Amadeus

Hello faithful followers. So it has been quite a few months since we last reviewed Craig's obsession with getting a new boat. I saw a listing for another derelict hull for 8K somewhere around here and called the broker. Excited! : ) Boat was withdrawn from market due to a deck issue. Bummer! : ( However he then reached into his magic internet thingie and produced a number of other equally derelict hulls sitting here and there. Going through those listings was pretty simple, nope to small, small, to much and to small, then magic! Amadeus.

Kind of a catchy name for a boat. Amadeus is a 1977 Jeanneau Gin Fizz ketch, 37.5 feet, 17,400 pounds displacement. If you look quickly before it is pulled from Yacht World @ http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1977/Jeanneau-Gin-Fizz-Ketch-2749683/Solomons/MD/United-States#.U-_FZ_ldV8F you can see the original listing. She is in pretty darn good shape for an older lady. Appears to have a full compliment of sails, books, almost everything. Bad thing about these boats, they cooled the engine with water directly from the ocean, usually they are fresh water cooled with a heat exchanger. So hot salt water + metal = RUST! I am willing to bet the engine is a frozen lump of cast iron back there. So I'm looking at another re-power situation. But this hull is smaller and lighter than the other beastie we offered on, so fewer batteries, smaller motor, less cost, yes!

So why this boat in particular? It is inexpensive so we can buy it outright, it's a strong hull form and is quite respected. Respected enough to let a 15 to 16 year old single hand it around the world. That would be Laura Dekker in 2010. How cool is that?

This boat is not too much of a compromise, we are getting the ketch I wanted, but are lacking a hull, so monohull it will have to be. Maybe I will stumble on a winning lottery ticket and I can go get the catamaran I want in a future purchase. Until then I will be happy with the rehab on this baby. It is listed at a steep discount as it is an estate sale and they just want it gone. I am happy with that. It is located about an hour and a half from home in Solomons, MD. So anyway we tossed out a bid, will see where that goes.

So very excited! As the saying goes, the two happiest boat days in your life, the day when you buy your boat, then the eventual day when you sell your boat.

Hey did anyone see "All is Lost"? We watched it not to long ago and all I got to say is "Dude, you might be Robert Redford but you can't plan for shiite!" At least he had a sextant, note to self, maybe look into getting one, then learning how to use the damn thing. But have a back up laptop or two, a back up GPS unit or THREE, and toss in a VHF handheld as well, and for gods sake don't store them all in the same place! Beyond that though I thought they did a most excellent job in filming the movie, the sound track was awesome! I think there are maybe ten lines of dialog in the entire thing. He fought his boat and didn't abandon it till it was actually sinking out from under him. Because life rafts can keep you alive, but man they suck. Keep your harness clipped to the boat, he went over the side a couple of times.

So that is all from this end, stay tuned to see if this has legs!