Hello and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast.  This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the East coast of the United States.   In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show.

Today we’re are going to talk about the new anchor chain I purchased and installed on Paradox, our 2009 Hunter 45 DS. As a reminder, we purchased Paradox in the Fall of 2020 and she came with 25 feet of anchor chain and 200 feet of ⅝ 3 strand nylon rode.

After doing some reading and given the type of sailing we do, I decided on 100 ft of chain. The anchor windless is a Lewmar V2 with both a gypsy and a drum. On Lewmar winches there is a code stamped into the gypsy. The code on my gypsy is 002 which according to the Lewmar website means the proper chain is 10mm DIN 766 or ⅜ G4.

This is interesting because the chain that came with the boat is 5/16 G4.  The 5/16 chain seems to work OK in the windless, but I just deployed it once. You must be careful because the wrong size chain can jam or prematurely wear out the gypsy.  So, I ordered ACCO brand ⅜ G4 anchor chain from Defender.  Defender is a great place and I find they consistently have the best prices.  There are lots of brands of anchor chain and in reading forums, ACCO seems to be one of the best.  Seems like the big variable in anchor chain is the quality of the galvanization.  So a good quality galvanization is important. The next thing I needed to figure out was how to get the anchor chain from the car to the boat and then onto the boat.  100 feet of ⅜ chain weighs about 160 pounds.  What I came up with are using three 5gal pails to carry the chain.  At Defender, we put about ⅓ of the chain in each pail.  So each weighs just a bit over 50lbs. When I got to the marina, I was able to load all 3 pails into a cart and take them down to the boat. At the boat, I was able to get each bucket, one by one, onto the boat and forward to the anchor locker.

I then, one pail at a time, flaked the chain into the chain locker.  I then ran it through the anchor windless and attached the end to the anchor with a new shackle I purchased.

I still need to splice the nylon rode to the end of the anchor chain.  But for the time being, I secured the end of the anchor chain with a line to the eye hook in the anchor locker. I will splice the nylon rode to the anchor the next time I am at the boat.  BTW, I did find 2 great YouTube videos on how to splice a line to an anchor chain.  One was by Free Range Sailing and the other by Dalton Brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqVF4NcpqXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E6W-Y9gNok

So, all in all, getting a new anchor chain worked out well.  The 3 bucket idea for carrying and moving the chain around worked out great.

Thanks for listening!  We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay.  Hope to see you out on the water.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.  For as little as 99 cents a month, you can help defray the costs of producing this podcast.  Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

Hello and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast.  This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the East coast of the United States.   In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show.

Today we have Simon and Sawyer Balint as guests on the podcast.  They are repeat guests and were on this podcast in EP-29.  In today's episode, we are going to discuss Simon and Sawyer’s experience when they were anchored out during tropical storm Elsa when it hit the New England coast on July 9th, 2021.

We discuss the decision-making process for evaluating their options.  Such as anchoring vs. getting a mooring vs. going to a marina.  We also talk about what happened during the storm with other boats in the anchorage,  why they called harbor patrol and TowBoatsUS, and why they reset the anchor during the height of the storm.

We also covered the lessons learned and how it was a positive experience for them both.

Thanks for listening!  We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay.  Hope to see you out on the water.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.  For as little as 99 cents a month, you can help defray the costs of producing this podcast.  Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

Hello and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast. This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the east coast of the United States. In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show. As our frequent listeners can tell, I am doing this episode solo today as my co-host Mike Wasserman could not make it. 

In this episode, we discuss marine surveys and my experience when we purchased Paradox in September 2020. Paradox is a 2009 Hunter 45 DS. It's been 9 months since we took possession of Paradox. Since Paradox was on the hard for the Winter we have used paradox for about 3 months so far this season. We purchased her from the original owner and she had just under 200 hrs on the engine. That is a very lightly used boat. 

We hired a marine surveyor who was SAMS, and NAMS accredited. A surveyor typically goes through all of the systems on the boat, checks the hull and deck for damage or water intrusion, they may also do a rig inspection and test the oil in the engine, transmission, and generator and a do sea trial where you hoist the sails and run the engine under load. A typical survey in the North East of the United States costs between $25 to $35 per foot. This does not include paying a marina to lift the boat out of the water so the hull, rudder, and keel can be inspected. This is often called a Short Hall and costs $10-$15 per foot. 

There were a few items we have discovered that the surveyor missed.  I list them in the podcast.

What is the lesson learned here? Don’t just turn stuff on. Turn it on and let it run. Make sure it working and not just turning on. Put it through its paces. There are big items and not so big items. But if you are paying someone to check over the boat, they should cover it all. I was pleased with the survey and the surveyor. He did a good job and on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give him an 8. 

So, if you are considering buying a boat, in addition to being there with the surveyor for the survey, I would make it a condition of buying the boat to spend a day going through everything myself. Turning stuff on, letting it run. I would try to do this prior to the survey so anything you find can be pointed out to the surveyor and included in the survey report. It’s important to have stuff in the report because things uncovered during the survey give you grounds to walk away or renegotiate the price. Don’t rush, take your time, use it as a learning experience. 

Thanks for listening! We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay. Hope to see you out on the water. We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected]. If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below. For as little as 99 cents a month, you can help defray the costs of producing this podcast. Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas. 

Bela and Mike

Hello and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast.  This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the east coast of the United States.   In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show.

In this episode, Mike and I discuss the C&D Canal and Chesapeake City, MD.  Chesapeake City is a small town on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The population in the 2010 census was 673. The town was originally named by Bohemian colonist Augustine Herman the Village of Bohemia — or Bohemia Manor — but the name was changed in 1839 after the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was built in 1829.

The C&D Canal, as it is known, connects the Chesapeake Bay with Delaware Bay.  It makes the trip from NYC, Boston, or Philadelphia, to Baltimore or Washington several hundred miles shorter. Chesapeake City is located about ⅓ of the way from the Chesapeake to the Delaware Bay along the canal.

In Chesapeake City, there is a nice bay to anchor in.  With a Marina and restaurant with docks. The anchorage will hold about 5 or 6 boats, so it is not large.  It is well protected from any wakes in the canal. The town is within easy walking distance and there are several nice restaurants and shops.  With under 1000 residents, there are no big box stores or restaurant chains.  It’s all local businesses.

Thanks for listening!  We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay.  Hope to see you out on the water.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.  For as little as 99 cents a month, you can help defray the costs of producing this podcast.  Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

Hello listeners and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast.  This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the east coast of the United States.   In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show.  In this episode, I will tell you about some of the water pump woes I have been having on Paradox, my 2009 Hunter 45 DS.  Not the water pumps on the engine or generator, but the water pumps that are part of the water system on the boat.

Thanks for listening!  We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay.  Hope to see you out on the water.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.  For as little as 99 cents a month, you can help defray the costs of producing this podcast.  Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

Hello listeners and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast.  I’m Bela Musits.  This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the east coast of the United States.  In this episode, I am interviewing Simon and Sawyer Balint.  They are a father and son team that spent last summer cruising the coast of Maine.  Sailing is relatively new to them and this was their first extended cruise.  They visited many interesting locations in Maine and had other members of their family join them as well. They also share how they decided to jump headfirst into blue water sailing, how they selected a Passport 40 as their boat of choice, and how COVID turned their sail across the Atlantic plans into cruising the coast of Maine.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.

Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

Hello listeners and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast.  I’m Bela Musits.  This episode will be a bit different than the usual conversation between my co-host Mike and I.  In this episode, I interview Carter Yepsen.  Carter wrote to us back in Episode 22 asking for some tips and suggestions as he was getting ready to do his first bareboat sailing charter with his wife.  Carter is the sailor and his wife is not, so he wanted to make sure they both had a good experience, as his goal is to make bareboat chartering a regular event. Carter sent us an email post charter saying that after getting over the sleep-deprived first two days, the charter went well with lots of snorkeling, beachcombing, and great times.  They are already planning their next charter.  I asked Carter if he would be a guest on the podcast and share with our listeners how the bareboat charter went and things he learned.  Let’s dive right into the interview with Carter.

I hope you all enjoyed the interview with Carter.  It was great to hear they had a successful charter.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.

Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

In this episode, Bela and Mike discuss Spring launch day and getting Paradox back in the water.  Paradox is a 2009 Hunter 45DS that Bela purchased in the Fall of 2020.  As with anything new, you have lots to learn and things tend to take longer than expected.  Adding to the challenge, each boat is different.  Even if you have been on many boats, simple things like turning on the water system or switching from shore power to battery power is a different process.

Mike and Bela also discuss how the Metric vs English systems resulted in a surprise when Paradox sprung a leak in a cold water fitting.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.

Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

In this episode, we discuss planning a 4-day sailing trip.  Bela and Mike review the various factors that go into planning a trip.  We cover selecting destinations, average sailing time per day, weather, wind, and tidal currents.  Bela also lists his “no-go” weather criteria.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.

Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike

In this episode, Bela travels to the marina to take care of the remaining projects before the boat gets put back into the water.  Listen in as Bela arrives at Cove Haven Marina and he gets to work.  Projects include: getting the batteries charged and hooked back up, installing the Shaft Shark, removing the old boat name, Majic’s Ride, and applying the new boat name and port of call, Paradox and Barrington RI.  Bela, with some help from his son, gets the hull waxed, and the distribution manifold for the 3 water tanks is also replaced.  Two days of work and now Paradox, a 2009 Hunter 45DS is ready to get back in the water.

This episode was in a different format than the previous ones.  Let us know what you think.

We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected].  If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below.

Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas.

Bela and Mike