL for more information.

Last summer I called IMIS to get more info about the survey. No reply. Then I emailed them, no reply. As a result, when we hauled out to paint the bottom last fall I didn't get the survey done. This year I got a new reminder from IMIS that I need a survey.

I found the name of a surveyor local to Vero and made arrangements. What sticker shock on the price! In 2005 we paid $300 to the surveyor and $100 to the boat yard for a haul out. This time the prices hiked to $500 and $175, plus $60 for a diver to clean the bottom; total $730. WOW! The price nearly doubled despite a couple of years of deflationary trends.

The high price really made me think. In 2005 I was the buyer and the surveyor was acting to my benefit. Any flaws he found would be to my advantage. This year, the beneficiary is the insurance company. Any negative finding in the survey could be used to fully or partially deny me coverage. The insurance company should be picking up the cost of the survey. Not me. But no; that's not the way it works.

Then I started thinking about a couple of things I learned about marine insurance (a) Most claims are for partial losses, not total loss. Therefore, the total value of the yacht has only about 20% weight in setting the premium. (b) After 5 years on the boat many carriers offer a discount. [my carrier didn't] (c) The owner is limited to two claims in a lifetime. After two, insurance is unavailable unless one pays at least twice as much.

We insure Tarwathie for a value of $57,000. The deductible is $2000 and the premium is $1920. In 2006, we were hit by lightning in Kittery, Maine. We made a claim for about $8,000 of which the insurance company (readily and with no hassle) paid $6,000. But now we have one claim behind is, how big would a second claim be before it is worth our while to file it. Not $2,000.

Assume that we must have insurance. Therefore if we file a second claim, our future premiums will double for at least 5 years. The net present value of $1920 hike per year for 5 years at 6% is $8,573. That makes our "effective" deductible $10,573. Let's guess that if we have a claim it is for half the value of the boat or $28,500, of which the insurance effectively pays $17927. The annual coast is $1920 + ($730/5) = $2066 per year. To make it break even, we need a claim of that size once every 9 years.

Is that wise use of our money? Should we self insure? I'm still ambivalent. If I was really smart, I would have resolved my ambivalence before paying for a new survey.

I'm sure an insurance salesman would say that my way of analyzing it is completely invalid. Well sure, I could get a better answer if I hired an actuary to do a calculation for me for a few thousand dollars.

If I had really been smart I would have thought through such things before doing the survey.

I started shopping for another insurance company and another agent. A friend recommended ACE. ACE said they need a recent survey to give me a quote. So there's a benefit. If I pay for the survey it allows me to shop for cheaper insurance.

I asked around Vero. Many fellow cruisers carry only liability insurance which costs only about $300/year. That's quite a difference.

What does Libby think about this? She hates the idea of self-insuring.

So how did the survey turn out? It was a very mixed bag, I got some very valuable information, some bad news, and some things which really annoy me. More about that later.