One of my “jobs” is seatrialing new boats to make sure they
are ready for their new owners. In December I flew from California to our
Florida Nordhavn office to take a newly commissioned Nordhavn 68 over to the
Bahamas for a shakedown overnight cruise. My partner on this adventure was
Nordhavn Florida commissioning manager,
John Hoffman.
We met the night before our crossing to go over the boat and
to hit the local Publix grocery store to provision. On the morning of Monday,
December 6th, we met early for final preparations and then departed
the dock at 9 am to meet the high tide necessary to leave Stuart and clear the
St. Lucie inlet. John took command and expertly piloted us out of the channel – a tricky piece of water
with a rock breakwater and an encroaching shoal that, without local knowledge, would be a very difficult pass to navigate. Common sense usually says to stay
in the middle and in the darker water, but to leave Stuart we had to hug the
southern break wall rocks and squeeze through what sure seemed like a narrow
opening.
Out on the Atlantic horizon we could see “galloping horses”
of white frothy breakers letting us know that once we cleared out we’d be in
some big water soon. The trip across from Stuart to the West End of the
Bahamas is about a 70 mile crossing and we did have some large swells and a
steady 20 of wind, but these were following seas and a
following breeze that made for a dry ride, however not without some good
rolling around. The new 68 was handling it beautifully and I soon made my way
down to the galley to get some snacks, only to find a large and widening puddle
of water on the floor. I always travel with my own towel (something I learned
from reading Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy series. He claims it is the single most important
“tool” for a traveler.) and I put my towel to use sopping up water and stemming
the flow. Turns out that someone had inadvertently turned off the breaker to
the pantry icemaker and all of that hard
ice had returned to its original form
and was seeking lower ground. I bailed out the freezer depositing the
remainder of the cubes into the galley sink and supplemented my drying with a
roll of paper towels to clean everything up.
Back in the pilothouse John and I had a nice cruise chatting
about various trips aboard Nordhavns and marveling at how well the 68 was gliding across the Atlantic. I’ve taken a
sister 68 up the coast from Stuart to Charleston, SC before. That was a twin
and this is a single – they both provide an exceptionally comfortable
ride. As with any new boat there is also new gear, all had been commissioned
before we left, but this was the first real test to see how everything
performed. Another common issue with a new boat is getting accustomed to the
Nav/Com. This 68 had the latest NavNet 3D which is really great, but about 3
hours into the trip the alarm went off with two
error messages – one said “no
heading data” and the other said “no
position data” – but we
weren’t in a place where we really felt we needed to or wanted to turn back. So the alarm kept on ringing. I played around
pushing buttons and right clicking my way through the screens to finally get us
quiet while John kept us on course. It turned out later that for some reason
the Airmar controls had overridden the satellite
compass and GPS which Brian from Celtic Marine fixed the following day, but it
was a bit unsettling to have alarms going off and thinking that our sophisticated modern nav/com was suddenly uncertain about exactly where we were or what direction we were going. I
suppose Columbus, Magellan and all those well before us were better equipped to
sense direction from the sun, stars and waves.
Fortunately for John and me the plotter was fine and we had a magnetic
compass to confirm our direction.
As the day wound down we wondered if we would pull into West
End in time to clear with Bahamian Customs. John told me they normally closed
at 5pm and it looked like we would arrive in the harbor about 30 minutes after
that. I went aloft to hoist our yellow Quarantine flag – kind of exciting
in a big breeze – and John skillfully guided us into the fairly well
marked channel where we appreciated the flat protected waters of the harbor
after bouncing around for most of the previous nine hours. We motored up by
the Customs house, the light was on and we were directed to tie up on an end
pier. John soon had us along the end tie, we tied up and the local marina
manager took us over to Customs in his
open Jeep. The Customs agent had seen
us in the western horizon and had stayed open to receive us – what a
great and welcoming gesture. After clearing in and getting our cruising permit
we went back aboard, struck the Q flag and headed to the local marina
restaurant, Bonefish Folley’s for a nice dinner.
Enjoying Kalik Bahamanian beer we started with conch fritters and then each had a local fish
specialty. I’ve never been to the Bahamas before (John has been over many
times) and I like to try the local recommendation…which in this case was a side
of rice and peas – delicious! Only one other couple was dining and there
were hardly any boats in the marina – too early for the season. I’m sure
during the summer both the marina and restaurant are packed with enthusiastic
boating tourists on their first stop to adventure in the islands.
We double checked our lines and called it a night, both
sleeping well and rising shortly after the sun came up. Some Hawaiian coffee
(a treat that I packed with me) stoked our fires and we had a quick breakfast
before deciding to walk into town. The walk was about a 3-mile hike and I was
amazed at how beautiful the coastline is and also atthe number of conch shell
piles mounded up along the side of the road. Conch is king in the Bahamas and
they harvest it in abundance. We found a liquor store where we each purchased
a bottle of local rum (forconsumption back at home) and also bought fresh
pastries at the bakery. My iphone rang and the owner and navigation supplier
had landed in Freeport by plane and were taking a taxi to meet us at the boat
for the test ride home. After a nice lunch (more conch fritters for me) we
took off to sail back home to Florida.
Our return passage found the electronics quickly adjusted to
work beautifully by Brian and we ran into the swells and breeze with our
windscreen constantly salted by spray. Since St. Lucie is such a tricky inlet
we steered south for Palm Beach and arrived at the sea buoy at dusk, rounded Peanut Island and began the long trek
back to Stuart through the ICW. Several bridges had to be opened and I felt a
bit like a caged beast not
able to romp and frolic like we would if we were still offshore, but the
beautiful Christmas lights of the waterfront properties provided a delightful
border as we wound our way up hill. The 68 has two helm chairs in the
pilothouse and while the skipper connected the dots from channel marker to
channel marker I trained the Carlisle and Finch spotlight up ahead to visually verify each intersection that we approached. It was very
cold outside, and very toasty inside. Florida was in the middle of a frost
warning for the citrus crops and the cool night air was in the 30s, but above
freezing.
After several hours we came upon the last obstacle, the
train bridge that would permit access to the Stuart, FL Nordhavn commissioning
facility. It was 3am and when we called the bridge operator for an opening, a
mere formality and something richly deserved after our long day of wandering, he informed us that we were going to
have to wait, a train was on the way and after another 30 minutes and losing
count at 100 train cars we finally got the go ahead. We tied up in the cold,
called Customs who accepted our arrival,
but because their system was down at that hour was told to drive up to their office in Fort Pierce the following day.
I’m sure that this Nordhavn 68 is now ready for many years
of wonderful cruising. John Hoffman’s commissioning team got everything tested
and Ta Shing has constructed another beautiful Nordhavn for PAE. My only
regret is that we didn’t get to stay in the Bahamas longer. It’s kind of a
tease to do all of that sea time for only an overnighter, but the intrigue of
the islands is too much to resist and I look forward to a future adventure
where I, too, can explore the islands. In the meantime, I can say that it was a
wonderful excuse to travel over for dinner.
Jeff Merrill is a salesman with Nordhavn in California. He
has logged over 10,000 miles aboard Nordhavns in his 11 years at PAE and is
especially fond of the Nordhavn 68 aft pilothouse design. If you would like to
know more about the Nordhavn 68, or any of the other Nordhavn models please
feel free to email Jeff – jeff.merrill@nordhavn.com.
You can also follow Jeff via Twitter - merrilljeff.
