Newbe with no experience buys big boat

[schelli]

Absolute best tale!

[ratherbediving]

Hi Glenn--

I also bought your book (Kindle version) based on what I read here and just finished it-- was a fun read! It's really cool to be able to have the author respond to people on this thread. I was curious too about the survey... it sounded like perhaps you thought it wasn't such a good thing that the surveyor and your broker hit it off so well... do you think the surveyor maybe didn't do his job or do you think this is really something that any surveyor would have missed?

[p_everette]

Just finished the book last night, good read. Reminded me of some fond and not so fond memories getting my first sailboat from Trinidad to St. Thomas. (mostly single handed)

[davidpm]

Originally Posted by glenndamato

it's almost impossible for the owner to cover up ALL the telltale signs. There will be heavy mildew under the cushions. The bilge may show watermarks high up. The lockers will look like they've been filled with soggy mess - or are ALL the lockers repainted? Hmmm. My main point is the usual "hose test" will not tell you much. If ports or hatches leak, they probably only need some adjustment or a new gasket.

1. Glenn, Did the survey pickup on the leaks?
2. If a boat was not heavaly sailed or was recently refurbished is their any survey techniques that would expose the leaks. I'm sure you have talked to a lot of people about this.
3. You said you thought that the core was getting saturated from the hull deck joint. As far as I know the core material does not extent to the hull deck joint. It is solid at the very edge of the boat.
Is it possible that you had wet core from deck mounted items like hand-rails etc that leaked.
You can typically find hull-deck leaks by drips down the inside of the hull not by leaks directly over berths.
Course if you are healed enough and the hull-deck joint leaks it could drip inboard and not follow the hull.

[mstern]

Finished the book last night. A terrific read. I highly recommend this book. What I liked so much was that it focusses on the journey, not the destination.

Well, done Glenn.

[Jbaffoh]

Perhaps because there never was a destination. Even the Ha-ha and Cabo were driven by others, and not Glenn's desire to arrive there.

It's a well-written book about a clueless neophyte who learned a few things along the way. But I'm not convinced that now, nearly 10 years later, he was left with fully accurate conclusions about his ordeal.

One Ha-ha does not an expert make. Yet now he seems entrenched in conclusions about his boat and sailing that were formed, and cast in the stone of his personal dogma, when he was still a beginner at the conclusion of his voyage. Dude has a ton to learn.

Kudos for the candor, kudos for the writing style and voice. But the oft-repeated boilerplate lines here in response to earnest questions are off-putting. I think he has yet to learn how he and his boat let him down. For now, his heels seem dug in and he's sticking with some questionable stories. Whatever.

I don't regret the day I spent reading the book. But I do regret coming here and reading lines from his book being regurgitated or paraphrased in response to questions from his readers. We read the book! Yet it's obvious many answers lie outside it's 4 corners.

[davidpm]

Well JB I suspect Glen has a pretty good idea of where his skills and experience are a little thin.
Would you mind some specifics about what conclusions he came to that you disagree with?

[ShoalFinder]

It's his book, his story, about his boat and his adventure. It's not a sailing textbook.

[glenndamato]

Jbaffoh: I wouldn't claim to be an expert by any measure. That's why I', wavering over buying another boat within the next year or two. It's not an obligation to take likely. And unless the sailor is so rich they can afford a new, pristine yacht, or hire people to upkeep and upgrade and older yacht, it will eat up vast amounts of time and energy.

I'm not sure what you mean by "boilerplate responses." Please understand that just like everyone else I have time constraints and I can't write elaborate and detailed responses to each person.

I could have make the book more detailed but it was already quite long for a memoir about a not-famous person who did not participate in history. For example, my three year circumnavigation was completely planned out, including stops and approximate dates. I planned to winter over and haul-out in Australia and South Africa. I even spoke to someone in Sydney about the possibility of temp employment as an IT consultant.

I probably emphasized interpersonal conflicts in the book, but I did that to make it more readable and be able to get people to the non-interpersonal conflict parts. I disagree that the story was "driven by others." It was my decision to return to San Diego, and it was a sound decision. Trying to single-hand across the South Pacific in a wet boat, after knowing I was already lonely and information-starved in Cabo, and understanding how poorly suited I was for third-world living, I would make the same decision again today.

If and when I do cruise again, it will be seasonal travel between California, Hawaii, and Puget/Vancouver.

Hope that helps clarify -

Best regards,

Glenn

[glenndamato]

David: The survey did not pick up or test for leaks, and I probably would have said "I don't care, because I'm going to replace all the hatches and ports anyhow."

I noticed that even small amounts of rain (or even a heavy dew!) would immediately result in significant quantities of water entering below - and I am 100-percent sure it was not from condensation. I may be "all wet," but my rather thin theory was that the plastic deck core got saturated so any incoming leaks would push out moisture into the cabin, through the many hundreds of staples that punctured the inner cabin top glass.

Best,

Glenn