12/30

I've been forging ahead in Live on the Margin. I'm really digging that book.

I've also developed a schoolboy crush on a Vancouver 32. No typo -- a 32. April is understandably skeptical but just take a look at this: http://m.yachtworld.com/mobile/boats/1986/Vancouver-Pilot-House-2486905/Bayfield/WI/United-States.

Another one we both fell in love with today is the Hans Christian 38. There are a number of them available in the 60 to 80 range. Those are truly beautiful boats, widely acknowledged as capable blue water cruisers.

247.9

12/29

I've been really getting into Live on the the Margin, which just came out from Pat Schulte (s/v Bumfuzzle) and Nick O'Kelly. It's primarily a book about leverage and technical analysis, which is why I wanted to read it. What I hadn't expected was all the other great content in the first several chapters. Pat and Nick spend some time talking about why this lifestyle is a reasonable choice and not mere indulgence. Their analysis of financial, economic, and political dynamics actually verges on praxeological. Good stuff!

-22.8 @ 248.6

12/28

We finished up Adventure on the High Sea!.  That was a great one and Audrey especially enjoyed it.

I've made some improvements on our listing site and we got a call from a guy who's interested in a showing in a couple weeks.

-23.3 @ 247.9

12/27

We put together a listing site for our house: 252switz.blogspot.com.  It's not done, but it's a good start.  We had a bite from another potential buyer, so we'll be preparing for a showing soon.  That will give us the opportunity to get some more and better pictures.

-22.2 @ 249.0

12/26

Audrey read her longest story yet tonight. That was Lesson 43. I'm looking forward to Lesson 50, when we'll lose all the Morse code and cocodrilos...

April had an inspiring chat with a friend the other day about FSBO, so we're going to give that a good try.  

Mom and Dad sent us a bunch of great boating books for Christmas: Inspecting the Aging Sailboat, Sailing Fundamentals, Adventure on the High Seas, and Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Sailing.  Oh, and  of course, Scuppers, The Sailor Dog.  We've been enjoying them all.  In fact we're almost already done with Adventure, which is the true story of a family who spent a year cruising from England to Maine, via Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, Gambia, the Windward Islands and Lesser Antilles, and Bermuda.  We've read the whole thing aloud to the girls, who've been eating it up.  Also, Genius Denied, which looks like it will be inspiring in our educational efforts with the girls.  Thanks guys!

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone! I gave myself leave to miss the last couple days, as you can tell.

My favorite Christmas song this year has been Christmas on Christmas Island. Though there are at least 2 Christmas Islands so I'm not sure which one the song refers to, but I'll take either.

I forgot to weigh this morning but I'm certainly up. I'll get back on top of it.

12/22

We cleaned up another persistent mess today, this one in Lorelei's room. It's pretty much showable now, I think.

12/20

Audrey wanted to do lessons 38, 49, and 40 tonight. It was really awesome to watch. I believe we are past a tipping point now and she'll be reading her own books in a matter of a couple months. It's great not only because, I mean, she can read, but also because I can teach. That's going to be important as we cruise.

This evening we were reading about Guatemala in World Cruising Destinations. Rio Dulce sounds like a really neat place. It winds through the tropical rainforest far inland to a big lake -- Izabal -- and is lined with little indigenous Mayan communities. And the no visa thing is great, of course.

I put a big dent in one of our last remaining serious messes-- the upstairs shelving. Very satisfying to get that cleaned up.

I threw out a pair of 44 pants and pulled out a bunch of barely-used 40s Len had given me from a client of his who'd lost a lot of weight. I'm really excited to be able to fit into those. It's been quite awhile since I could wear 40s...

-22.4 @ 248.8

12/19

Lesson 37 went great.  I think she needs for us to drop some of the repetition.

We got the Bumfuzzle book.  I'm only about 4 paragraphs in, but it definitely starts strong.

We're going to read some Your Boat Too...

-22.4 @ 248.8

12/18

Audrey did a great job of lesson 36 this evening. Early this morning I heard her talking in her room and when I stuck my head in she was sounding out words in one of her books. Also she is doing mental addition which blew my mind. And Lo counted to 9 which also blew my mind. No idea if it's early for those or just on time but I didn't know these girls knew how to do those things.

April and I read the entries in World Cruising Destinations Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine. I'd love to get to see the Swallow's Nest Fortress in Yalta, the Bosporus and Ephasus, and I love the idea of spending a few weeks in Tunisia which requires no visa.

-23.2 @ 248.0

Here is a little sample I (April) took of them working on TYCTR:

12/17

I actually didn't get a single thing done today, other than staying on my dietary plan.  And I did have good success on the scale this morning.

-22.7 @ 248.5

I got one half of the kitchen cabinets all oiled. The parched wood sucks up the oil and looks a lot better after. It's probably hard to really see the effects in this picture but for what it's worth...

Audrey did a great job with lessons 35 and 36 this evening. She was really excited to get 3 new primers from GranMiri and immediately dove into sounding out the stories. Thanks GM!

-21.2 @ 250.0

12/15

I got rid of these mangy old mercury-laden thermostats today and replaced them with ...

... fancy new blurry ones like this.


Audrey and I did lesson 31, I think.  We're both much happier since we shed the big black rectangles between words a couple lessons back.


I had a very frustrating experience with the scale this morning.  Back up to 251.8.  I'll just keep at it until I break through...

 -19.4 @ 251.8

Notes on COLREG from Your Boat Too

A "vessel" is a craft propelled by non-human, non-animal power.

Most privileged to least:

1. any vessel overtaken
2. any vessel with restricted movement due to physical constraints of the environment or the work in which it's engaged
3. a sailing vessel.  Not a sailboat, but a sailing vessel.  A sailboat moving under power is not a sailing vessel.
4. a vessel under power
5. a seaplane

Stand-on vessels should not alter course or speed.

Power vessels (including sailboats under power)

• meeting head on should alter course to pass port to port
• starboard vessel crossing is stand-on (mnemonic: right has right-of way)
• overtaken vessel is stand-on

Sailing vessels

• meeting or crossing on the same tack, the windward vessel must give way
• meeting or crossing on opposite tacks, the vessel on starboard tack is stand-on
• overtaken vessel is stand-on

Lights

• under way
• white stern light visible in 135-degree arc
• white masthead steaming light visible in a 225-degree arc forward when under power (not when sailing)
• green starboard running light visible in an arc to 112.5 degrees aft
• red port running light 
• at anchor: white 360 degree anchor light (visible for at least 2 miles?)
• towing something less than 200 meters aft, must two white 225-degree masthead lights.  more than 200 meters, must display 3

Audrey's doing really well with TYCTR, and spontaneously sounds out words she sees on signs and magazines and stuff.  We're around lesson 30 or so, and she's getting really good at reading the "fast way" which is sounding the word out in your head before saying the word out loud.

-20.3 @ 250.9

12/14/2012

I am so sad for the parents of the children killed in Connecticut this morning! I can't even imagine the heartache. More proof of the fact that terrible things can happen anywhere, anytime. 

I have had a few people really worried that our sailing adventure will not be safe, and have even told me they think we will not come back alive. I have tried to mention bad things can happen anywhere, and that we will try to be as prepared as possible. At times I have worried myself that it could be dangerous, and of course I would never want to endanger my children. Now, more then ever, I am convinced that we should be living life to the fullest while we can. 

my babies enjoying life

12/12/12

I missed posting yesterday out of sheer exhaustion.  We ran out of gas on the Peak-to-Peak in Rollinsville, and upon getting home at 9:30 I passed out in bed.  

We'd remarked on the way down to Blackhawk that we needed to be sure to stop at the one gas station between there and Ned when we headed back.  Well, we forgot.  I freaked out, to put it mildly, at the prospect of having my wife, daughters, and dog stuck on the side of the road after dark with the temperature at 24 degrees and falling, while I hiked for gas.  In fact it was all a breeze.  We stopped in front of Help Towing, and when we called the number, the guy said he'd be there in five minutes and had a few gallons he could sell us, which all worked out perfectly.

The big lesson for me, going over the episode today, is to handle things more calmly.  As the skipper of a vessel, at least as important as expert seamanship is inspiring confidence in the crew and facilitating their optimal performance.  This is obviously incompatible with freaking out.  So, another thing to work on.  Another area in which the time is upon me now to get around to a little overdue growing-up.

On a different note, we'd gone down to Blackhawk to horse around in the Gilpin pool, and I'm just blown away and thrilled with the confidence and skill that our girls are building in the water.  Audrey was going to the bottom for sunken rings and even did the water slide by herself for the first time, twice.  And that's a pretty big water slide.  And Lorelei is completely fearless.  She'll just walk straight in to water up to her chin.  She could maybe use a little more fear, but I'm so proud of her.

-19.7 @ 251.5

Christmas Spirit

It's been a challenge, but we are finally really getting into the Christmas spirit around here! I love Christmas, and normally like to start the preparation as close to finishing up Thanksgiving as possible. Every year I make a new set of christmas CDs for my car. Unfortunately, my computer was destroyed last year right after Christmas, and I still haven't gotten all my music onto the one I'm now sharing with Jacob. After many hours studying itunes tutorials, and downloading new software though, I was able to download a few CDs that I had already purchased last year! Yeah me! I also bought a new kids Christmas CD by Laurie Berkner. It's very good! The girls really like it. Jacob's current favorite Christmas song is Christmas Island, we can tell where his head is at :). 

Checking out the Christmas Lights in Blackhawk

Santa 2012

Audrey with Santa 2009

Jacob and I have had a fake tree ever since we tried to keep a cute little potted tree (Albert the Alberta Spruce) over Christmas while we were living in Alaska. Albert died way before Christmas, I'm still not sure what we did wrong, and I was really sad about it. It was probably a mixture of having named him, being away from our family that year, and watching something die. Ever since, I have not wanted a live tree. Last year our fake tree died (lights went out and big branch broken), so the plan was to get a new one from Costco this year. Unfortunately, by the time I got there they only had the giant $650 trees left. In the parking lot they were selling what they advertised as 6.5' trees for $40 bucks though, so we are trying a real tree again. After getting the tree home though, we realized it was way larger then 6.5' because it didn't fit in our house. Jacob had to saw the bottom and the top, and it is a MONSTER! It takes up a really large amount of the room. Watering it is pretty crazy too! One of us has to army crawl under the thing and use a special pumpy thing we bought to water it. Having a real tree is a lot of work! One huge perk though, the house smells awesome, and the girls had so much fun decorating it. 

 We also made our annual trip to the mall to visit Santa. Audrey was pretty cute! When I told her where we were going she said, 'Oh good! I have really been missing that guy!' Lorelei on the other hand, was not a fan of Santa. The whole time I was trying to set her down, she was saying 'no thank you mama, no thank you!' I think she thought if she was really polite she could get out of it. I still feel really guilty about making her sit there, even if it was only for 30 seconds. I picked her up almost as fast as it started. The picture is really cute though, even if she is crying in it. It's funny, I have a really cute picture of Audrey from around the same age crying too (she wasn't crying until the end when I picked her up). Audrey only asked Santa for one thing this year, a doctor's kit...I guess I better get on that. 

12/10

I got the cement and grout all cleaned up in the mud room and reinstalled the interior molding.  So now here I go to cross those off the list.

We finished the navigation chapter in Your Boat Too.  We learned all kind of neat things about sounding your horn in the fog.

-20.2 @ 251.0

12/9

We've been doing some planning and boat research in spare moments.

As you know, I'm pretty well certain that Americans (among others) have lost their way, however we've decided that we really wanted to stick to happy thoughts on Windward Reach, so I've started another blog as an outlet for crying in the wilderness.  When I complete the raison d'être essay for that one I'll post a link.  I know you're all waiting on tenterhooks.

The darn scale kept producing different reading today so who knows?  I'm definitely up a bit though.

house todos

We compiled this list of all that remains to get the house set for sale in spring. It actually could be a lot worse (and was, before we had all the help from Len).

• upstairs bath
• shower 
• enclosure walls
• fixtures $
• door $
• replace gold towel ring *
• floors
• kitchen $
• bathrooms
• laundry
• kitchen 
• overhead light fixture *
• finish oiling cabinets *
• finish installing pulls and catches *
• repair drawers $
• install new thermostats
• repair old water damage around all the sliders $
• finish window casings (x4) $
• scrape
• sand
• harden
• fill gaps
• prime
• paint
• fix living room vent thing
• repair broken outer pane downstairs $
• paint dining room, hallway, kitchen
• mud room
• finish new front door
• paint
• latch
• trim
• interior
• exterior
• add 
• coats hooks *
• shelves for hats, gloves, shoes *
• bench *
• remove
• monstrosity from mud room *
• chintzy shoe racks from mudroom *
• shelving things upstairs
• bins of kiddy clothes from garage *
• boxes of other junk from garage *
• clean up
• shelving upstairs
• all closets
• put nice caps on railing posts on upstairs balcony *
• get carpets professionally cleaned *
• repair laundry room doors $
• make all the fixtures in the downstairs bathroom match
• fix all the other peeling paint on exterior trim (mainly on gable ends of roof) $
• scrape
• sand
• prime
• paint
• splash guard *
• heater corner guards *
• Fix door jam where baby gate was 
• Finish removing baby gates *
• Install no slip on stairs *
• Install the last two lights in the garage *
• Install kitchen light*
• fix closet bar *

• paint garage door casing *
• clean garage door *
• clean up garage *
• take garage, kitchen photos *
• move stuff out *
• office shelves
• girls stuff
• baker's rack
• clean out *
• kitchen cabinets
• pantry
• laundry room
• clean up scrap wood pile *
• replace medicine cabinet *

-20 @ 251.2

Kelly Peterson 44

I made took some  notes on KP44s today.  These notes are abridged mainly from bluewaterboats.org and kp44.org.  

A long distance center-cockpit cruiser by design, she has earned a reputation for speedy passages. 180 miles days are not uncommon, with useful performance coming in all wind conditions and points of sail. Many have circumnavigated.

Fin keel cutaway at the forefoot and aft which reduces her wetted surface, good for both light-air performance and a nimble turning radius. The keel has a relatively long run which helps the boat to track well.

One third of her light to moderate displacement of 30,000 pounds is encapsulated in her ballast slung low on her 6′ 4″ keel. This combined with her clean bow entry helps her produce a nice soft motion.

Low-profile cabin trunk which is both sleek and practical in that it aids a lower center of gravity. Cockpit seating for 8 at a squeeze under anchor.

Beefy twin spreader cutter rig carrying more than 1000 square feet of canvas. Very manageable for a short-handed crew.

The interior is bright and well ventilated from the three large hatches and twelve portlights.

Well-equipped U-shaped galley sited to port and has large capacity refrigeration and a gimbaled stove. The double stainless steel sink is close to the centerline and works well on any tack.

Access to the bilge and engine is excellent.

Heavily constructed in hand-laid fiberglass matt and roving with polyester resin. Thicknesses range from nearly one inch at the bilges, tapering to 3/4 inches at the waterline and a half inch at the deck. The integral keel encapsulates 10,000 pounds of iron ballast packed with concrete. The rudder consists of a stainless-steel frame, packed with plywood and sheathed in fiberglass. Some of these have been replaced over time after leaks developed and corroded the stainless steel.

The deck-to-hull joint is a lip-tongue arrangement with a wood brace inserted between the joint in some areas, then fiberglassed over. A teak cap rail was screwed into the wood brace. This area can be prone to leaks, especially where long bolts holding the genoa track to the top of the bulwark protrude through into the cabin. The plywood-cored decks were finished in non-skid gelcoat as standard but some were optionally fitted with teak decking.

The Formosa boats and those from other yards can have quite different construction details from the Kelly yachts.

Well known to make fast passages. The theoretical hull speed is 8.3 knots and owners report this is possible on all points of sail given the right conditions. 180 mile days are very attainable.

She is well balanced and despite long rudder control lines reaching from her centre cockpit, the feedback at the helm is surprisingly good. The boat is relatively easy to single hand, even in a blow. And importantly, her motion at sea is comfortable.

Specifications

• LOA: 43′ 10″
• LWL: 38′ 8″
• Beam: 12’11″
• Draft 6′ 4″
• Bridge Clearance: 60′
• Displacement: 30,000 lbs.
• Ballast: 10,000 lbs. (iron encapsulated)
• Sail Area: 1,011 sq.ft.
• Fuel: 117 US Gal.
• Water: 132 US Gal.
• Engine: 62-hp Perkins 4-152 Diesel
• Designer: Doug Peterson
• Builder: Yu Ching Marine, Taiwan
• Year Introduced: 1976
• Year Ended: 1983
• Numbers Built: 200+

Also Known As: Peterson 44

Similar Boats

• Kelly Peterson 46
• Formosa 46
• Spindrift 46
• Hylas 44
• Cape North 43
• Lafitte 44
• Mason 44

Owners: 

• s/v Loose Pointer
• s/v Beatrix

Video tour of a KP 44

Listings

• 1977 $114k
• 1981, Rio Dulce, Guatemala $115k
• 1975, Ft Lauderdale $115k
• 1977, Malaysia $65k
• 1979, Napa $80k
• 1975, Oregon $99k
• 1975, East Coast, USA $95k
• 1977, Annapolis $79k

-20 @ 251.2

12/6

Audrey and I watched Shipwrecked this evening.  Exciting stuff!  It's about a Norwegian boy whose father is injured and in order to earn the money to head off a foreclosure on the family farm he ships out to sea.  We also did a little TYCTR, but she was pretty tired and silly so we didn't do too much.

I cleaned up the To-do page.  It was pretty chaotic before, I thought.  Not that there's any less to do now, but I'm keeping it at a higher level on that page now.

I've also spent some time on boat research this evening.

-19.1 @ 252.1

12/4

Audrey and I are on Lesson 26 of TYCTR.  She's doing great.  One thing that's kind of annoying is the way they clutter up the spaces between words in the stories.  She and I both find it pretty confusing.

April and I had a great brainstorming session this evening on our next steps.

Time for a chapter of Your Boat Too...

-17.9 @ 253.3

12/3

Man, it's kinda bumming me out to report yet again, no particular progress today.  I've gotta get back in the groove.

-17.1 @ 254.1

12/2/2012

We're getting back to Your Boat Too tonight.  Tonight's chapter is on inland navigation rules.  Woohoo!

Oh another small tidbit:  Mr. Bumfuzzle is publishing a book on expat trading called Life on the Margin or something like that.  I gotta read it.

Audrey and I have also gotten back to word games.  Today we did lessons 24 and 25.

-20.1 @ 251.1

12/1/2012

We saw Len off today, and I really didn't do much else.  I got to hang out with Audrey and Lorelei a lot  which was really nice.  My big plan for tomorrow is to plan steps for the next couple weeks.

I did have a nice surprise from the scale this morning.

-19.8 @ 251.4

11/30

I did some research on unschooling and Waldorf this evening.  Len actually poured some cement in the mud room.

-16.2 @ 255.0