Katahdin Piggybacks Southeast--There's a Lot of Work to Be Done!

For those of you wondering what happens to the good ship Katahdin after the Great Loop and before her next adventure, this blog's for you!

A day or two after we finished America's Great Loop at the end of August, the terrific folks at M.E. Yacht Restoration in Holland, Michigan, hauled Katahdin, cleaned her up, and dried her out. Specifically, they acid washed, dried and detailed the hull; then, just in case of a freeze up before she headed south, they drained the water from all the strainers, the fresh water tank, water heater and the blackwater holding tank. They also added fuel stabilizer for what will be Katahdin's nearly 5 month interlude.

Once stored safely in M.E. Y-R's airplane hangar-sized boat storage shed, they took advantage of their late summer "slow period" and turned their attention to readying the vessel for what would be her 1155 mile piggyback truck ride to Marsh Harbor, South Carolina. They removed the mast and electronics from the hard top and packed them carefully for over the road transport; and, of course, temporarily sealed up the holes left in the coach house roof top. On the underside of the vessel, they removed and packed the propellers. Once this work was all complete, Katahdin enjoyed a well-deserved, high and dry rest for September and most of October.

On October 27, M.E. Y-R took Katahdin down Lake Macatawa to Anchorage Marine Services who loaded the vessel onto one of C J Transport's special trailers for boats with pods. On the water, Katahdin looks pretty good sized. On an over the road flat bed, she looks huge!

Jim and Cindy then hauled her 1155 miles over five days from Holland to Marsh Harbor Boat Works in Marsh Harbor, SC--a long and winding road due to the limitations of the oversized load.

At Marsh Harbor, both Marsh Harbor Boat Works (MHBW) and Coastal Carolina Yacht Sales performed a variety of maintenance, repairs, and upgrades. On the fun side of

things, MHBW installed a new cabinet in the stern cockpit that will house an electric grill and icemaker--an installation that was part of our purchase back in May but couldn't be installed in time for us to set back off on the Loop. Lots of other stuff is just stuff you

have to do--seven new marine batteries, repair of a minor booboo on the stern quarter at the water line, extensive annual maintenance on the engines, pods, generator and SeaKeeper, brightwork finish, radar repair, bottom and propeller painting. The nearly complete list is shown above.

Much of that work is now complete and on Tuesday, Nov 18, the CCYS folks sailed Katahdin 66 miles from Marsh Harbor around Hilton Head and up to Safe Harbor Bristol

in Charleston where the rest of the work will be done: actually installing the grill and ice maker, repairing the radar, varnishing the trim, checking the air conditioning systems, replacing the Blue Seas 12 volt DC reader, etc., etc..

Hopefully, when we make our way down to Charleston in January, all but the very fine tuning will be complete. Cap will spend a day with the electronics and electrical tech ensuring every thing is in good working order while the Admiral makes grocery store and Walmart runs to resupply our larder. Then we'll be off to Florida and maybe even the Bahamas before we head north to Chesapeake Bay and ultimately Belfast, Maine, on Penobscot Bay by mid May.

At least that's the plan--we'll see!