Looks like Mahalo, but not quite! Check out the porthole/window in the master stateroom. This clever owner asked for his boat, hull #15, to use the porthole setup used in Hampton's other line of boats (confusingly called the "Hampton Pilothouse"). Wish I had thought of this, it's quite a bit more open than the twin long portholes we have. Owner Chuck and I have become good friends through the blog and his build process. It's great to see his boat being offloaded in SoCal for commissioning. The boat will be called "King of Nothing" (remember that Seals & Crofts song?). She'll cruise Mexico this Fall, and be up here in the PNW next Summer. Chuck was favorable to quite a few of the changes we made for Mahalo and incorporated them into the build. That's a sharp looking yacht, I have to say. Welcome to the fleet. Looking forward to cruising together next year.
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Hampton decided to throw us and Mahalo a little christening party. How nice! Deb and I had a play to go to that Saturday afternoon (of the boat show as well). Accuweather said it would begin raining at 4 pm and geez, spot on! We got to the boat around 5:15, and it stopped raining for a bit. The Hampton folks had the traditional bubbly and leaves, super nice. About the time we go to do it, the rain starts "bucketing down," as my UK friends would say. Somehow it seemed kind of "right." You often get an afternoon thundershower in Hawaii, although it is warmer for sure. But we didn't have any wind! I wasn't going to take pictures/video, just wanted to be in the moment. But Geo was doing such a great job I couldn't resist. I caught this video mid way through. Here is the little blessing we came up with: For thousands of years, the sea has called to people. Vessels have been crafted to carry them, and the vessels are known by name. As they nurture and care for us while at sea, we affectionately call them "she." To them we toast and ask to celebrate this beautiful new vessel, Mahalo. In Hawaiian culture, Kanaloa is the ocean god, known for long distance voyaging and also for healing. In the spirit in which this vessel Mahalo was named, we ask Kanaloa to watch over her, ensuring safe passages for Bob and Debbie's family and friends. Mahalo is the newest member of the Hampton ohana, or family. May she always bring the spirit of the islands to all that voyage with her. TO MAHALO! After this I said a few words, telling people one of the Hawaiian expressions I had learned: No rain, no rainbows! And one picture with our broker extraordinaire, Scott Hauck. It's just over 11 months to the day since we sat down and signed the contract with him. Back in the Hampton show tent we had some great food they provided, and Deb and I expressed our gratitude once more. We are lucky ducks! About 15 friends were able to join us for the party. None more special that beautiful little Sophie! Eh, not so little anymore! It's been a joy watching her grow up and being a bit of a honorary uncle. She's the daughter of very good Seattle friends. And Captain Sophie is ready to take the wheel as soon as we can get them out boating!
Mahalo again to the Hampton crew and our friends that spent the evening with us. Just keeps getting more special. Also, thank you to Kelsey of Hampton for several of these images. We have now had a couple of cycles of bringing the boat home, using her, and going back to Seattle for more work. I think this is working pretty well. I stay on the boat in Seattle and learn, help out etc. For this first trip back to Shilshoe, fellow Endurance owner (based in FL) Roy helped me out, which was great. I was thinking of single handing, since some Hampton people would be waiting for me, but glad I didn't. We had a couple of glitches and he knew how to solve one of them. This post will have a bunch of pics and some of them involve NAKED boat images. This isn't the marketing fluff kind. One of the most important tasks for this trip was to get the padeyes that hold the tender down installed. I think I mentioned in a previous post that through my review with Steve D'Antonio, we found that some previous installations were less than desirable. I want to stress that this has nothing to do with Hampton. Owners are free to get their tenders wherever they like. Several of us have selected Walker Bay's. The dealer subs out the bunk and padeye install. Turns out this guy just drills holes in the cored deck, squirts in some 5200 and screws in self tapping screws. Eventually water will enter the cored deck and then you live with a mess for whatever time and whenever you go to fix you have an expensive job. I refused to go that route. We got one quote from a yard for $1,800 and two days at their dock. For three pad eyes? $600 per hole? Talk about a screw job. Luckily, one of the Hampton guys knew a fiberglasser that would come to the boat. The whole job, including another minor repair, was under $700. Our Yacht Systems guys had drilled the three pilot holes. He then hole sawed up into the core, dug out the core around this hole, and then filled with epoxy. Greg of Yacht Systems installs the aluminum backing plate and tightens up the nuts. Now we have a solid structure and no possibility of water intrusion. When we were headed over to Shilshoe, Roy said "Bob, do you have a chamois mop?" "What's that, Roy?" I asked. "It's like a regular mop, but with chamois material, great for getting the dew off the decks." Roy showed me on Fisheries Supply website what I needed (Shur-hold). So my Hampton super broker Scott Hauck was kind enough to take me to Fisheries, since I don't have a car there. I picked up a few other things I needed. Here's my stuff, $650 worth. And that's with the commercial account discount. I sent Roy a copy of the last invoice page and said "I thought you were my friend?" Oh, speaking of shopping for the boat. Our faithful UPS driver, Mark, is really getting sick of our boat purchases. Seattle Hampton has a new service manager! Yaaay. The manuals for everything on the boat filled up two book boxes. He organized them all into well labeled folders in four plastic boxes. And each box has a table of contents as you can see here. Great work Hampton. For now these will live in a closet in the lazarette. Speaking of the lazarette and naked boat pictures.... I wanted to have a recirc pump for the hot water. That's the 40 gallon water heater there (combo Mahalo Maui Ale beer keg), whereas most of the sinks/showers are toward the front of the boat. I really hate wasting water. We "pre-plumbed" the recirc in Shanghai, but lets say it needed a few corrections. It took a couple of tries to get this right, but after this effort Jeff Owen of Yacht Systems totally nailed it. Instant hot water throughout the boat. And while this looks like a pretty big mess, about 30 minutes later you wouldn't even know they had been there that day. Included in the contract is canvas for just about everything on the boat that can be covered. One of Seattle Canvas Supply guys making yet another pattern. We also did a systems check-out/sea trial with David Wright from ABT-Trac. I.e. thrusters and stabilizers. It was great to learn how the totally state of the art thrusters work now. He was very impressed with how the boat ran and handled the waves we could find. Got the latest software too. We are at full speed in this picture (check out the rear view. Note that the twin disc transmission has a "sync" mode allowing you to use just the port throttle and it automatically syncs the engines. The Garmin shows we are at 20.7 knots (not sure whey they are different on the two displays?). The CAT monitors show we are at 100% load, 2330 RPM, and 50 gals an hour, per engine. Pretty awesome. We like a clean boat. Many boats in this class have a small whole house vac. We find the hoses to be a pain. You have to store them, haul them, and if you don't put them in a sock they will scratch the hell out of your joinery. So in this guest closet we spec'd an electrical outlet (out of view at top). And we have Dyson's latest V-10 cordless vac. The motor unit is sitting in it's charging stand. I'll do some velcro to hold the attachments together, but this is a SLICK setup. The little swim ladder/step on the Walker Bay tender sucks in seawater, and then slowly releases it over several days. Again, this isn't a Hampton thing. They should have maybe filled it with epoxy or something. I will at least remove the plastic caps that aren't doing their job. Maybe WB will provide a remedy under warranty, we will see. The boat and I enjoyed our evenings on the dock this week. And when we aren't watching people drill holes and perform plumbing miracles, we are out enjoying and learning Mahalo. Awesome to cruise the Seattle skyline on a nice day in our own boat.
Have always known I wanted to have a high quality watermaker on board. Hampton recommends Blue Water brand, and several of my friends know the founder/CEO. Also, a few of my friends have a tentative relationship with their watermakers. One of them says "most troublesome piece of equipment on the boat." But this friend only washes his boat with "product water" as it is the most pure available. I'd have a lot of problems with hard water spots if I use the water at my home dock. So my approach is to buy a truly current one, locate it where it is readily serviceable, and filter the hell out of the incoming water. The location above is just to the right of the tool box in the lazarette. As you can see all the filters are readily serviceable. However the membranes are not, when they need changing the unit will have to come out. This article on the Tanglewood Blog clued me in to using these big media filters. (Thanks Peter.) They are a lot like a swimming pool filter, and they are super easy to back flush. They filter most of the crap out before the sea water hits the phalanx of other filters. Our unit is 1,500 GPD (although you get less in our colder water). Rather than lose any more floor space, Jeff from Yacht Systems NW suggested building this table over the beer keg/water heater. They did a super job making it a really professional look. There's one more piece of equipment, the low pressure pump which pulls in the seawater. I wasn't too excited about losing this floor space, it's a prime place for larger items like bicycles or what have you. But at least the pump is very serviceable. In between the pump and the thru-hull there is a strainer of course, it's easy to reach (kinda like Jeff is doing there as I took this pic).
I can use the control panel on the unit to control it, and also there is a remote panel in the galley. Looks like we'll be able to order up some water whenever we want! |
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