For Denise

Friday, January 22, 2010

For Denise

My niece, Denise, emailed today to ask me to post a picture of me wearing my new necklace, so here it is for you, Denise. I am not so photogenic under normal conditions, but you should know that I had to take about 20 pictures to finally accept this crummy one. Hair a mess, and needing a shave, and phew, if you could smell me!! Might have one taken of me tomorrow, in the sunlight, and after a shower!
Denise and husband, Erik have just moved from Maryland to York, Pa, and I am sure are busy making the new house, a new home. I am very excited for them, and know the kids, whose picture is at the bottom of the blog page, are having fun in their new digs.
Just to update what I am doing: The solar panels and wind generator SHOULD be fully functional tomorrow. I have hired a young French guy to assist me; he claims to be an electrician, among other things, so we shall see if his skills match his mouth. The steering continues to stump me a bit, but I am slowly progressing, I think. Will work on the electrics tomorrow and then back to steering. Mike, the electrician and I travelled today to the different supply houses for connectors and some additional wire and to Ace Hardware, where I bought some fittings and tubing for the hydraulics.
I am excited that I will be making 12 volt soon. Not sure the noise from the generator will be acceptible, though. But the solar is very quiet!
The other morning, when I was trying to get some extra sleep after another late night out, someone was close to my boat and whistling at me. Mostly a wolf whistle, but also one to get your attention. I could not figure where it came from. Later, I dinked over to a beautiful trawler anchored very close - I posted a pic of it a few posts back for friend, Bart - and called for the owner/captain. "Is it posssible that you have a bird on board?" I asked. "Yes, we have a parrot up on the second deck." So that solved the mystery of the wolf whistles. The bird has been on one of their boats for 18 years, and 10 on this one, and seems to have free reign of this 2nd deck, as I see him moving on the roof of his cage and over to a wooden stand they have for him. He is still up tonight and whistling, so is time to cover his cage, I think. They have a cute puppy aboard as well.
For Denise and all - I am so proud of and happy for you. And looking forward to your visit some day, when you can make the time. UD

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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.

s/v Annah Foster - My Last Adventure by Dennis Doak

The Listing Photo

Friday, January 22, 2010

For Denise

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Enroute from St. Petersburg to Miami

Visit Counter - Installed November 25,2009

My Family Back Home

The Home I was raised in

Annah Foster

Galley

Denise and Annah In Inner Harbor, Baltimore

Main Berth - Aft

Annah in a very empty V-berth

Salon

Andrew Foster