A sailboat hit, 10 weeks in the boatyard and a shiny new look

Hello Blog World!

It’s been awhile since we’ve chatted, huh? Sorry about that. Quite a bit has been going on in the Jeffries’ world including a whole lot of work – boat work sure – but “work work” as I call it. As my work involves a lot of writing and looking at a computer screen, I haven’t felt too motivated to spend more time with my laptop when I could be outside instead.

But! I’m back to tell you the story of what we’ve been up to this past year.

Last autumn, just about a year ago, we made our way down from a glorious summer cruising in Maine to lurk about in Baltimore for a bit, as has become our custom. While we were in Baltimore, we decided that we’d like to spend the winter based in South Carolina, allowing Kevin to focus on some projects for his company, while providing us an opportunity to wander around and explore the Carolinas both by land and by sea. We flew to Seattle and after a bit of working, we picked up Lola, our Sprinter van and headed out, first to visit our daughter in Oakland, California (and a surprise visit with our friends Pat and Alexa on N57 Noeta), and then to explore our way across the United States. We wandered down “America’s Loneliest Highway – US Route 50” through Nevada and followed the path of the Pony Express. Stunning. From there we continued through Utah, once again marveling at the rock formations, vivid colors and endless sky of this gorgeous state. Crossing into Colorado we received a call from my Mom, from an ambulance. My father suffered a heart attack. After a whirlwind night run drive to our son’s home in Colorado Springs, we flew to Boston where my Dad passed away later that week. My Dad was an amazing, kind and caring person who always supported all my dreams. We should all be so lucky to have a parent like that.

After a month of helping my Mom in Boston, inclusive of a 2.5 day drive from Colorado to Massachusetts, we re-started our move south. On the night before Thanksgiving we arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, our home for the next several months. We settled in at Lady’s Island Marina, a small, friendly marina with others who were there for the winter. We walked, we went to the many festivals and events in town, we grabbed a South Carolina State Parks pass and we wandered the beaches. We hung out in Savannah and Charleston – two cities we love. Our kids came for pre-Christmas Christmas, just before the actual holiday. And when they headed back west, we loaded up the van and headed out to St. Augustine, and Jacksonville, Florida and the sea islands of Georgia.

One day, a few days after Christmas as we were sitting eating burgers in Georgia Kevin looked at his phone. FUCK. And the expletives continued from there. As his whole head turned red, I continued to repeatedly, and not-so-intelligently ask one word – What?? Red Rover had been hit by a sailboat. The dockmaster, Aaron, who is an awesome guy, texted us to let us know and to ask permission to connect us with the sailors who found themselves wedged under our bow. Of course, please do.

Now, first of all, this was an accident. No one meant to hit Red Rover, and the couple that did hit the boat was incredibly responsible. They texted us, sent us photos of the damage, and then waited at anchor for us to return on a cold December evening. When they saw we had arrived back at the boat (we ate those burgers in seven bites and proceeded to break the speed record from St. Mary’s, Georgia to Beaufort, SC) they came over to talk to us. Courteous, professional, apologetic.

What happened? Well, there is a lot of current with the tide changes in Beaufort. The couple untied the lines on a windy day at high current. They didn’t have a chance. The boat was swept into Red Rover, tied to the opposite t-head, and then became pinned under her bow in the current and wind. For a few hours. Yep. The stanchions on the boat dug into the gelcoat. Repeatedly. No bueno.

Good times. We gathered up their insurance information and wished them safe travels to the Bahamas. We’d all be in touch.

On our NASCAR-worthy trip from Georgia to Beaufort, we called Peter Ricks, our insurance agent. In almost 18 years of owning boats over 47 feet, we had never had a claim. Peter helped us understand the process and told us to give the sailors’ insurance company a call. The sailors had already initiated contact with their insurer and we followed up.

The couple was insured by State Farm. State Farm wants to “save you money by bundling your car, home, boat and so on.” What they really want is all of your business. They are not a traditional marine insurance company. They do not insure boats with a value of Red Rover. What we found out was that they weren’t quite sure what to do with a damaged vessel like Red Rover either. At least not the team we were sent to.

Our assigned adjustor was in the Fire claims division of State Farm. We are pretty sure she had never had a case involving a boat before. Fantastic.

The weeks trudged on with many phone calls, emails and lots and lots of follow-up. I’ll spare you the painful details. In the meantime, we received a sight-unseen quote from Jarrett Bay in the other Beaufort – North Carolina. While the scrapes and the gouges were not huge, they were on the bow and along both the starboard and port side of the bow. They suggested that the boat should be repaired and then that the whole gray hull should be painted. We sent the quote to State Farm and they were paralyzed. No one could make a decision. We called Peter again. He made stern phone calls and wrote scathing notes. That did get their attention (thanks Peter!). After three months of back-and-forth communication, they sent out a third-party damage surveyor to take a look.

This super nice gentleman took one look at the boat and said, yep, this boat needs to be painted. The gelcoat repair will never look right. Maybe it will for a year, but after that, it will not. The gray colors will fade differently – 20 year old gelcoat will look different from 1 year old gelcoat patches. We were hoping that he would come to this conclusion, as we already had. The boat was tied to a dock. Another boat hit her. We did nothing wrong. Why should we end up with a boat that would never look the same again? Why should we have to accept a decrease in value that could happen in the coming years? We didn’t think that we should have to. Thankfully, the surveyor provided State Farm with a report that agreed with our position.

Unfortunately, the surveyor felt that we should be able to achieve the repair and paint for less than the Jarrett Bay quote. This did not sit well with us. We called Peter again (Peter, you are a patient man). He explained that we could run this through our insurance and they could go after State Farm as another option. This would mean we would pay our deductible, which if our insurer (Seafarer) was successful, we could potentially get back…but we would have a mark on our otherwise sterling record. Not an option. It was time to fight. We poured some strong margaritas, and we crafted a plan. We would gather more fuel for our argument and then present it back to both the surveyor and to State Farm. Motivated by anger, frustration and likely tequila, we got to work.

Kevin and I sat at our salon table and called 20 yards from Thunderbolt in Savannah, Georgia to Portland Yacht Services in Portland, Maine. We posted on the NOG (Nordhavn Owners Group) and asked for advice. We called PAE’s (builders of our boat) HQ and received information, help and support (as we always do when we reach out to them).

We built a detailed spreadsheet. And we learned. A TON.

Lesson learned: The first lesson learned is that we should have started by calling the 20 yards and THEN provided an estimate to State Farm. As we had never had a claim, this was new to us. And the Jarrett Bay quote seemed decent to us (it was). But if we had the other quotes in hand, our case would have been stronger, and the resulting payment may have increased. A note – Jarrett Bay, did say that they would need to see the boat to give a more detailed quote.

Before we get to other lessons learned, here’s what we experienced:

• As we guessed, there would be limited yards with a lift big enough to haul Red’s 140,000 lbs (+/- depending on fuel load).
• On the East Coast, add to that problem enough depth at the haul-out for the 6.5 foot draft.
• Ok, you can haul us, but… do you have a paint shed TALL enough for us? Out of the water, Red Rover is over 40 feet tall. Sure, sure said oh, about 10 places. Turns out their shed is tall enough, but the DOOR to get into the shed was not. Una problema.
• Ok, ok, you’ll tent the boat, but you don’t know what it will cost to do that? Yes, it is a big boat. We know.
• Oh… it is springtime and you are launching boats that have been on the hard and you can’t even talk to us for another month or so?? (commonly heard comment from yards north of the Chesapeake)
• You think the boat is just too big or too much work. Got it.
• Or, my favorite – you don’t even want to call us back. Thanks.

At the end of the day, there were only a handful of places with a shed large enough for Red Rover who were willing to give us a quote:

• Thunderbolt, Savannah, GA
• Jarrett Bay, Beaufort, NC (although we wouldn’t fit in their paint shed – we would be in a different shed where they would need to tent the boat anyways).
• Safe Harbor Bluewater, Hampton, VA
• Hinckley Yachts, Portsmouth, RI
• Portland Yacht Services, Portland, ME

We also talked to several yards who were willing to figure out how to tent the boat and one, who would do a tent/paint shed combo:

• Zimmerman Marine at Herrington Harbor, Deale, MD
• Annapolis Gelcoat Restoration (also known as Osprey), working out of Bert Jabin Boat Yard, Annapolis, MD

AND we talked to two really terrific painters who were referred to us by another Nordhavn owner. Both were painting mega yachts at the time we spoke with them and both could mobilize their team to work at Thunderbolt.

The problem there was Thunderbolt, who provided us with a quote for $750,000 to paint the boat. $750,000!!! Kevin wrote back and said, um, it isn’t 55 meters… it is 55 feet! But the representative at Thunderbolt dug in their heels. “It is very expensive to paint a boat and if you want to paint it for that insurance quote it won’t be here.” Very nice.

As you might guess, we weren’t dying to go back and have another conversation there.

We received quotes from around $40,000 to over $125,000 plus that amazing quote for $750,000. Quite the range.

Add to all of this, our insurance requires that we be north of Cape Hatteras by June 15^th for hurricane season and every day that State Farm dragged this out was another day crossed off the calendar. We did not look at any yards south of Georgia as we wanted to get the work done and go about our summer cruising season in New England. We had plans.

The universe also had plans we learned. We didn’t end up cruising in Maine. We ended up in the boat yard.

We went back to State Farm with all our evidence and our strong argument. We asked for funds to pay for our Airbnb while we were off the boat – this was our home after all. Kevin then called and emailed the newly assigned representative 2-3 times per day. Every day.

A decision was reached. Or a tolerance for hearing from Mr. Jeffries was perhaps reached.

Sign the form and we’ll send you a check, they said. But when you sign that form, and we send you the money, don’t come back. Ever.

Lesson learned: We should have tried to leave the insurance claim open. But State Farm wasn’t offering that. We should have then had the chosen yard look at the boat in detail before we took that lump sum payment. We worked off of sight-unseen, photo-driven quotes. Now, with State Farm, I don’t think we could have left it open. But we probably should have slowed down and had an in-person quote.

We wanted this fixed, we wanted to go cruising and we wanted this in our past. Our bad.

Now we needed to choose. We had left South Carolina and begun to make our way north. We were still at a place where we go to any of our yard options except Thunderbolt, which of course wasn’t really an option. Ultimately, it came down to a combination of schedule/availability, price and experience. Our opportunity at Jarrett Bay was now much further into the summer (due to our inability to book the yard due to State Farm’s lagging process or lack thereof), and we would also need a rider from our insurance to stay south of Hatteras – which they would do, but as the summer months would wear on, there would be concern and perhaps additional cost.

When we were doing our outreach, we originally spoke to a different branch of Zimmerman Marine, a well-respected east coast service provider. Kevin and I had sat on a TrawlerFest panel with Steve Zimmerman, who was lovely, knowledgeable and respectful to me, in particular – a woman in a room full of men. Kevin had previously gone to a class given by Steve. The first outreach to Zimmerman was answered promptly, but they did not have a boat shed large enough for us. A few days later Ian Zimmerman reached out from the Zimmerman at Herrington Harbor North team – they could take us quickly, and he wanted to be creative about how to make it work. They had just completed a long, big warranty project on a Beneteau sailboat and they had not scheduled anything for their shed – there was a hole, and we could fill it. Their price was in line with a few others and their painter had been on staff for 7 years, and he had worked as a boat painter, specializing in Awlgrip, for many more.

So off we went to Zimmerman Marine at Herrington Harbour North in Deale, Maryland about 30 minutes south of Annapolis by car. We rented a beach house for a month in North Beach, Maryland, not too far from the yard. And we got excited!

We ended up spending 10 weeks in the yard. That was about 5 weeks longer than we anticipated. There were a variety of factors that led to our long summer of sweat in the yard – some things that Zimmerman could have done better, some things that we should have understood better, and some things that were beyond all of our control. At the end of the day, we are delighted with Red’s paint job, the quality of work and the open-to-DIY environment that the Zimmerman (ZMI) team provided to us. The ZMI team only billed us for work that was agreed upon, in writing, in advance. They were honest and fair. All good things, and all very much appreciated. Their challenge, at the end of the day, was an unfortunate collision of a storm (thanks Mother Nature), springtime boats going back in the water with a list of demands, a short-staffed situation (similar to many yards right now but added to with the sudden resignation of a tech), the fact that they are a tenant in a yard, vs. running the yard (as they do elsewhere) and competing project deadlines. The team at ZMI is kind, friendly, and helpful and Kaitlyn, our project manager, was an excellent communicator. We were disappointed by the longer duration of our stay, but things do happen.

As noted, ZMI doesn’t control the haul-out at Herrington Harbor North (HHN), so you work with the HHN team. HHN will only make one “owner present” haul-out appointment per weekday. If you don’t secure that first-thing-in-the-morning appointment, you will get hauled “sometime that week.” Interesting strategy. With hundreds of boats being put back in the water for the season, we had to wait a bit to get an owner present appointment. We are NOT ok with Red Rover being hauled or launched without us being right there. The information we can provide to the lift operator about fins, keel cooler, strap locations, weight, etc. is important for a safe haul and launch. The appointed day came. The wind howled directly on the beam of the boat as she was pinned to the dock. Not a day to come out of the water. I’m pretty sure they didn’t lift any boats on that stormy day, but they were all fussed about our request to be hauled the next day. We were now in “wait and see” mode.

I think Herrington Harbour caters primarily to boats in their two marinas and they go and fetch them from their slips whenever they are ready to pick them up. I get that. But that doesn’t work for us.

When our time did come to be hauled, the travel lift crew was exceptional. Detailed, excellent communicators, perfect. They made us feel confident that all would go well. And it did. They carefully, oh-so-carefully placed Red Rover half-in the Zimmerman paint shed, bringing her right up to her radars as one of the Zimmerman team rode along on top of the stack, directing the lift operator to within inches of the building. Red Rover would not fit completely in the building, but the plan was to tent her stern and allow the team easy access to tools, etc.

With Red safely and partially in the shed, Memorial Day Weekend had arrived. We patted Red on the stern, told her to behave and ran off to Shenandoah National Park for the long weekend.

When we returned, the tent building had begun and Red was being encased in a shrink wrap shrine. Ian handed us a set of keys to the shop, and we were welcome to start our own projects. While the ZMI team was working on the prep and paint, we would be working on our own boat projects in the evenings and on weekends to ensure that we were never in the way of progress. We visited the boat every day and talked to the ZMI team every day.

Unfortunately, a few weeks after the tent was complete and we were well into taping and bagging, a huge storm blew through. The phone dinged as we were driving to the yard to start workday 2 after workday 1 was over. It was Ian. The tent had been damaged by the storm and part of it was now lying on Red Rover (she was not damaged, but if she had been, I guess she was in the right place!). The team was on it, and other commercial tenants in the yard were trying to assist.

Ugh.

So now we needed to build a new tent and rework the sopping wet tape, paper, etc. on the boat. We, meaning the ZMI team, who were already under a big workload. This wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened. We took the team some warm cookies from the bakery and expressed our gratitude.

With a new tent constructed, work resumed on the boat. Trae, the painter, raised a flag sometime during these first weeks. The swim step, which would be painted, had a lot of gelcoat cracks. The transom had some too, and there were others on the rub rail on each side of the boat. Some were tiny, a few were more involved. Trae explained that the cracks occur where there is a void in the fiberglass under the gelcoat, something that simply can occur during the mold process. They also can occur where the fiberglass ends up being super thick. The cracks needed to be resolved or they would be glaring with the shiny paint. Kaitlyn, our project manager, and Ian also had news. This was not in our bid. Fair. Again, their price was provided from photos – not from seeing the boat in person, and we didn’t photograph the swim step as the damage was on the bow. But the change order was more than we wanted to spend.

Kevin, being Kevin, said, oh hey – we can do that. Can you show us how? Ok…new skill building time! Trae agreed to give us a lesson and check our work after we completed it. He would then let us know what more we needed to do. He told us what to buy, offered the use of his sanding gear and was a detailed and supportive teacher. Gift with purchase!

Lesson Learned: Again, we should have had the boat reviewed in person to confirm the quote before we signed off with the insurance company. Now, they may not have been willing to pay for the gelcoat crack repair because it was not a part of the damage, but we’ll never know. 

We began our fiberglass repair work on a Friday evening after we finished our day jobs. By the end of the weekend, we had grown some new skills! We equate the process to drywall mud and taping (and sanding, and sanding, and sanding…). First, you take a dremel and router out the crack, and around the crack. Then you fill the hole you’ve just created with a 3M filler product – two different kinds, and what you use depends on what you are filling. Then you sand it down. And then you fill and sand, fill and sand, fill and sand… until it is completely smooth and even with the existing fiberglass. It is dirty. And in a hot tent in the middle of the summer in Maryland it is super schweatty.

Let’s talk about the steps from tenting to completion. Complete with photos as we go!

• Remove the stainless steel railings, the swim ladder, the boarding doors, the scupper “doors,” the swim platform staples and hardware, and a variety of assorted hardware all around the gray hull.

• Painstakingly tape and “bag the boat” – basically encasing everything from the upper rub rail on up in plastic. I can’t imagine how many rolls of tape they went through!

• Then…sand. Sand, sand and sand some more. Lots and lots of sanding. Spray to look for uneven or high/low areas, sand some more.

• Fair the hull. Sand some more. Fair. Sand. You get the picture.
• Paint the hull with primer.

Trae spraying primer

• Sand some more. Fair some more. Sand some more.
• Tape off the boot stripe.
• Paint the boot stripe (much wider than it will be in the end)

• Tape over the boot stripe (after curing).
• Paint the hull, and the removed elements with multiple coats!

• Let the new paint cure.
• Remove all of the protective gear, reinstall all of the hardware. Then paint the bottom.

• Launch the boat! Well, take the tent down first.

Sounds simple, right? It really isn’t. It is a practiced craft.

Sometime in the middle of all of this work, we made a paint color decision. We had been trying to make a decision for MONTHS. At first we thought we’d simply paint her a color that was very similar to her gelcoat. Turns out that color is called “Seattle Gray.” Ha ha ha. Then we thought about changing to blue. Stars & Stripes Blue to be exact which is called that as it was the name of an Annapolis-built America’s Cup boat. But we couldn’t get over the idea of walking down the dock and not seeing Red Rover be gray. Ultimately we determined that we were in love with the richness of the blue color…and that we simply needed to find a gray that brought out that same emotion. Enter Haze Gray, a color we didn’t even consider until the day before we decided. Haze Gray is the color that they paint US Navy ships (matte of course) so that they fade into the horizon. Seems appropriate for our baby ship! Her boot stripe is a very dark gray called Shark. So she’s a Hazy Shark!!

Why not red? Well, that’s just too much red. She’d look like a USCG cutter. Can’t have that.

A note about the paint: We chose to use Awlgrip HDT which is the newest paint in the Awlgrip family (several years old at this writing) because of a few reasons. 1) it has the longest color warranty they offer; and 2) it can be repaired. It balances the durability of their Top Coat product with the repairability of their Awlcraft line. Trae also notes that it is the shiniest paint they offer as well!

Trae and his daughter Hailey, who also works at ZMI, told us that Red Rover’s hull was the hardest gelcoat they had ever sanded. And Trae has been painting boats for many years at ZMI and at other Annapolis yards.

While they sanded, and sanded some more, we worked on our other projects. Here’s what we did:

• Zimmerman removed our 500 feet of chain and placed it nicely in a barrel on a pallet for us. Our friend Norm (yes! see Norm shows up everywhere!) visited with his friend’s truck (thanks friend!) and Norm and I drove the truck to a galvanizing spot in Baltimore to re-galvanize the chain. Kevin and I rented a truck and picked it up about 10 days later. We then used the paint shed to yes, mark the chain with an experiment – 2 part epoxy paint.

• Cleaned the empty chain locker. Boy can those get dirty.
• Removed the caulking in the swim step joint as well as between the transom and the teak cap rail. Re-applied it.

• We cleaned up our keel cooler (we had an awesome oyster collection) and all our running gear. We applied Crystal Prop to the now clean running gear (another new experiment vs. Prop Speed – we’ll see how it goes). Greased up the gory prop.

I’m going to get you oysters.

• We cleaned and painted our thruster propellers. We also painted the thruster tubes with three coats of bottom paint to ensure that work was done and out of the way for the paint crew that would come later.

• We removed all of the zincs and replaced them all to start fresh.
• With Red Rover in a dry spot, we worked on cleaning up our peeling and corroding aluminum window frames. We managed to get the worst five done. We’ll be doing more this spring.

• Replaced hardware on all of the pieces and parts that came off, and/or cleaned some elements up!

• Our boat came with leather and lambskin fender holders. That was almost 10 years ago! These puppies are pricey. So… we “renovated” them – working to treat the leather, removing the lambskin and replacing it, as well as polishing and lubricating the hardware. They look pretty good now!

• We anchor a lot. Our anchor bridle, created for us per our design by Fisheries Supply years ago needed some love. We had the local canvas shop replace the leather and reaffix the protective hose. Looking sharp now.
• With new paint coming up, we took a hard look at our old Polyform fender covers. Ick. New soft fender covers arrived, complete with the “rocking R ranch” Red Rover logo mark. It is bigger than I thought it would be, but I generally like them.

• The steps that lead from the port side of the pilothouse up to the boat deck (2 steps) started leaking into the galley ceiling one day in a big storm. Kevin went out and did an emergency repair in the rain, but now we were inside… time for a permanent fix. DONE.
• The stainless rub rails had some rusting screws and some rust stains. We cleaned them up, polished the and replaced all of the stainless steel screws.

• Our swim step staples (the big stainless staples) were a little squirrely in their sockets on the swim step. Had been for years. We reworked the staple pockets ensuring that the staples would not move or flex.

• Rework our brand to be visible on the darker gray hull and then install the new vinyl name on the stern. Good thing I married the Sign Guy. Oh and we replaced our no sling labels as well (photo above).

After 10 weeks, Red Rover launched on a hot, sticky day at the end of July. She looked (I’ll switch to present tense) – she LOOKS AMAZING. She is shiny. Trae removed her “wrinkles” from the post-curing process as well as an odd indentation on the starboard stern quarter. He made her look new and beautiful. She’s sharp. In Annapolis the next day the Harbormaster came over just to say… “what a good-looking Nordhavn!”

And she sure is. A haze gray lining to an unfortunate accident.

Photo from ZMI

At anchor in Annapolis, the day after she launched.