Schooner Maggie B in rehab – July 10, 2008

The schooner Maggie B is in the Covey Island shed getting fixed up after her hard 38,400 NM maiden voyage. There are some new photos up on the web showing how she looks all stripped. I was able to go by and see her the end of June. It was quite a shock to see our home ‘all tore up.’ They aren’t actually doing a lot, but it is hard to imagine that it will soon again be all back together soon and ready for the next adventure.

Regular readers may recall the challenges we had with the toilet. Curtis, Robert and I put in hundreds of hours to troubleshoot blockages in the the black water tank and then to build a “work around.” It turns out that a single tampon was the culprit — an all too familiar story to anyone who works with marine toilets. An emphatic notice will be a prominent part of the rebuilt system.

Feathering props are an essential part of any traveling sailboat. For the Maggie B it made a 3/4 to one knot difference. At a very rough estimate, we probably saved 30 days of sailing with the extra speed (the difference between going six and seven knots over 30,000 NM). Of the several alternatives out there, we selected the Italian J-Prop. Now they are our enemies. We lost our first J-Prop when it simply came off somewhere between Barbados and Brazil on the way out. The distributor said that it had never happened before, which turned out to be a lie. But they did send us a free replacement. Free until Brazil customs demanded a 100% import tax due to mistakes J-Prop made in shipping. The replacement J-Prop failed in Martinique on our way back. When we took it apart, the gear teeth fell out as if it had been the loser in a bare-knuckle bout.

When we got back to Canada we were told 1) they had changed the warrantee period to one year from three, so it was out of warrantee, 2) that J-Props never fail unless they are abused, ours failed so therefore it must have been abused, so the warrantee is voided and 3) we could ship it to Italy to be rebuilt, but they had no idea how long it would take. Our next prop will be a Luke, built in Maine.

I got to the Wooden Boat show in Mystic Seaport in June. It was a lovely celebration. Some photos are posted. One high point was getting into the non-display storage sheds to see the incredible collection. I went right to their Moosabec Reach Wherry, whose lines were the genesis for Reepicheep, our tender from the Apprentice Shop in Rockland.

All is well.