Gotta apologize, as the posts have been a bit sporadic these last couple weeks as life has been busy but we keep going. Hotwife had a hip operation so it’s been a week of having the kids on the boat with her elsewhere; then when she as able to get back on the boat on crutches I needed to take her to appointments for most of the next week. So I missed my usual writing schedule and missed some of the work I needed to do around the boat as well. With hotwife back on the boat, things have settled down a bit. Take a look at Quincy, she won’t even move now when crutches go over her: 
But it’s been a productive couple of weeks regardless. Hotwife and Pirate Kate attended the Women’s Sailing Convention last weekend, I was able to determine the cause of my broken bilge pump and I’m getting it changed out with a new one, I finished my Small Boat Diesel Engine Course and we’ve set solid dates in March to haul Tulum 5 out of the water for a bunch of repairs and upgrades.
We’re looking to do the following while T-5 is hauled out: three coats of bottom paint, drop and inspect the rudder and it’s bearings, have a dripless seal installed on our shaft, have a freshwater foot pump installed in our front head, have a saltwater foot pump installed in the galley, have the gray water flow changed from our 50-gallon (below the water line) tank to direct overboard and possibly remove the tank, unfreeze all the throughhull handles and fiberglass over throughhulls we don’t use and clean and paint the main bilge. But this also gives me strict deadlines to get the washer/dryer taken out and if I’m going to put in a composting head…I’d like to get it done before the haul out.
So we have a bit to do.
We’re a family who got a good deal on a great boat and now have to dedicate the time to fix systems and give her the TLC needed to prep her for cruising. We’re doing just that. We’ll start our YouTube Channel in June and post every one of our complete free video travel logs on this blog. We’ll also continue to post with mongo lots of pictures as we go along. If you want to read it all and share in the action, please think about following us and continue to follow us as we go.
9 Responses
I feel badly for your wife but I’m glad that huge girl stays in place as she gets around on crutches! Yikes!
Hi, this is Mike. I owned the Aleutian 51 “Amnesia” and was good friends with the previous owners of your boat. Noticed you were talking about inspecting the rudder. Here is something I have a vague memory of… after we left Seattle we had the boat hauled in Cabo. At that time, as I recall, we had to have part of the rudder ground away and exposed so we could inspect a large metal and bolt plate about midway down the rudder. I wish I could remember more but it has been a lot of years. At any rate, look carefully at both sides of the rudder and see if you can find a seam or something that would indicate something built into the rudder. Again, I am memory challenged but I seem to remember this plate had 5 bolts and was about 18″X18″.
Mike, thanks so much for the sage advice. When we haul out and drop the rudder, I’ll look and also ask to have it inspected. We’re shipping just a bit of water up from the rudder post (not sure if this is normal) which is what even sparked the need to have it inspected. I also have no idea when it was dropped last. Mike, if you knew the previous owners of Integrity/Tulum, could you give them my info if you still have contact? I’ve sent a letter to an address in the PNW but it came back. I would just like to say hello and see if they have any advice also.
I can’t remember if you still have Amnesia or not…do you know where she is?
The previous owners were, Mike and Linda. Mike passed a year ago last September. Linda came down for a visit this past fall and we enjoyed seeing her again. She does live in the PNW and I will ask her if she would like contact. It might be difficult for her considering she is now a widow (she was quite a bit younger than Mike). They were both City of San Diego employees prior to retiring and sailing off.
Just random stuff about your boat off the top of my head. I don’t remember (jeezzz I use that phrase a lot) how much of this I have talked to you about in the past.
They had the hard dodger done there in San Diego probably around 1998. I think it was a boat yard on Shelter Island.
The engine was rebuilt in Phuket Thailand around 2008. It, as I recall, was a complete rebuild. Subsequently after they left Phuket and were working their way up the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, one of the bearings between the connecting rod and the drive shaft came lose. They put in at an anchorage in Yemen (they were trying to stay as far away from Somalia). Soon after they anchored to try to figure out what happened to the engine, the Yemen Navy came by. While international law requires authorities to allow yachts in transit with problems to use their ports, the Yemen Navy told them to move along.
Eventually they got to Port Saied in Egypt. From there they took a camel train (only transportation available) to try to get parts. Eventually they sailed the boat up to another larger port (can’t remember the name) in Egypt and got the engine repaired.
After a few more years in the Med, they left and headed to the Canary Islands. Enroute they got into a pretty good squall and blew out the headsail. They waited several weeks in the Canaries for a new sail from Spain, then crossed the Atlantic and through the canal and back to San Diego.
I will work on my memory and see if there are any other things I can share. Mike and Linda were pretty comfortable money wise so they did keep the boat up while they owned it. They had done another haul out and quite a bit of maintenance in New Zealand, where they spent a year and a half and then again in Phuket.
Mike was retired from the city of SD as was Linda and Mike was also retired from the Navy reserves. The Navy link allowed them to fly military from a lot of different locations around the world.
Often I served as a parts purchaser and gatherer of information for them. It would be wise for you to have someone stateside that can deal with Ford Lehman parts (there used to be a dealer for these parts here in the states). Communication is so much better now than it was. Mike got a HAM license and was an “expert” class.
I Enjoy your sailing prep blog. No our boat, Amnesia, was sold in San Diego in the late 1990’s and, as far as I know, is now in the Oxnard/Ventura area.
Yes, you can have adventures on an Aleutian 51.
Mike, wow, thanks sooo much for all that info, it’s like the boat wanted some of the same stuff back- I was active duty Marine for 20 years, my wife is active duty Navy, retiring in July. My parents circumnavigated as well. Concerned about the engine but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it if it ever dies. I would love to at least let Linda know how much we love and care for the boat and that we’re leaving as a family in November on the Baja Ha-Ha. We also need you and her to know that we specifically sold our last sailboat to buy an older, heavier Taiwan boat and Integrity was the right one. We love her and we’re putting the TLC back into her- If you and her stay with us, you’ll see all the improvements we’re working on. Thanks for the reply.
Add on to my message. As I think more about the rudder I am thinking that this plate held the bottom half of the rudder to the top half. Memory is really vague but I seem to recall the rudder was designed so you could take the bottom part off so you can slide the propeller shaft out of the boat. I am sorry I don’t have a better memory of this but it was around 25 years ago. I am not sure if this was it or even if all Aleutians have it.
Cool, interesting stuff. Thank you for all this info. I would LOVE it if you continued to pass on any info you can think of on the boat as we go along. We’ve ripped out the generator (which died) and the washer/dryer and added 6 more solar panels. We also added a new windlass. Look forward to anymore advice you might have.
If I were asked for one piece of advice on cruising, it would be one word. Dingy.
Eventually you will find that big shinny boat you have is really just a transportation and support system for your dingy.
“The fun does not start until the dingy hits the water”
This means not only a quality dependable dingy but one you can handle in every situation. We had a 10′ hard bottom Achilles with a 15 hp Merc (they were 2 cycle in those days and I think they weighed less). We mounted it on the cabin top just ahead of the main mast. To get it up and down, we used to take the motor off (we had a motor mount on the aft rail) then turn the dingy with the bow facing aft and then lift it with a main halyard. As as the dingy came up to rail height, we could simply swing it around the shrouds and point the dingy bow forward and drop it into the dingy mounting bracket.
When Mike and Linda originally took off in your boat, they had a hard body dingy but one that had a center cockpit steering station. As I recall they had a 25 hp motor on it and carried it on a aft dingy lift. That did not last long. Way too heavy and way to hard to handle. They soon went to a smaller lighter dingy and a lighter motor.
Carrying on deck takes some extra work but it is the safest way to do it. We know several who lost their dingy while it was hanging from a stern mount.
Off topic note… once we were in the marina at La Pas and a hurricane was heading up the Sea of Cortez. We were all securing everything we could, I noticed the Mexican boat boys on the yacht next to us (the yacht was owned by the decedents of the Van Tripp family of Sound Of Music fame) and they were checking their dingy in its dingy cradle. The straps were lose. What would you do? Tighten up the straps, right. Well…. no that is not the Mexican way of things. What they did was go to a deck locker and get a pump and then pumped up the dingy so it was tight in the cradle. Worked and it is a delightful example of cultural problem solving solutions. Pump up the dingy is now a common term in our family, meaning a different way to look at things.
Back on topic… it is critical that you not only can quickly get the dingy in and out of the water, it is important that you can land the dingy in nasty situations. It might be fine when you take the dingy ashore, but conditions can be very different when you return. My wife and I practiced and practiced dingy landings and launching. We had a good set of dingy wheels (the best and longest you can get) and we always maintained the outboard so it would start on the first pull. That is where most dingys got dumped. When they tried to launch and the motor did not start and they would turn to look and the motor and start pulling and pulling the starter and not seeing they were getting broadside to the surf and about to get flipped.
When you go to launch, do not step into the dingy with both feet. Simply throw you but up on the side with your feet still in the water and pul that starter while you are watching the surf. It is important do get this right, otherwise you will either spend a lot of time sitting on an anchored boat or sitting on shore somewhere when you can not get back to the boat. A lot of places have winds that come up and night in the Sea of Cortez. We know people who spent most of the night on a beach because they did not have the skills to get their dingy out through the surf.
Have a way to secure your dingy when it is in the water. A chain into a eye bold in the transom worked for us. We had at least two times where someone tried to steal the dingy and motor at night. If you lose your dingy the fun stops. We actually carried an old roll up rubber dingy with a 2 hp or so motor down in the locker. Without a dingy you can’t even get to shore in many places to go see if you can find an other one to buy.
I haven’t felt right about approaching Linda to talk about your boat yet. Just does not seem to be the right time.
Long note… but it is snowing here in Tucson today and I had nothing much else to do.
Thank you, thank you for all your sage advice. We had ice on the docks today for the first time I’ve ever seen it in San Diego, wow. No worries about Linda, but if you feel the right time, we’d love to say hi. Please keep the advice and counsel coming, we need it.