Sunday, July 15, 2012
Do or Do Not...
... there is no try.
I Did Not this weekend.
90+ degrees and 100% humidity turned the boatyard into a sauna. I made the attempt but it didn't last long. The killer is when I found that I left my fan in the cockpit exposed to the recent rain which apparently is not good for electric fans.
Otherwise, I have been driving around looking at empty lots of land and a few 'fixer-uppers' (just a little TLC will have this beauty... blah blah blah). I am also narrowing in on a boatyard not far from me that would work out. Further and less endowed than my current boatyard but with some advantages.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Right Turn Clyde..
I realize not many are going to get the reference to the blog title but I will give it a chance anyway...
So... I was away for a weekend visiting other boats and people. I was trapped by all the household errands that were put off the following weekend. This past weekend had some holiday party plans and general recuperation.
In other words, I haven't done a damn thing in three weeks.
There is a bright spot though. I received some goodies in the mail.
My new stove arrived and it looks beautiful :-) Two foot pumps for the galley also arrived plus some miscellaneous shop supplies. Even better is that the stove fits quite well.
I was worried the side locker door on the settee back was going to be blocked by the stove but it looks like it just squeaks into place. The idea is to mount the stove low enough so that a removable section of the countertop can be placed over the stove, extending the counter top area. Unfortunately, this means I won't have enough room under the stove to really stretch out my feet if I choose to lie down on the port settee. I could raise the stove, losing the counter space, or lower the stove, losing my toe-wiggling room. The toes lost and the stove will be mounted below the level of the countertop.
Actually, there is a little more to my 'got nothing done' story. It seems the boatyard where Jenny sits and where I have been almost happy paying my two thousand dollars a year in storage fees is being sold. Or rather it has been sold. I haven't had the official notification but I ran into an employee at the grocery store who filled me in. I drove through the yard today (Sunday) and saw that all the yard heavy equipment is gone which confirms what I heard about things moving fast and being sold off. So... I am paid up through September but Jenny doesn't have a home after that. What makes this a bit more difficult is that the local area is already over capacity and there simply isn't room to re-locate 150+ boats. Prices will go up and some boats will move farther away. In the meantime I have been scrambling to sort out my options.
My situation isn't totally dire. I have friends that will let me put the boat on their property but the ability to work on her will be a bit... constrained. I could put the boat in my yard (I rent a small house) which will solve the short term problem but I am quite sure my landlord won't be too happy with that plan so once it gets noticed I won't have very long to move her again. This weekend I spent some time looking at bare land for sale. The idea is that I spend around $2000 a year for storage anyway. If I could find an unbuildable lot for around $20k then in ten years I have more or less re-couped by purchase cost. (Sort of- I have to ignore my economics degree a bit to convince myself). I could spend more if the land could have a structure built on it but it gets a little gray deciding how much of my total assets should be put into boat storage when I really don't have enough to store myself (in other words home ownership)
One could already argue that I put more of my assets into Jenny than I should but for the moment I am pretty effective at ignoring that argument. I will also start calling around to boatyards for availability but I am not sure how far I need to go, how much I need to pay, and how little permission I will have for boatwork. Land ownership would be the ideal but I will be covering all the bases; especially since nothing in the real estate market has jumped out at me yet. With all this going on it has been hard to think about what the next little project is on Jenny so rather than fight the worry I have been looking straight at it and trying to find a solution to the biggest problem at the moment. I have no doubt that there is a solution I just don't know what it is today. And that's all I have. Anyone local want to rent me their backyard?...
My new stove arrived and it looks beautiful :-) Two foot pumps for the galley also arrived plus some miscellaneous shop supplies. Even better is that the stove fits quite well.
I was worried the side locker door on the settee back was going to be blocked by the stove but it looks like it just squeaks into place. The idea is to mount the stove low enough so that a removable section of the countertop can be placed over the stove, extending the counter top area. Unfortunately, this means I won't have enough room under the stove to really stretch out my feet if I choose to lie down on the port settee. I could raise the stove, losing the counter space, or lower the stove, losing my toe-wiggling room. The toes lost and the stove will be mounted below the level of the countertop.
Actually, there is a little more to my 'got nothing done' story. It seems the boatyard where Jenny sits and where I have been almost happy paying my two thousand dollars a year in storage fees is being sold. Or rather it has been sold. I haven't had the official notification but I ran into an employee at the grocery store who filled me in. I drove through the yard today (Sunday) and saw that all the yard heavy equipment is gone which confirms what I heard about things moving fast and being sold off. So... I am paid up through September but Jenny doesn't have a home after that. What makes this a bit more difficult is that the local area is already over capacity and there simply isn't room to re-locate 150+ boats. Prices will go up and some boats will move farther away. In the meantime I have been scrambling to sort out my options.
My situation isn't totally dire. I have friends that will let me put the boat on their property but the ability to work on her will be a bit... constrained. I could put the boat in my yard (I rent a small house) which will solve the short term problem but I am quite sure my landlord won't be too happy with that plan so once it gets noticed I won't have very long to move her again. This weekend I spent some time looking at bare land for sale. The idea is that I spend around $2000 a year for storage anyway. If I could find an unbuildable lot for around $20k then in ten years I have more or less re-couped by purchase cost. (Sort of- I have to ignore my economics degree a bit to convince myself). I could spend more if the land could have a structure built on it but it gets a little gray deciding how much of my total assets should be put into boat storage when I really don't have enough to store myself (in other words home ownership)
One could already argue that I put more of my assets into Jenny than I should but for the moment I am pretty effective at ignoring that argument. I will also start calling around to boatyards for availability but I am not sure how far I need to go, how much I need to pay, and how little permission I will have for boatwork. Land ownership would be the ideal but I will be covering all the bases; especially since nothing in the real estate market has jumped out at me yet. With all this going on it has been hard to think about what the next little project is on Jenny so rather than fight the worry I have been looking straight at it and trying to find a solution to the biggest problem at the moment. I have no doubt that there is a solution I just don't know what it is today. And that's all I have. Anyone local want to rent me their backyard?...
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