January 2024: Behind the Scenes

Between our YouTube Channel and our blog, we share a lot of our life on the water. However, there are always things that go undocumented. Over the years, we have met plenty of new liveaboards who feel like they were “duped” into this lifestyle by its romanticized portrayal on social media. In our experience, living full-time on a boat is expensive, it is hard work, and it is time-consuming. Is it worth it? For us, yes. Is it worth it for you? I’m not sure!

So, in an effort to paint a more realistic picture of boat life, here is a bullet-point list of things we dealt with in January 2024:

We hauled out at Bobby’s Megayard in Sint Maarten. The haul, launch, and storage cost $1,344.00.

Additional work was as follows:

• Bottom sanding: $628.06
• Bottom painting: $765.54
• Bottom paint (2x Trilux Prop & Drive Spray, 6x Micron 99, 1x Primocon): $2,714.86
• Sail drive seal replacement by info@yanmarsxm.com + purchase of four extra seals and four oil filters to keep aboard: $785.00
• Wash and wax by bunsboatingservices@gmail.com: $1,800.00
• Corrosion repairs by Peter Hoff: €398.00
  • Our boat has stainless steel anchor rollers on an aluminum crossbeam and stainless steel brackets attached to an aluminum mast. The proper protection was not used when attaching the fittings, so we had Peter Hoff address the signs of corrosion in both areas and put adequate protection in place. 
• Spinnaker halyard backing plates: €570.00
  • We hope to use our spinnaker for most of our trip across the Pacific. So, we had G10 backing plates installed to strengthen the hardware attachment points. Peter Hoff also did this project.

• Back-up autopilot: ~$8,000.00
  • Since we are planning to cross the Pacific with just the two of us on board, we invested in a secondary autopilot and had it installed in our port engine compartment by Nomad Marine Solutions. 
• Rig work: $719.00
  • We had FKG Marine do an overall rig inspection, fix our squeaky boom, and convert our single-line reefing system.
    • For the boom, they installed two stainless steel washers on the bottom side of the toggle. The steel surfaces are smooth and should slide between each other without squeaking.
    • The new reefing system has the tack and clew as independent steps, using stainless snap shackles at the mast. This should help prevent chafe and is a much less invasive solution than changing the fittings on the mast themselves, so we can easily switch back to the single-line system if we find we prefer it.

• We have had problems keeping our top-loading refrigerator cold for a while and finally purchased a new evaporator plate for $427.40. This, in addition to repairing some holes in the copper line, seems to have fixed the problem. 
• The macerator pump in the owner’s head broke. Ray replaced it with a spare we had on board.
• Every snap for the cockpit bench cushion (under the dinghy davits) broke. We replaced them using a kit we had from Island Water World. 
• Ray noticed our port engine blower motor wasn’t working. He found a relay in the engine compartment with a busted wire and was able to repair it by replacing the wire. We’re assuming the relay was bumped while we were having work done in that compartment. 
• We spent ~$3,000.00 on various tools/spare parts for our Pacific crossing and subsequent remote cruising. Now, all we need is a spare boat! And a job! 😅

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