Oct. 4/2021: One thing I needed to take care of on Lunacy this past month was replacing the propeller zinc, the one anode on the boat that degrades fastest. I first tried doing this in the water, diving on the prop while Lunacy lay on her mooring in Portland, in what I call the lagoon...
June 28/2021: For the first time since we acquired her in 2017 Lunacy spent the past winter on the hard in storage rather than floating about somewhere warm. This was primarily a function of the pandemic, which made a Caribbean venture problematic, but also it was about time to catch breath and focus on making...
Feb. 20/2020: I mentioned earlier this problem I’ve been having with the Refleks drip-pot diesel heater on Lunacy. Having left the boat here in Brunswick, Georgia, last fall with the heater still non-operational I returned back in December for a few days to have another crack at fixing it. You’ll recall I replaced the regulator,...
Jan. 30/2020: Anyone who has ever tried to fix anything on a boat knows full well that the hardest part normally isn’t the actual fixing itself, but the gathering of the tools and parts and other bits and pieces required to perpetrate the fixing. Metaphorically, it’s something on the order of wanting the nail to...
Nov. 9/2019: During the early summer, you’ll recall, we dealt with two big maintenance items: Lunacy’s wobbly rudder and her “ovalized” autopilot/steering quadrant connection. Another adventure, not previously mentioned, was replacing the turbocharger on my 55hp Nanni diesel, as it had seized up solid through lack of proper exercise. There were two lessons learned in...
We sailed over to Popham Beach for the holiday, as has been our habit the last several years, to visit friends and family, but first there was the rudder to attend to. Or rather the steering system, as there were other problems the crew at Maine Yacht Center discovered when they took everything apart and...
The current (November 2013) issue of Yachting World contains a nice feature story I wrote about all the sailing I did on Lunacy last winter in the Spanish Virgin Islands. The theory, of course, is that this will inspire people to sail there this winter. When preparing the story, I therefore made a point of...
You usually don't think of a hole in your hull as being a good thing, but sometimes a properly organized one can save you a lot of trouble. Back when I owned Crazy Horse, my Alberg 35 yawl, a boat with a full keel and very deep bilges, I wished I had a bilge drain...
Lunacy was hauled at Maine Yacht Center last week, just for a quick scrub and zinc replacement, as I plan on taking her south to Puerto Rico for the winter. This is the second full season she's had her Ultrasonic Antifouling system clicking away trying to keep her private parts clean. As you can see...
CLARE AND I FINISHED BRINGING LUNACY back to Portland this weekend and spent the last night of our mini-cruise on a mooring at Cliff Island in Casco Bay on Friday night. Soon after we settled in a massive thunderstorm started zooming in from the southwest. The photo up top depicts its initial approach.
