We are now down to one boat and no storage room. Only four dock lines and two jobs tie us to Seattle. We’ve been living aboard Nordhavn 5263 since taking delivery on Friday February 19th, and three days ago, the new owners took delivery of our Bayliner 4087. The past week has been a busy one. We took delivery of the 52 late Friday afternoon and brought it from Elliott Bay Marina to nearby Bell Harbor Marina. There we had a second, temporary, slip with room to raft the old boat, the 4087, against it. Our first docking there likely was among the most difficult we’ll face for a while. The slip was barely big enough for the 52, with a power cruiser in front and a police boat perpendicular behind. We had to slide the 52 in sideways, then back down behind the police boat, while avoiding crushing the cruiser in front. Then we moved the 4087 over from our standard slip and rafted it beside the 52. That was enough for Friday night. Early Saturday morning, we picked up a rental truck and emptied our storage room. We nearly filled the 10-foot cube van. Our 5’x5′ storage room was packed from floor to ceiling with items from our house, and some parts and furnishings from the 4087 that we don’t use. We transferred everything from the truck down to the dock beside the boats, and moved what belonged with the 4087 onto that boat. And since we had a truck, we also picked up two Ekornes recliners that had arrived recently on order from back in October. By early evening we still had a massive pile of boxes on the dock. The weather fortunately was predicted to be clear through the weekend, so we left it all on the dock for the next day. On Sunday, we transferred everything off the 4087 and the dock onto the 52. The 52 has a more sloping brow than the 47, making for a large storage area. We filled that completely, plus almost every room inside. We then moved the 4087 to another temporary slip, transferred the 52 to our regular slip, and moved the 4087 back to the original temporary slip, this time tied to the dock instead of the 52. We’d removed so much weight from the 4087 that the waterline had shifted up several inches. %20(6).jpg)
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We spent early part of last week getting the 4087 ready for transfer, and then worked on settling into the 52. On Friday, the new owners officially took possession, and left the marina on Saturday. For the first time since we’ve purchased it back in 1999, someone besides ourselves was at the helm as the boat headed out into Elliott Bay. We sold the boat to James’ uncle, so we’ll definitely be seeing more of it in the future.
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Also last week, Pacific Asian Enterprises project manager Jeremy Henderson called to tell us the fuel capacity is 1,860 gallons, a full 190 gallons more than we had originally requested. 11% more range! We love good news like that. Thank you Jeremy.
Commissioning on the 52 is not yet complete, but we wanted to take delivery in order to finalize the 4087 sale. So the Emerald Harbor crew has been finishing the work at Bell Harbor while we dig ourselves out from the mound of boxes. As the boat emerges from the unpacking, it’s looking wonderful. Even as a work in progress, we’re loving being aboard. From a comfort perspective it compares well with our past houses, if a bit smaller, but this one can go anywhere in the world.
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Thanks Matt. It’s taking a while to get everything we own tucked away where it belongs and commissioning invariably takes more time than one might hope but, yes, we’re loving the boat.
Wow… I just had a chance to get back to your website, and she is absolutely beautiful! You must be very pleased.
Matt
I wish the fuel prices were our biggest problem Yair. Even though taking on 1,800 gallons this weekend is going to be VERY noticeable, I suspect that cost will be lost in the flood of much larger boat related expenses. I’m looking forward to being able to complain about fuel costs.
A couple of summers ago, when the fuel prices were really high and we were fueling at a less traveled location (something we don’t have to do with the larger tanks of a Nordhavn). I was somewhat bothered to be spending $6.50 a gallon. I found it really annoying to learn I had spent $6.50 a gallon buying more than 4 gallons of water mixed into our fuel load.
jrh@mvdirona.com
Good hearing from you John. As you know we spent a long time looking at different satellite options for connectivity (//blog.mvdirona.com/2009/06/21/RemoteDataCommunicationCosts.aspx). For a TV dish we ended up going with a KVH M5. We’ve been so busy moving in that we haven’t used it since moving on. We did watch the Super Bowl on it during commissioning though :-).
For data, I wavered between Fleet Broadband and VSAT. The unlimited data transfer of VSAT is appealing but $30k for the antenna is a big commitment and $5k a month is hard for us to afford. Fleet broadband is more affordable at lower data transfer volumes. But, to keep transfer volumes low, considerable care is needed. Our eventual conclusion is technology is evolving quickly and while we’re working, we can only afford to be away from work for weeks at a time so our real need for satellite is less right now. We decided to defer the decision until either 1) we retire and are long range cruising, or 2) someone offers me a job where they will supply connectivity. The second dome is just a space holder for now.
For data connectivity in the Seattle area we use Clear (http://www.clearinternetseattle.com/local_internet_service.html). In other metro areas, we use WiFi. Further afield we use 3G cellular. On longer vacations, we are disconnected which I hate but that’s the current state.
Good suggestion to blog the nav system. I’ll need more experience since our only "offshore cruising" so far was between Elliott Bay Marina and Bell Harbor Marina :-). Its a glass cockpit design centered around 4 19" monitors.
jrh@mvdirona.com
Gale, I know exactly what you mean by living aboard "lowering" the boat. The Bayliner rose a full 4" in the water when we moved out and is now trimmed beautifully. We brought enough weight onto the new boat to have it noticeably down in the bow. Although, that might be influenced by our 70kg Rocna and the 500′ of 7/16" chain :-). We currently only have about 50 gallons on board so boat trim will change greatly with a fuel load. From discussions with John Marshall and other 55 owners, I expect it’ll feel better with a fuel load. This weekend or next, we’ll pick up 1,800 gallons and see how it looks then.
The good news is that we’re down to only one room with boxes. We’ll be fairly well moved in over the next couple of weekends. The next project will be outfitting it with spares and getting all the minor issues out of the way.
jrh@mvdirona.com
How exciting! Great update. May the winds be at your back and your fuel prices low!
Cheers,
Yair
She’s looking beautiful… seems just like the other day when it came off the boat, and now you’re living aboard. The two Sat domes are sure smaller than the now dated Fleet 55 I’ve got. I presume you’ve got the latest technology. It would be interesting in a future blog if you could take us through your nav, com and Satcom systems. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only person interested to see how much the tech has advanced since we set our boat up in early 2007.
John
What a great story. We are under contract for N50 and will be moving from our liveaboard GB46 soon. The picture of the water line had me in stiches. I’m only on the first truck load and the GB has a list to port. It never had a list in the past 6 years.
Keep us posted on the N52 experience. And if you find someone who wants a GB46 let us know.
gale