Alone

Monday, April 26, 2010

Alone

Took by buddy Bernard to the airport today, via my tender, to fly home to France. Bumped into a girl who worked for a charter company by Lagoonie's whom I have known now for 3 months or so, and she was flying on the same flight. Christine and Angie are gone, as of yesterday. Bob left over a week ago. Graham, and mate, Dave, have been gone for weeks. I am not sure where Ellison is, as his boat is not where he has had it anchored. All of my playmates have left, except for Claire and Michael, my German friend, and of course, Sam, who now lives on a different clock than most folks, going home when most are getting the coffee started.

As I rode back from the airport on the dink, I felt alone. Maybe even lonely. Claire and I had supper together this evening, to console each other, as her mom and dad departed on the same plane as Bernard. But, it is not enough. Time to move on, I think. But, must continue with the legal problems, and have the trip to France coming in just a couple weeks. And then, I must go. Time to find a new group of friends.

1 comment:

dlouApril 28, 2010 at 4:10 PM
Well, you are never totally alone as there are those of us who follow along with you on your blog. Are you flying to France or sailing? Have you been able to repair all your things? We have termites and have to have it treated . Not exactly where I wanted to spend the money. We have to open our pool which is always a test! We never know what we will find in it or if the machines will start up. States had somereally bad weather last weekend. a tornado went across the whole state of Mississippi. One of my sewing friends lives in Yazoo city wher it started and destroyed a good part of the town. Fortunately she and her family were spared. Lindsey is a meteorologist and works part time in Bowling Green ,KY and they had some bad stuff go by them but no damage. She worked 16 hours straight as they have to constantly update. She is working on a second Masters in commuications as it will allow her to teach at the college level . She was a TA when at Miss. ST. and really enjoyed teaching. She says it is a problem liking to do 2 things as which way will she go. I said maybe you will be able to do both! I can'tremember if it costs you to read this so will stop. Remember you saying something(email , maybe) cost a lot to get?? Let me know so I pass along my messages in the right place. Take care and remember we all are looking up at the same moon, maybe that will be comforting.
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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.