Utopia has returned to her native habitat
Brunswick, GA
October 27 – November 1, 2024
As we continued to work on some items required to place Utopia back into the water, she got a major detailing. Last March I twisted my ankle as we prepared the boat for long term storage, and once that happened, we cut out several of our tasks, like cleaning the boat and polishing the stainless. After the boat sat in a dusty yard between a cellulose & pulp mill and a railroad track resulting in an extremely filthy boat. The team finished the work on Tuesday, and Utopia is looking very spiffy now.
This week we met the owners of the boat next to us in the yard. They left the boat on the hard shortly after for the same amount of time as us and just returned to find many problems with their boat. This has made us very happy to follow the recommendations of Utopia’s former owner, Frank, who some may consider to be overly meticulous. Although, we have learned before and after splashing that it is not foolproof.
Things appeared to be going well for Utopia to return to the water on Thursday morning. That is until the yard manager approached us on Wednesday to let us know that some equipment needed for our lift was not on site, therefore our 8 a.m. lift would not be possible. He thought the equipment should arrive by noon; however, they do not lift boats within two hours of low tide. Low tide for Thursday was at 3:15 p.m., giving them just under an hour to install the equipment, load up Utopia, walk her over to the well and drop her into the water. The manager felt that it could be possible, but we needed to be prepared for a Friday lift just in case.
This news was unsettling. For one, we are really looking forward to moving back onto the boat. The other is that we had to be out of our apartment Thursday morning. If the lift was postponed, we would need to find a place to stay for the night. We joked around about grabbing our backpacking gear and just tenting next to the marina clubhouse.
In the morning, we got the last of our gear and food out of the apartment, placed our refrigerated items into a cooler and headed to the boat yard to wait. Just before 11 the manager brought great news when he notified us that the lift could possibly take place at 11:30.
Here is a rundown of the ensuing activities:
Splashing of Utopia
The travel lift arrived at Utopia’s location at noon.
Jimmy called the marina office to request our slip assignment once the crew started to place the straps under the boat.
The crew called us over to discuss readjusting the forward straps because of a conflict with the keel.
Then they asked us to get back on board to completely loosen the back stays.
The boat was heading to the well by 12:30.
At 12:53 Utopia was splashed and tied up to the adjacent dock.
Post Splash Tasks
From here we were on our own. It was a great feeling to step onto the boat after only accessing it through a ladder since March. A few of the things we did there at the yard dock included:
12:55 p.m. - Checked the bilge for moisture.
Reinstalled the backstays.
Burped the shaft seal.
1:15 p.m. - Turned on the refrigerator; initial temperature was 74 degrees.
Started engine: ran blower 60 seconds, cranked up engine which turned over on first try, revved up in neutral, (there was some smoke and a lot of debris in the exhaust water), then back to idle; needed to turn off alternator for smoother operation; finished at 1:19 p.m.
Checked the bilge to find no change from 25 minutes ago.
Walked over to assigned dock space.
Spent a moment discussing departing yard dock and entry into new slip.
It was a very short walk to our new slip. The marina would not assign us our slip until we 100% knew that the lift was going to happen. Earlier Jimmy and I noticed a lot of slips open across the marina’s 16 docks and were hoping for one that was centrally located. So, when we called for our assignment, we had felt rather disappointed to hear that our slip assignment is one of the furthest away from the marina facilities. Our dock is situated differently than the other docks as it is a very long pier parallel with the railroad track and our slip is a quarter mile from the gate entrance, restrooms, showers and laundry, and probably a half mile to the marina clubhouse and nearly mile to the marina office. It looks like we will get in plenty of steps while checking our packages.
Docking
Now that the engine was well warmed up and we were ready to move Utopia to her new home. Since we had not operated the boat since March, we called the marina office and requested a dockhand to help us into the new slip. Their dockhands were busy helping other boaters and let us know it would be a while before they could help. The wind was light, about 6 knots with gusts at 12 knots, blowing primarily from the south, so we decided to move on without waiting for help.
The wind was on our bow, and we left the boat yard dock with no issues. From there we continued into the wind going past our assigned slip. Now downwind of our slip we turned around by using back and fill, which was made easy with the aid of the wind. The depths under the keel stayed above 4.5’ (It was about an hour before low tide). We came back to our slip at a very slow pace. With the wind on our stern, the engine was mostly kept in neutral as we slowly approached to finger pier at 30 to 45 degrees, with an eye towards the giant trawler already in the slip. Jimmy was able to step off the dock and tie the stopping line to the cleat at the end of the pier. I switched from neutral to forward idle and turned the wheel away from the dock. I panicked at the first moment as the stern got close to our neighbor, but Utopia then straightened up as planned and we sat still against the finger pier. We hand pulled the boat the rest of the way into the slip by hand, adjusted the lines and shut off the engine at 2:15. It is so nice to have a textbook docking experience from time to time.
Post Docking Tasks
The first order of business was to have an “anchor beer”. Since we did not have to check into the marina office, we took a moment to relax in the cockpit drinking a beer. Then it was time to make the boat inhabitable by getting the water system running, the heads (toilets) recommissioned, the air conditioner operating, and to transfer food from our cooler to the fridge.
A few complications showed up that afternoon.
We forgot that we tossed out our hose filter, so we needed to run to a box store before the final tank filling. We filled and flushed the tanks twice while waiting for the filter.
The water system has a lot of air in the lines, not only causing the faucets to spit a long time, but the water pump continues to run after the faucets are shut off. The system is usable but requires turning on the pump each time we want to use water.
Two ceiling light fixtures stopped working until we opened up one of the fixtures tested voltage, wiggled stuff around, and now they work sporadically.
We found a lot of water in the locker that the air conditioner is located. A connection to the pan had rusted out, spilling all of the condensation into the locker floor. A couple of earplugs and tape seems to have stopped the flow for the time being.
Overall, we consider the recommissioning of Utopia to be a success. Finding issues along the way is part of boat ownership. In general, we try to tackle problems as if they are puzzles to be solved and try to get overly frustrated when things go wrong. Problem solving is just a major part of boating.
Next week we’ll cover our upcoming plans now that we are back in the water.
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