A Day Sail From Kingston

Kingston, Rondout Creek, NY
N 41 55.013 W 73.59.060

Friday night we stayed over at the complimentary dock at the Mariner's Inn restaurant on the Hudson across the river from Poughkeepsie. As an extra bonus we had a ring side seat to the Friday night fireworks display from Poughkeepsie.

Ayhow, it turned out to be a very noisy place. First it was the disco music from the tiki bar at the restaurant right beside us. Then, when the restaurant closed, we realized that we were only 150 feet away from a railroad crossing. All night long, every 12 minutes, a fast freight would come roaring by and blow his whistle when he was right beside us. We didn't get much sleep.

On Saturday we motored up to Kingston and anchored out in the river right near the lighthouse. We had lots of ambitions to use the dinghy to go ashore and to clean off the brown mustache that Tarwathie picked up along the waterline and then to wax the hull. In reality, we were both so tired from lack of sleep that we just napped the day away.

Today, we had a visit from Bud and Nan from West Charlton. We haven't seen them in more than a year so it was great fun to get together. They drove down to Kingston and we met them at the water front. Then we went out in to the Hudson for a little sail, and headed down river towards Hyde Park. There was very little wind. By the time lunch was ready the wind had died to zero, so I just took down the sails, we motored a bit, and then we just shut off the motor and drifted. We didn't drift very far because it was nearly slack tide but it was nice and peaceful.


After returning to Kingston, the four of us walked to the visitor's center and spent time looking at the exhibits of the local history of Kingston and Rondout Creek. The creek was the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The D&H canal has a history rather like the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. It was dug by hand with private money. When it was complete, Kingston became a real hub of commerce. Shipbuilding, concrete, coopers, bricklaying, ice harvesting, and blue stone quarrying industries all sprung up here because it was a hub of transportation. Also, the D&H railroad started here, and the railroad eventually made the canal obsolete. All this local history is, I think, very interesting.

We finished up the day with drinks on the patio of a Mexican restaurant on the shore of the creek. Thank you Bud and Nan, we had a very fun day.

Repowering Project Summary

Some blog readers asked me to follow up on the repowering project summary after gaining some experience with the new engine. Here goes.

First, you can find the individual posts of the 17 day long project by clicking here. In each day's post is a link to the next day's post. Follow all 17 links and it will bring you back here.

The following summary is copied from the blog of March 11, 2007 with four differences.

1) The Re-Haul. When we splashed the boat I immediately noticed leakage from the shaft log. We had to re-haul it up on the hard, purchase and apply a new Marine-Tex putty kit and splash it once again. That mistake cost $400.

2) Taplin Labor. Initially I expected to pay Bud Taplin for his labor. Indeed, as explained in earlier blogs, I considered him to be the prime contractor and the job to be a turnkey installation. Well, that was wrong. When the boatyard asked for an insurance certificate, Bud explained that no, he is not a contractor, he was just a friend helping me with a do-it-yourself project. He would not be charging me a penny for labor. Well, the final story is that a few weeks after the project, I got
an invoice in the mail: $500 for Bud's Labor. I consider it well worth the price, but because of the history, the invoice came as a surprise to me.

3) I moved Diagnosis A from the core project to the supplemental project. The reason is that I expect that most people would not include the cost of deciding to do the project as part of the cost of the project.

4) I include an engine performance summary at the end.

Here is the summary, starting with the core project. These are the things that were inescapable.

New Engine.....$9,300
Parts............$900
Boat Yard......$1,100
Tools............$200
Re-Haul..........$400
Taplin Labor.....$500

...Subtotal...$12,400.....(70%)

Parts includes the new propeller shaft, control cables, fuel lines, hoses, clamps and stuff. Bud Taplin generously provided a kit with almost everything I need in all lengths and sizes. He said to ship back the unused items and to scratch them off the invoice before paying. Thanks Bud, that makes it fairly easy.

The boat yard fee included the haul out, storage, use of their fork lift to remove the old engine and place in the new one, plus about 5 hours labor for their men to do several miscellaneous jobs for us.

The $12,400 subtotal sounds low for a repowering project. Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. Next are the items that were real costs to me, but may or may not apply to you. Call it the supplemental project.

Diagnosis A.......$500
Diagnosis B.......$500
Batteries.........$300
Paint.............$300
Living..........$3,738
.......Subtotal.$5,338....(30%)
...Grand Total.$16,838...(100%)

In this, Diagnosis A was the fee for the mechanic to take apart the old engine and to pronounce it fatally wounded.

Diagnosis B was the cost of the mechanic putting the old engine back together to keep our batteries charged while waiting two months for Bud's availability.

Batteries and paint were side projects. You may wish to exclude all side projects from your budget. On the other hand, it may be wiser to include 15% for contingencies.

The biggest item in the second group was $3,783 for alternative living arrangements. That included marina fees, mooring fees, apartment rental, and car rental, but excluded food. Since we live aboard, these alternative living arrangements are an additional expense that we would not have to pay if we were traveling and living on the hook. If you are repowering but do not live aboard, then you would probably not count those living expenses toward the repowering project.

Not included in these numbers are my labor (about 150 hours), and Libby's labor (about 100 hours). If I had to purchase all that labor at boat yard rates, it would have cost me another $20,000! On the other hand, professionals would not have needed as many hours as Libby and I. I probably could have negotiated a fixed price contract for the labor for perhaps $6,000.

Engine performance:

As I write this, we now have 266 hours on the new engine and we have refueled 6 times and changed the oil twice.

The first day out, I was very concerned with vibrations. The engine sounds were alien to me and I was afraid of engine misalignment, which would be very serious. I finally qualmed my fears by holding the handle of a boat hook pressed against the propeller shaft while we were under way at 2000 RPM. The boat hook would telegraph any vibrations up to my hand, thus giving me a tactile measurement of vibrations rather than an audio one. There were no vibrations. Over all, the new Beta Engine is
much quieter than the Perkins was.

We have settled on 2,000 RPM as the normal cruising speed under power. At that RPM Tarwathie moves at 5.5 knots in very still water and still air. We idle at 800 RPM and recharge batteries at 1200 RPM.

The measured fuel consumptions on refueling were: 0.49, 0.51, 0.62, 0.52, 0.55 and 0.58 gallons per hour. The average is 0.55 gallons per hour. We carry 40 gallons of fuel, so I estimate our range under powe rto be 300-400 nautical miles,

Oil consumption so far has been zero. Oil changes have been wonderfully easy and clean compared to the ordeal with the Perkins. I use the built-in oil change hand pump to suck out the oil directly into a one gallon container. After all the oil is out, I wait 5 minutes, then suck again, then remove the old oil filter with an oil absorbent cloth held below it to catch the few drops that spill.

Thanks

Thanks one more time to Bud Taplin, and especially to my faithful mate Libby. I would never have made it without their loyalty, patience, and sweat.

Oh How Beautiful

On the Hudson River
N 41 36.155 W 73 57.281

Nyack lives up to it's reputation. It is a delightful little place to visit. We went ashore this morning and showered at the Nyack Boat Club. That is an excellent boat club with wonderful facilities and very friendly staff and members. If we lived some place near by I would be very happy to be a member of that boat club. The same comments apply to the Capitol Boat Club in Washington, but I think one needs to be a millionaire to afford that place.

AFter hour shower, we walked around the town. It is filled with small shops and restaurants of all kinds. Nyack obviously has no big box stores nearby. We saw some of the biggest and most beautiful and exquisitely maintained houses ever in Nyack. They were so big that they would make our place on Union Street in Schenectady's Stockade look tiny. I tried to take pictures of some of them, but I had trouble standing back far enough to get the whole house in the lens. Anyhow, Libby and I never
heard of Nyack when we lived in New York, but it is a lovely little place to visit.

The populace amused us. We saw a lot of people too old to be yuppies. They appeared to be affluent, so they weren't upwardly mobile any more. Yet they seemed desperate to maintain that yuppie image so they walked around looking silly in their spandex bicycling outfits. I invented a word to describe them. Paternal Urban Pretender in singular, or puppies in plural.

We had coffee and a turnover at a nice coffee shop, and we ate a delicious lunch at a Greek lunch counter. Then it was time for the tide to turn in the river so we had to leave.

With the tidal current with us we make great time. We've averaged 7.4 knots for this afternoon. We learned from past trips; it doesn't pay to travel against the current in the Hudson River.

The portion of the river between Peekskill and Newburgh, including West Point, Storm King Mountain, and Pollepel Island with Bannerman Castle is just too beautiful to describe. The river is enclosed by mighty wooded mountains on both sides with the shore lines formed by the cliffs plunging directly in to the water. Even the river is very deep here, 180 feet deep. There is a flat place to make a boat landing at West Point, but I suspect that it is man made.

Past this stretch, one comes to Newburgh and Beacon. Here, on a clear day one is treated to wonderful views of the Catskill Mountains to the West. Unfortunately today is a very hazy day so we didn't get to see those scenes.

I recommend to all our friends that they arrange to see the lower Hudson River by boat. You can't see it from any road or from the train or from a plane -- only by boat. There are cruise boats leaving from Poughkeepsie that will take you down to New York City and back to Poughkeepsie in the same day. Do yourself a favor and take that trip. If you can arrange to do it in the first week of October when the fall colors are in their peak, so much the better.

Tonight we plan to stay in Poughkeepsie and tomorrow night to stay in Kingston. Our friend Nan from West Charlton is going to come down and sail with us.

The Battery looks very different without the World Trade Center Buildings. It is very sad passing by ground zero.

The Lady

There's a tug like no other

Who is buried in this tomb? Hint: Groucho's favorite.

If you answer this correctly you really date yourself.

Look out New York. Here We Come

Nyack, NY
N 41 05.444 W 073 54.816

Last night, at 03:00 around 15 miles south of Sandy Hook, NJ, I saw a number of fishing boats anchored about 5 miles off shore. I figured there must be an inlet nearby. I looked toward shore, and sure enough there was another fishing boat coming out. I was 3 miles off shore so I didn't worry much.

I took a bearing on the boat -- 270 degrees. I checked it again later -- 270 degrees -- uh oh. Again in 5 minutes -- 270 degrees -- uh oh. I had the right of way unquestionably. I turned on the spreader lights to make sure that I was highly visible. Still 270 degrees. I was determined not to yield unnecessarily. At last the bugger passed me less than one boat length in front of my bow.

I looked ashore again, and saw another boat coming out. Same story -- he was coming straight at me, even though I was not in the same place as when the first boat came out. I figured it out. These jerk fishermen were having fun playing chicken with the sailboat. This time I determined not to play and I stopped dead in the water to let him pass. Bugger.

We arrived at Sandy Hook around 09:00 right on schedule to pick up the flood tide. I gave Libby three choices, anchor, stay at the 79th street boat basin for the night, or continue up the Hudson. We heard from a couple of people that was a fun stop. She said that she felt burned out on cities after Washington, and Baltimore, so she chose to go on up the Hudson.

The tides in NYC harbor are hard to understand. We fought the ebb tide approaching the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. We made 4 knots at 2000 RPM. Passing under the bridge we picked up a flood tide and the speed jumped to 5.5 knots. That was faster than the trucks on the bridge above us. They seemed to go only about 3 mph.

A mile later and we were back to 4 knots. As we passed the East River, we had 0.3 knots ebb tide against us, but only 1/4 mile away in front of the UN building it was 3. knots flood tide. How could that be? Up by Hell's gate, the current was 9.2 knots at the same time.

We started to pick up the flood tide again as we passed Manhattan. By the time we went under the George Washington Bridge, we were doing 6.7 knots. That was 6.7 knots faster than the truck traffic on the bridge above -- it was completely stopped.

As the afternoon passed on a south wind picked up and blew stronger and stronger. If we hadn't decided to stop at Nyack, we would have been able to ride the tide and current another 50 miles before sunset. As it was, we did 184 miles in 31 hours. I confess though, that 22 of those 31 hours we were motoring. The wind was nil most of the time.

We've heard that Nyack is a very fun place to visit so we'll have a look tomorrow. We're staying at a yacht club mooring in Nyack. Just sough of us is the Tappan Zee bridge and across the river at the crest of the hill behind Tarrytown is (I think) the Rockerfeller Mansion. Just up the river are the Vanderbilt mansion, Roosevelt's Hyde Park, and many more sights. This is the start of the most beautiful scenery on the east coast. We say that, no because we are New Yorkers at heart, but because it so obviously true. The Hudson Valley and the Mohawk Valley and the Champlain Valley are all wonderfully beautiful.