No more name change

My first boat was a Pearson Triton.  28' overall, a Carl Alberg design, and just a wonderful first boat.  I had been really deliberating about a name, and had come up with all sorts of things.  Finally I settled on FIDELIO,  Beethoven's only opera that supposedly took 11 years to complete,   I liked the concept of fidelity, and I figured it would take me 11 years to pay for the boat.  It all seemed to work.

But I got married, changed jobs, and moved from Dade County, Florida, up to Broward County.  Instead of 30 minutes from condo to being under sail on Biscayne Bay, it was now an hour and a half schlep.  Interest waned, dockage increased, and she was put up for sale...reluctantly.

Along came hurricane Andrew and as mentioned in a previous post, FIDELIO was almost totaled and the insurance money plus the funds from the sale of the hull got invested. Almost 20 years later I bought the Westsail 32, GEMINI.  And...ignoring the fate of FIDELIO and all sailors' warnings, I changed the name.
GEMINI became the DELTA BELLE.  I loved the name, and it all fit.  I'm from the Mississippi Delta, and I found the boat in New Orleans.  Fate, right?  Wrong.

Hurricane Isaac blew the water of Lake Pontchartrain up the bayou where DELTA BELLE was docked.  She was raised to the limit of her dock lines and still the water rose.  It seems now that the previous owner had plumbed the galley sink with PVC and plumbers putty. Water rising through the galley sink drain, the putty gave way and boat flooded.

Long story longer, I bought the boat mentioned in the previous post, TRIMMING OUT.  TRIMMING OUT she will remain.  She's a 1966 Chris Craft Sail Yacht.  Sparkman and Stephens designed,  35' on deck, but with the added bowsprit and Auto Helm steering vane she's about 39'9".  Westerbeke diesel, new sails and standing rigging, a hard dodger, and lots of cobbled together electrics that will have to be sorted out over time.  For now she's functional.  Shore power works, engine has only 1500 hours, lots of projects to do, but I have the rest of my active life to do them.  I'm sitting aboard now with feet up on the opposite berth in the fore cabin. ( Being mid-cockpit I have to get used to fore and aft cabins).  

Sailing on San Francisco Bay will be different from the Gulf Coast, but I'm only 6 hours from home, have plenty of time, and am in the middle of a 12 day sojourn this trip.  I'll head out in the morning for Richardson Bay off Sausolito, and see how living on the hook goes.

I'm encouraged by Dani, Tate and James....all Westail owners whose experiences shared in their blogs help me realize that given some careful study along with a tremendous work ethic, nothing is impossible.  It helps that they're all fellow southerners.

So that's it for this time.  I'll try to include pictures in the future, and the blog title has to remain...no name changes ever again.  Two hurricanes and two losses can't be coincidental.