Tag Archives: Key West

Balls in the Air – Ramrod Key, Florida, USA, February 27, 2025

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Balls in the Air – Ramrod Key, Florida, USA, February 27, 2025

Well, we made it!  Ron has done nothing but battle logistics of trying to get all the work done and pick up all the items we needed to launch.  In addition, we have battled the weather once again.  Since we took possession of Mariposa on February 10th it took us 16 days to overhaul the boat into something we can actually sail to the Bahamas.  In that time, we have completed the shockingly long list of projects:

  • Acid washed, sanded, and painted the new bottom job
  • Buffed the entire boat
  • Fixed the fiberglass issue for the crack we found on the port side
  • Attending the boat show in Miami
  • Bought and picked up a new dinghy, dinghy engine, and life raft in Miami.  The only rain we saw in Key West was when we arrived back to Key West from Miami and needed to unload our provisioning, dinghy, dinghy engine, and life raft.  Imagine here we come with a pickup truck 110% loaded up and Key West got 6’ – yes 6’ of rain and completely flooded. Not only did we drive in it we got to unload in the rain too.  Top that off with traffic which instead of a 3-hour trip from Miami to a 5-hour trip from Miami.  It was a very very long day.
  • Tested the windlass and remarked the anchor chain
  • Completed registration of our new dinghy, picked up our running papers, and transferred the title of the old dinghy to the new owner
  • Sold the old dinghy, stove, grill and house batteries.
  • Overhauled the kitchen, wired and installed a new induction cooktop, air fryer oven, and new outdoor grill
  • Defrosted the fridge and freezer and completed multiple provisioning trips to prepare ourselves to not buy much food in the expensive Bahamas
  • Wired up the washer space and made it ready for when we pick it up (not here yet)
  • Cleaned and organized the entire boat
  • Serviced the sail drives and Yanmar Engine
  • Added 1400 hours of lithium batteries replacing and reselling the old AGM batteries which increases our power ability by a factor of x5
Standing tall
Much nicer and cooler than a propane stove.

Not too bad for a couple of weeks but to get this much lined up and complete (all of which was DIY) has been nothing short of a miracle!  The only thing we have left to do is fix some rigging and complete a solar arch.  We need to outsource both items and will not do in Key West.  The rigging must be done before we head to the Bahamas (since we cannot sail at all until we do so).  The solar arch we are going to save for a future date and likely not complete til we get to the Chesapeake where it can be done much cheaper than either Florida or the Bahamas. 

Splash time.

So, after all of this, we launched yesterday!  After living on the hard in the boatyard, it is so nice to be back on the water.  It was an early launch, which gave us time to move out of Key West (very shallow, poor holding on anchor, expensive, and crowded).  Moving a couple hours north gets us closer to Marathon, Florida (where we hope to get our rigging done) and we are in a nice little calm anchorage with no one else around. It’s been a wild ride so far!

Home at last.

Survey and Sea Trial – Key West, Florida, USA, January 27, 2025

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Survey and Sea Trial – Key West, Florida, USA, January 27, 2025

It’s our first day back on the water for the survey and sea trial of “Greenlights.”  That is the name of the boat we are looking at.  She is a 2018 40-foot Leopard.  It is a 3 cabin, owner’s version and for only being a couple feet wider and longer than our prior Mariposa, quite spacious!  Captain Ron did a lot of homework and got us the best surveyor in southern Florida – Jonathan.  Not only is Jonathan a good surveyor but he is also a rigger and will do our rigging inspection as well today.  He started out the survey by simply going through the boat and testing every single system looking for any issues.  We have formally put in an offer which we would have a chance to edit before a final agreement can be reached.

Johnathan doing his thing.

The upsides and why we like this boat are the layout is much bigger, there are low hours on both engines and the generator, she has never been chartered, majority of the upholstery work has already been done (except the dinghy chaps), She is a Leopard and not a Lagoon (which is know for having major issues to its bulkheads), we have a front door and wider decks which will be safer in stormy weather.

Thanks to Jonathan’s diligence, here are the main issues we found: 

  1. It had a grounding early on in its life and had both sacrificial keels ripped off and repaired. Thankfully they were repaired properly.
  2. She needs a new bottom job.  This is one of Ron’s least favorite things to do but this should be better than the last one he did as it only needs a light sanding this time and a couple coats of bottom paint which we can do ourselves in Key West.
  3. Several windows in the kitchen are starting to delaminate.  We had the same issue on Mariposa and it is a known issue on Leopard boats.
  4. While it is equipped with a propane stove and oven this is something we will take out and switch to induction.  We are also going to replace the grill with the same Weber one we had on the other boat.
  5. The batteries are lead acid batteries and not much solar.  We will immediately invest to upgrade her to lithium and eventually add more solar when we get somewhere Ron can weld up a solar arch which needs to be added.
  6. The dinghy is old and in poor condition.  It does work and you never want the prettiest dinghy on the dock, but we will essentially drive this one for the first year and plan to replace it soon.  The good news is Ron is happier with the Yamaha engine since our last dinghy had a Tohatsu he hated.
  7. Our generator and both fuel tanks leak. 
  8. The water maker was pickled so we didn’t get to test this and are going on the honor system for this one.  I am glad it has one we are just hoping it works.
  9. The radar doesn’t work properly.  Ron is hoping he can fix this by cleaning up the connections, but we need to be prepared to replace this if necessary.
  10. There is no life raft on board which we will need to purchase to go offshore.
  11. The standing rigging needs a lot of work and was the biggest surprise we found.  Essentially the rigging needs completely replaced before we can even raise the sails.  Having lost one boat to being demasted, this replacement is at the top of our list.

We made edits to our offer based on the new information from the survey and now we wait to see if they will agree to lowering the price to cover the issues we found.  The overall process is much like buying a house.  It is nerve racking, and the pushy owners made it as difficult as possible.  So, while we were waiting for the final survey document from Jonathan, we headed back to Jekyll Island to visit with my parents again.  After a week and a half, I think they were ready for us to go!  Thankfully, we got through the boat buying process with all the paperwork and wire transfers completed and we pick up the boat February 10th. 

Ron found a place to store the RV in Brunswick, Georgia so we spent a few days at Mom & Dad’s cleaning it out, waxing the exterior, and wiping down the inside with vinegar.  Whew!  Changing homes again takes quite a bit of work!  We ended up dropping off the RV to storage and picking up a rental car in Jacksonville, Georgia.  On the morning of the 10th we said goodbye to Mom & Dad and drove the 10 hour trip to Key West to pick her up!  Mariposa 2.0 here we come 😊.