New Jersey for a few hours

The purchase of the sailboat has been moving along a little slowly... waiting for the weather to get itself figured out. On Monday, I spent the day (a crazy travel day... barely made it there, and then barely made it out) on the boat with the surveyor. It was quite the educational experience.

The boat is a C&C 34, with a centerboard keel, which means the main part of the keel is not as deep as a fin keel, but it has a centerboard which you can lower down for better performance. The advantage of this is the ability to get into shallower areas (she draws 4 feet, instead of the 6 feet of a fin keel)... the disadvantage is performance. Since I do not plan on racing her, I am not concerned about the 1/2 a knot of windward performance loss. This picture shows the system to raise and lower the keel.

The surveyor was generally very impressed with the condition of the boat, and her systems. For being 25 years old, she is in awesome shape, and is very strong. There are a few issues with any boat this age however, some of them being more of parts just worn out, others being about bringing her systems up to code (for insurance) and some things have just broken. There was some water-infiltration around this fitting on the deck, and has infact shown to be leaking into the cabin. The leak has caused a high moisture reading for about 3" or so around the entire fitting, but it does not appear to have weakened the deck much. The leak can be simply corrected by bedding this fitting properly, however, the deck will likely not be able to be dried out significantly.

There were a few stuck sea-cocks, a broken shower pump, and a few minor things. The biggest area of concern for me (however the surveyor did not see it as much of an issue) was that there is some separation in the rudder. It sounds like the fiberglass on the rudder has separated from the core... likely due to water in it. It has not caused it to change shape at all, and there doesn't appear to be much effect on structure of it, from what he can tell without drilling holes.

The sail inventory is impressive. It has a new mainsail, a backup mainsail, 3 genoas (110, 130, and 150), a cruising spinnaker, and a racing spinnaker. Only the 130 is setup for the roller furling, so I might have the 110 cut for the roller furling, but that is something for down the road.

Now I am just waiting for the survey to get back to me... but this is a good boat for her age/price, with some issues that the broker and I are going to have to address to get corrected. The deal is not done yet, as it depends on the survey and a few other thigns.

There is a video below that I shot from the deck of the boat... this will give you an idea of how big... or actually, how small this boat really is. This will be like living in a small New York studio apartment, that rocks back and forth. Its a real paradigm shift in lifestyle if I choose to really go forward with these ideas. I am not going to lie... I freaked out a little thinking about this being my home for the next few years... but I think if I didn't getting a little freaked that'd be bad.

I have decide to name her the Mystic Venture. Mysticism from the Greek (mustikos) "an initiate" is the pursuit of achieving communion or identity with, or conscious awareness of, ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight. Venture is a wonderful undertaking, synonymous with Adventure. Thus... the Mystic Venture is a wonderful undertaking to discover the ultimate reality... or maybe just a way not work in a cube anymore.

If you want to keep up with just news of the Mystic Venture, click and bookmark this.


(The knocking you hear is surveyor's high-tech, german engineered, instrument testing for hull integrity)