Shear Madness

October 22, 2011

(by Leanne)

Our Temporary Home in Sea Gate

With Shear Madness now on the hard stand and repairs commenced we have all moved ashore and rented a house at Sea Gate in Newport, NC. Sea Gate is a lovely relaxed community located on the intracoastal waterway with the local marina being the hub of this small community. The marina has 70 berths (none large enough for a Nordhavn), a marina store which doubles as the local convenience shop with the community coffee group and the weekly happy hour also held at the marina facilities. The view of the marina from the house makes us feel right at home as we can at least see water and we are storing our kayak there so we can do some adventuring on the ICW. The only negative to living ashore is the amount of mosquitos (aka mossies) in the area. This is a result of the high levels of rainfall experienced from the hurricane. The mossies are most vicious at dawn and dusk and attack anything that moves, which requires fast movement from the hot tub back into the house to limit the bombardment. As the locals are frequently lamenting the increased levels of mossies we know it must be bad.

Jarrett Bay Boatworks Yard

The house is palatial after the boat, with five bedrooms, a downstairs bar and most importantly a hot tub – which is appreciated by all as the body ages. The extra bedrooms will be used by Brian and Troy, from Celtic Marine, when they arrive from Florida in November to commence the electronic repairs. The fifth bedroom has now been turned into Brian’s store room with all the unserviceable electronic gear removed waiting his return. While the bar room would make a great place for a party, the back room is now filling up with spares & equipment removed from the boat. This will allow easy access for the contractors to install the new equipment.

Shear Madness anchored in the boat yard

Back at Jarrett Bay Boatworks, Shear Madness is looking comfortable on her stands; however she is attracting a few comments with her anchor now down (for some work to be done on it). The boat yard is an impressive 175-acre facility offering a one-stop boat building (up to 120 ft in length) and marine service facility. We are all enjoying looking at the different boats which range from small trailer yachts, sport fishing boats, yachts, catamarans, commercial trawlers and 200ft luxury yachts. The boatworks is an interesting place to have the ‘office’ in as there is always something to watch as boats are moved in, around and back into the water.

The inside of the Pilot House is now resembling a workshop test bench with all the electronic gear removed and work on the electrical systems commencing. John is now in his element working alongside Steve and Buddy from Offshore Marine Electronics as they pull out the numerous cables, wires and circuits for diagnosis and repair. Although it all looks like ‘spaghetti’ to me, given John’s experience of pulling things apart onboard the Orion I have confidence that he and the team will return the equipment back to the original location and, more importantly, to an operational mode.

John (center) with Steve and Buddy from Offshore Marine Electronics

Brian from Celtic Marine arrived last week to complete a work scope of the electronics/navigation and entertainment system. This will allow Brian and Troy to return in Nov with the replacement parts they need to complete the work. During this period all the electronics from the Pilot House were removed and are now stored in the house. An additional advantage of Brian’s visit was he now has the TV working – this was just in time with the Rugby World Cup semi-final game able to be watched onboard on the large screen. Even better were the results with NZ winning 20-6 against Australia. No need to ask, or even report, who we want to win Rugby World Cup in the final game this weekend with NZ versus France

Bradley has been kept busy managing the numerous phone calls / emails to the contractors and insurance company to keep the repair schedule on track. Our revised project timeline is (hopefully) departing by end of November. Kathy and Leanne are being kept busy implementing an inventory management system. This requires going through every locker, cabinet and space onboard identifying what the space is called and then recording what is being stored where. We started with the charts and have now catalogued 217 charts that include Europe, South and Central America, USA and Canada – this task was enjoyable and allowed us to dream about our future cruising areas.

We will keep you updated as the repairs progress.

Click on these links to see a recent article in the Washington City Paper about the “other” Shear Madness – the play at the Kennedy Center and the wedding that took place there, leading to the name of a Nordhavn!

Wedding Article

Shear Madness Drink Article

Click on any photo to enlarge!