The survey on Sea Spice came back and while there are a number of things that need to be fixed, there wasn't anything major that turned up that precluded us from moving forward with the buying process. The biggest issue is that she needs a new jib (technically a genoa but more on that in a later post on sailing jargon). So we negotiated a bit with the lovely Ventilly family and eventually came to terms and as they fly off to Europe to begin the next leg of their adventure, leaving Sea Spice in the capable care of one of their friends out at anchor in West Palm Beach, we prepare to invest the additional time and funds needed to make sure we have a safe and sound passage down to Honduras.
Below are a couple shots the surveyor took before they hauled her out:
Sea Spice sure is a pretty girl!
Of course, like anything that is fifteen years old, there are some parts of Sea Spice that are going to require some maintenance, some love and some serious cash to fix. Some of them we can do ourselves, others we will have to contract out to professionals this time. We wish we could do everything ourselves, but we have to be realistic about our experience and limitations at this point.
The engine has a lot of hours on it but has been well maintained over the years and it appears to be in good shape. We're going to make sure we get it thoroughly checked out, but from what I know about the, it certainly looks like a big diesel engine.
Looking at this apparatus, which I've been assured can run for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of more hours without fail so long as it is taken care of in a thorough and consistently loving manner, it occurs to me that I wish I knew more about engines, about mechanical things in general and less about literary theory, semiotics, marketing and independent film.
I realize I'm not quite prepared to be setting off to pick Sea Spice up in just 40 days. I don't know enough about engines. I don't know enough about sailing. And yet, we're going to do it because Andrea does know quite a lot about the sailing and the rest we can learn, the rest we can ad-lib along the way. We'll learn by trial and error, by watching youtube vidoes, by talking to those who have done this before us with much more wisdom, knowledge and forethought. And then we'll learn some more along the way when things go wrong.