s/v Annah Foster - My Last Adventure by Dennis Doak: Past and Present - Transition From Living Memories to Making New ones

Friday, October 23, 2009

Past and Present - Transition From Living Memories to Making New ones

Below is a picture of the stone at Arlington National Cemetery, and the picture should say it all. To these two wonderful people, I owe my life, so much of my happiness, and now, this dream, which is coming true as I sit here and type. Words fail me. Tears still well up, and overflow. They were the best, and I miss them daily, but believe they are are still nudging me forward, and know that they are looking down, smiling, wishing me the best.

I printed the picture below today, taken a few months ago (WHY didn't somebody say "Suck your belly in, Uncle Denny!!!!) - my niece, Denise and nephew, Erik's beautiful, happy family (that's Anna Catherine and Andrew Foster in arms), to hang on my Annah Foster, and I am looking forward to getting a pic that was taken of them with my brother, Foster, Jr. and wife, Pat this past summer, to do the same.

I will miss seeing these guys grow up, but hope and pray that they will come and find me some day, and visit, laugh, reminisce, swim, snorkel, and have the same happy times on vacation that my parents gave me.

Today, I brought another load of food aboard, as well as the Perkins spares, and after one 'last' trip to Harbor Freight, TWO 1M candle power spotlights (one was on the clearance rack for half price), as the one that came with AF bit the dust before I departed for Annapolis last week.

I arrived last night about 9 with the old black Jeep loaded with FOUR dockcart loads, and hauled them out, and tried to stow as I unloaded - only dropped 8 cans of canned chicken and a pack of 8 toothbrushes in the water doing it - so it took over 4 hours. God willing, I will make one more trip to Pittsburgh for one more load of T-shirts, towels, bedding, and some canned goods, and that will be it for driving home.

I closed on my rental properties on Wednesday. Josef, the buyer, is a great fellow, a foreign born American Patriot, who understands what it is like to live in a socialist state, under the thumb of the party bosses, and fears, as I do, for the future of the USA.

It is customary in his homeland to toast a business deal, so we met later that evening at the "shop" in McKees Rocks and went over keys, history, and hoisted a couple excellent Golden Pheasants, and did a couple shots of scotch. Bless you, Joe and may your investments prove profitable for many, many years.

After a tremendous amount of hard work, everything that can be done IS done, for the closing of Alden Road and it will occur on time, or even earlier. My friend, former neighbor, Maggie, is one super real estate agent, and no one could have worked so hard for me and the sale of my home. If you live in Pgh, and have an EXPENSIVE house to sell, email me for her name - you will not regret it. I don't want her to have to work that hard again, for that small a commission! I love you Mag, and God bless you! You da best!

My step sister, Nancy and husband John are driving down from Philly tomorrow for lunch, to say goodbye. I am so sorry that I never made it up to see their new home, and so glad that I made it to the new beach house in NJ. They came down last summer when I arrived and I took them for a ride down to the Key Bridge and back. They brought daughter Courtney, and a college friend, and for that day, AF had aboard the sexiest, best looking, bikini-clad girls on the Chesapeake. No pics to publish though, or I could be arrested, or at least blasted by her Mom and Dad.

So, I am fluid. In transition. Finally. Going from living with memories, to the future, and new memories. A last adventure. Looking to the future, tempered with wonderful memories.

So, back to work, stowing. Where am I going to put all this stuff? And what am I forgetting?

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About Annah Foster

Annah Foster is a 1980'ish Morgan 462. She is a USCG Documented vessel and the year on the document is 1979, which I believe is the year the keel was laid. She is known as a ketch, which means she has 2 masts, and the aft mast is forward of the rudder. She also is a center compartment boat, which means the helm is located between the 2 masts, which are, by the way, the main and the mizzen. She is equipped with roller furling on the jib/genoa sail which is the big triangular sail on the front. Her empty weight, or rather displacement, is 33,000 lbs, which is fat for her length. Mr. Morgan believed in thick fiberglas for strength and I am told that at places it is often found to be 2 inches of solid fiberglas. Her keel has encapsulated lead weighing 8,000 lbs.

She boasts 2 staterooms, - v-berth forward with separate head and twin beds aft with separate head, including the famous bathtub. The configuration of the aft stateroom could easily be changed with a change in the mattresses to an almost queen berth, port to starboard, but currently she has twins, running fore and aft, with 2 large mattress cushions separating them. There is also a ladder and sliding hatch aft for egress in an emergency, to the aft deck, which I call the back porch. I bought some director's chairs for it and have sat there many evenings enjoying a drink and sunset. The aft deck is also the location of the propane gas grill, storage for the 2 outboard motors, Yamaha 4hp 4cycle, and a Yamaha 15hp 2 cycle, which power a new Apex Lite 10'6 inflatable dinghy, which can hang from the installed davits.

The main sail has 2 reefing points on jiffy reefing and the mizzen has 1. No lines lead to the cockpit but the jib, main and mizzen sheets.

She has a Switlick 6 man life raft mounted aft the mizzen mast. And, an emergency tiller aboard.

She is equipped with a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine, powering a Hurth transmission and turning a 4 bladed Max Prop, which feathers when sailing, and reverses pitch in Reverse so that she has the same thrust as in Forward. One unique design flaw is that the propeller shaft exits the boat at 3 degrees off center, making the port prop walk in reverse, even worse. The engine is equipped with about a 90 amp alternator with a very good voltage regulator.

She also has a Westerbeke 5.7 kw diesel generator, which produces 110 v AC power, and charges the batteries thru a 40 amp charger. I also have a Honda 1000 watt gasoline powered generator for emergency 110v, and an automotive battery charger aboard.

She came with an old Windbugger wind generator, not quite perfectly mounted. Stowed in the V-berth, there is a replacement AirX marine wind generator and 8 foot mast waiting to be installed, along with the controller, and 2 solar panels, which are half the possible wattage the controller can handle.

She has 3 4-D AGM batteries for the house bank and a type 18 start battery - all are 12volt.

The 4 gallon water heater will heat with both engine cooling water and 110v AC power and is equipped with a mixing valve to prevent scalding.

Tankage - Water - 110 gallon port and 85 gallon center tanks
Fuel - 175 gallons
Range when new at 2250 RPM is almost 800 nm.

Currently, her refridgerator and freezer are 110 volt AC, with several holding plates each which must be manually started and stopped. She has waiting to be installed, 2 Cool Blue 12 volt systems, with automatic controls, but truthfully, I don't know where the new holding plates will fit.

Electronics -
She is equipped with 2 VHF marine band radios, one at the helm and the other at the nav station, with repeater at the helm, and a hand held low power VHF 'walkie talkie'. Also, at the nav station, she has a Single Side Band HF radio - SSB with a Pactor 2 modem making her capable of downloading NOAA weather fax and Sail Mail emails and Grb files. onto a dedicated IBM laptop. She has as primary a Raymarine E-80 Chartplotter at the helm and a smaller Garmin Chartplotter for back up at the helm, a handheld Garmin Chartplotter, and an older Furuno GPS at the nav station. She has an older Raytheon black and white 24 nm radar at the helm, with a repeater at the nav station. She has a RapidFix 406 EPIRB, emergency locator beacon, that is hand activated. She has a new Clarion AM FM CD player, with input for computer or MP3 player on 3 sets of individual speakers - cockpit, salon, and aft cabin.

For those who do not know me, I named her for my parents - Annah Margaret and George Foster Doak. It is through their beneficence that I am able to live this dream and I felt that I should dedicate my boat to honor their memories.