Ship of Imagination for a Voyage of Dreams

We're Working While Waiting for Weather

The weather has taken a turn for the worse ... it's not that bad but it's just not perfect for our departure. So, while we wait, we continue to cross tasks off our never ending list. The first one was to install a tv in the stateroom.

Next we went topside and I freshened up the stain on all the wood while Carter began the process of completing the rub rail/lifeline project which takes 2 days per side. He must sand, prime, and paint. The starboard side is complete but unfortunately, we failed to take a picture of the final product before turning the boat around to begin work on the port side. Pictures to come soon but here is when we first began the project.

In the final product we have the large blue stripe on top, the rub rail is brown, the next section stayed white and the small brown stripe on the bottom is now blue. We think it looks great!

You think it looks cold and dreary?

It is!

We may live on Playin' Hooky Lane right now, but I promise you,

we are NOT playin' hooky!

November Update

We have been very busy at the Arc for the past couple weeks. One of the last large projects we wanted to accomplish before setting out on our passage around Florida was to install rub rails and the stanchions for the life lines. This was difficult but Carter stuck to it and got it done! We are both very pleased with the results.

Port side rub rail up and Carter is beginning work on the stanchions.

The stanchions sit slightly recessed into the top of the rub rail so this picture shows Carter chiseling the spot. There are 8 stanchions on each side.

This picture shows the necessity for the rub rail. They will significantly reduce the paint scraping on the freeboard of the boat and protect the scuppers on the gunwale. We have lost a lot of them from brushing against docks but it was sort of pointless to replace them since they where so vulnerable without the rub rail to protect them.

These look so nice.

Getting these installed were not so easy at all. Since the rub rail is fastened every two feet with a 3/8" bolt thru the hull, we pretty much had to clean out every cabinet, locker, and cubby along the entire boat. I've seen other boaters talk about the aerobics necessary to work on the small spaces on a boat and here's a picture showing one of the difficult positions necessary to accomplish the task.

This is in the galley directly behind the refrigerator. It's a fairly large storage space that normally houses a variety of coffee carafes, my electric mixer, toaster oven, toaster and the storage drawers where we keep our bread, trail mix, etc. Since the holes where the rub rail is secured to the boat had to be exposed inside the entire boat, this was a good opportunity to do some reprioritizing of our storage on the boat or not and then to clean and better organize what we decided to keep on board. It was a good exercise for both of us. But what a MESS!

I kept busy working on sewing new covers for the salon cushions for the past month and have finally completed them! Just like Carter did with the rub rail, I had put this task off for quite a long time. I ordered the material about a year ago! I'm a fairly good seamstress but this project scared me for some reason. Once I got into it, it turned out to be a pretty easy project.

I used the original cushions from the dinette set and added the extra foam I salvaged from the bed we removed and then added some additional cushion to one settee. So the backs stayed the original 4". One bottom measures 6" and the second bottom cushion measures a whopping 10". This evens the two seating areas to the same height so they will also make a good bed. It was a bit** getting all 10" into the cover and all I can say is...it's not coming back out again! LOL

Carter and I both are very pleased with how the salon is shaping up. There is still a little more detailing to be done on the settees and then we will paint the final product.

I even had enough material to make a seat cover for Carter's chair. The 2nd chair you see will be removed at some point in the future to make room for an additional hanging locker we so desperately need. Several friends and family have asked to see more pictures of the inside so very soon I intend to film a virtual tour.

We had to go back to Tennessee to take care of some unexpected business before departing for the Keys. It was nice to leave the inch of snow behind when we headed South.

It was nice to see and feel the warm sunset when we returned.

St. Marks, Florida - October 22, 2013

We are back in St. Marks and so I thought I would share a little bit of St. Marks with you. St. Marks is a quaint little fishing town conveniently located approximately 20 miles south of Tallahassee. We are moored at the Lynn Family Marina.

The Lynn family have been fishing and crabbing for many years. Obviously it was not crabbing season when I took these pictures a couple weeks ago as evidenced by all the crab pots in the yard. I see they are now loading all these pots back onto their boats for the start of the new season. The town kicks off the new season with an annual Stone Crab Festival which is scheduled for this coming weekend. We have been asked to have the Archimedes present for show.

I took my camera with me one morning as Radar and I walked around taking in some of the sites.

This is painted on the road right where a group of locals gather on Friday or Saturday nights for an evening around the fire pit. I wonder if it's there to give them the direction home when the evening is over! For us, we would head South East to the Arc!

Crab pots, anchors and hausers are commonly used for yard decorations.

Tallahassee - St. Marks Railroad Trail

(Excerpt from Wikipedia - St. Marks, Florida)

"A railroad often cited as Florida's first connected the port of St. Marks with the territorial capital, Tallahassee, some 20 miles inland. The line was constructed about 1836, and until the Civil War it served in the export of Middle Florida's cotton through St. Marks.

Today the attraction of St. Marks for boaters, fishermen, and seafood lovers preserves a strong relationship with Tallahassee (as does the location of a generating plant for Tallahassee here). The now-abandoned rail line serves as the popular Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad Trail State Park—a paved 16+-mile bicycle and equestrian trail terminating at the St. Marks waterfront."

Carter and I plan to ride our bicycles on this trail soon.

Sunrise from our dock.

Apalachicola, FL - October 13-18, 2013

We arrived in Apalachicola on Sunday night and decided to stay a couple days. We stopped for a day on our last trip through but it wasn't enough to explore all we wanted to see. After spending a couple nights in the anchorage across from the waterfront, we were invited to tie up to the dock at the Apalachicola Maritime Museum which we gratefully accepted.

We highly recommend a visit there to learn about the maritime history of the area, take a boat tour or rent a kayak, and of course you have to tour the primary exhibit of the museum, the 58' Hershoff design wooden ketch named the Heritage of Apalachicola. You'll find much more information on their website http://www.ammfl.org/. Thank you George Floyd and your super nice manager, Jenni, for your gracious hospitality. We look forward to returning soon.

We took a ride on the whaler to take in the sites of the waterfront.

This was the view from the bow of the Archimedes while moored at the Museum.

Nice front yard view. Don't you agree?

Look closely at this boat. That is a motorcycle up on the deck...right next to a second dinghy.

Wish THAT was ME!

Liquor, pottery, marine supplies...

You can find it all at the Honey Hole right on the waterfront!

You sure don't see this everyday on the water! That is a house, complete with potted plant moving somewhere to the other side of the bridge!

Just after sunrise Friday morning, we departed Apalachicola heading for St. Marks.

Solar Panel Collection Data - October 12th

Sea School is over and it is time to get our heads back into preparing the Arc for our upcoming solar passage around Florida. We left Panama City Saturday, Oct 12th, heading to St. Marks with intentions of completing as many items as possible on our long list of projects in the little time we have left when we get back to St. Marks.

Carter weighed anchor and we left the peaceful Massalina Bayou about noon after completely charging since we decided to run on the sun for a while to test the new idler pulley on the electric drive. Last week Carter made some changes to the electric motor system by upgrading the chain from #40 to #50 and installing and idler pulley so he could adjust the tension better. It works great however the additional pulley does make the chain drive a little noisier. Ultimately, Carter says he would like to make it a belt drive which would make it considerably quieter and slightly more efficient but unfortunately that is just not in the budget right now. What we have works and there are a lot higher priorities to direct our limited resources toward.

Carter also decided to run some tests on the flap tracker that morning to look at it's performance and the results where very interesting. We had a good opportunity to make some comparisons between the panels laying flat and then in the tracking position. Obviously they are going to collect more energy when tilted toward the sun but we were curious just what the differences would be.

We had already taken some data when we made small tweeks during the day to get the panel angles better as the boat and sun moved while we were traveling and we typically found we could achieve anywhere from a 10-30% increase in energy input from these small adjustments. But this morning before we left, Carter did some comparisons between the panels being flat and then angled toward the sun while we where charging the batteries before we left Massalina Bayou. The results where impressive.

At 8:00 am, with the panels level like they would be laying on the deck of a typical boat, our main array, (3KW) was collecting 8.7 amps. Then we angled the array toward the rising sun and it increased to 33.9amps.

At 9:00 am we were collecting 16.5 amps in the level position and 39.6 amps when we tilted the panels.

Below is a picture of the charge controller readout for the 9:00 am reading in the tracking position. The In and Out reading on the screen are the difference created by the MPPT charge controller optimizing the solar input to the battery. Also displayed is the solar input rate of 2KW at that moment and the total for the day of .8 KWH collected so far that morning.

At 10:00 am we were collecting 27.3 amps in the level position and 44.5 amps when we tilted the panels.

After that some clouds moved in so the solar input became inconsistent and we were busy getting ready to leave but we were happy for the chance to get some good data.

Several things to note about this informal test. The sky was consistently clear while we did it so that variable was fairly constant although the sun was rising so there where minor variations during the change from flat to angled. Also, the boat position was relatively constant although there was some movement during the test but for the most part the length of the boat stayed very close to being on a North/South axis, but not quite. This would make no difference in the flat position but did hurt us a little in the angled position as we didn't quite have an optimum angle for the panels to the sun. But all in all it was a good morning and good condition to gather this data that we had been wanting to see for a while.

Obviously, angling the panels toward the sun is going to help collect more energy but we were very pleased to see just how big a difference it could make. Every day is different, depending on our heading and the sun's angle in the sky but we think it's safe to say that on average the flap tracker easily doubles and, at the extreme, can triple our energy input to the propulsion system as we travel using solar.

After weighing anchor, we proceeded along our way towards St. Marks. By evening, we were well into the ditch between St. Andrews East Bay and Apalachicola. Just before sunset we pulled over to stop for dinner. Then we fired up Big Ben for some night running and forged on to White City so we could tie up at a dock for the night and be close to Apalachicola.

Dinner was served on the veranda and was delicious as usual! Pork steak cooked to perfection on the grill, au gratin potatoes, salad and garlic toast. After dinner we continued on down the trail.

The next day we left White City early and forged on toward Apalachicola under diesel to make better time.

The following are some sites along the way.