Longtime lurker - first post

[BlackHeron]

Hello. I've been a lurker here for years and finally decided to break the ice and post something.

My wife and I own and sail a Hallberg-Rassy Rasmus 35 called SV Barry Duckworth. We've sailed around the Chicago area for 2 seasons now and plan on cutting the lines this spring and leaving the area to sail off on a new life of adventure and living aboard full time. Going where the climate suits our clothes. If I never see snow again it would still be too soon.

Our first plan is to sail out the Great Lakes and hopefully out the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic and then on down the East Coast very slowly, eventually making it down into the Hurricane zone after the season is over next fall.

From there the Caribbean for a while until the season is over before heading somewhere safer, maybe Grenada. That's an awfully long way ahead to plan for us. After that -who knows. Perhaps across the Atlantic to see Europe and the Med. Maybe transit the canal into the Pacific.

We have no set time limit and will sail until we run out of health or money. Hopefully we will get 15-20 years before that becomes an issue, and maybe more.

[aquadreams]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

Going where the climate suits our clothes.

Welcome BlackHeron.

Your post reminded me to add that classic to my "headed out forever" playlist.


Harry Nilsson: Everybody's Talking

I'm going where the sun keeps shining
Through the pouring rain
Going where the weather suits my clothes
Banking off of the North East winds
Sailing on a summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMw-2Wr2Kto

[Kenatsea]

Bravo!

[Livia]

Congrats!

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, BlackHeron.

[BlackHeron]

Thanks for all the warm welcomes.



We have got a few months of winter blah to endure on the hard before launch day again next spring. At least we have time to finish a few more projects until then.

[redhead]

I had to laugh when I saw "finish a few projects first". That's what we said....

Anyway, welcome to CF - you have wonderful taste in boats!

[BlackHeron]

We had originally planned to leave this past spring but just couldn't due to some pesky fairly serious health issues and had to stick around Chicago for treatment all summer. But we did a LOT of the work last winter.

Last winter season we basically did a heavy refit, replacing all systems inside, gauges, complete electrical, plumbing, septic, repower, full prop/shaft/cutlass bearing/stuffing box/shaft log hose and clamps re-fresh. New zincs, insulating interior of the hull after tearing out all the cabinetry and rebuilding it back in, fully new LP system from tank to stove with detector/solenoid panel. Rebuilt nav station, new anchor and roller.

Plus a host of other things including stripping the bottom all the way of 40 years of thick, peeling bottom paint, repairing some fairly extensive pitting through the gelcoat with epoxy. We then re-doing it all from there up with 6 coats moisture-barrier Interlux 2000 and new ablative Pettit SR-60 Ultima bottom paint -2 coats: first blue then red over that so that when blue peeks through it would be a telltale for when more needed to be applied. Plus a new bootstripe to ease maintenance/cleaning at the waterline.



This winter is mainly "would like to do" projects and not the "need to" ones we already did last year

[redhead]

That's a beautiful job. If you're finished and bored you're both welcome to come out here - we still have a "few" jobs.....

[BlackHeron]

There is a couple hundred man-hours in this bottom job -and that isn't including the sanding which we paid the yard to do. The guy said it was one of the most difficult bottom-sand jobs he's ever had to do, even with his professional sanding machine he put 70 hours into it. It took him and his crew 3 weeks but they were not working on it full time. I guess other boats in the yard/dealership were more important than us

[NCGunDude]

Nice looking boat, and nice shirt!

Welcome aboard CF and happy cruising.