A Brief Recap - Part Two

The little yard in New Jersey where Kerry Deare is kept came under new management a few years back. Visiting this yard is a step back in time. There is a small skilled crew who work at restoring and maintaining wooden boats of various vintages and sizes. The yard also does routine maintenance and storage on GRP boats owned by a few "holdovers" from an earlier era. The atmosphere is businesslike, low key, and relaxed.

I asked the yard to clean up the boat to the point where she would float while I did a thorough refit. This meant they had fun cleaning the topsides, painting the bottom, repairing a few plumbing items, cleaning the exterior teak, etc. These are chores I have always done myself but paying the yard bill was just the ticket to get motivated. Once she was back in the water, "The List" was developed and it eventually grew to 15 single-spaced pages the following May. As often happens, the level of effort and expense was well out of proportion to the net asset value of the boat. My justification was that Kerry Deare had been "without" for so long that she needed all the care and reassurance I could provide. And provide I did.

She came out of the water in late November with much accomplished and much more to do before going offshore the following Spring.

A Brief Recap - Part One

Basically we got back into the "sailing business" in Summer 2007 after a hiatus of several years. Before then our last cruise was from New Jersey USA to the eastern end of Nova Scotia in Summer 2002. This was a fine cruise with nothing untoward to report. The Nova Scotia people were their usual warm and friendly selves, the weather was workable, etc. I believe this was our 4th visit to the Province and first time to the Lakes.

In the fall of 2002 my wife Sonia and I decided to have a new house built and that project, together with a few medical adventures since resolved, kept Kerry Deare out of action. The truth in fact is that the hiatus kept her out of shape and in a very poor state of repair, since she sat sad and neglected for many years.

So in Summer 2007 I jumped back in and opted to have the folks at our boatyard work on Kerry Deare. To repeat an earlier note, she is a 1981 Cape Dory 28 I have owned since new. Prior to 2002 she had been maintained to a very high standard by me. The idea of asking the yard to jump in was that (1) the cash outlay would motivate me to get a move on, and (2) I really did not want to do slave work cleaning up the hull, refurbishing the teak, etc. I planned 2007 not as a sailing year but rather a work year, and working on the boat in the water is the method of choice.

Yacht Kerry Deare

Yacht Kerry Deare of Barnegat is a Cape Dory 28 foot sloop that I've owned since 1981. I've sailed her single-handed well over 100,000 miles to date. In the entries that follow I often write "we" did such-and-such, but it should be recognized that "we" refers to me and the boat. Only rarely is another person on board. Simple is good.

The original Kerry Deare web site with a few cruising stories is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~kerrydeare/

The tedium of maintaining these web pages has led to our using this web log. The current entry is only a placeholder until we determine what information will be recorded. After enduring the complexities of web pages for a very long time, I suspect this blog will be a much easier alternative. Hope we get around to posting something worthwhile soon.