Our selling broker Tucker Fallon at Bradford Marine told us, anywhere outside these waters, you are going to be a big boat. The last thing we were worried about on that cruise on the inter coastal from Bradford to Marina Mile Yachting Center to get hauled for work, and for us to continue to do work on her, was the size of boats.
Ok, maybe we stressed a little bit. It was tight quarters transiting the intercoastal where we were.
Fast forward four months, as we are in the San Juan Islands preparing to get hauled out for work before cruising to Northern BC.
At our former yard, North Harbor Diesel in Anacortes, their big sealift does not go narrow enough to fit inside our stabilizers. Their small sealift we are too big for. Pacific Marine could lift us, drop our stabilizers and put us on NHD’s sealift. That sounded like a lot of work. It was time to find a new yard.
Who can lift a 68′ LOA boat? Philbrook’s in Sydney, but we just came from Canada. CSR Marine in Ballard, or Delta Marine on the Duwamish River.
As we had no experience with either CSR or Delta, it was a toss up who we were going to haul with. Our mechanic was the tipping point, he told us emphatically to go to Delta.
Docktails hauled out next to a building with a custom yacht being built inside.
Tom has always said, there’s good, fast, and cheap, pick two. As Delta is known for building mega-yachts, an easy guess is the third was not one of the two we got.
We did, however, get fabulous service, and Delta has an amazing yard. They hauled us with short notice in 72 hours, and launched us a week later. The tolerance on our new stainless steel chocks is amazing, both generators were serviced and now work, and some running gear work was sent out and returned in less than three days. From top to bottom, start to finish, we had a stellar experience.
Being a small boat in Florida, we could fit anywhere in a marina, and power was not an issue. It was 50a, or 100a. In the PNW waters, it is a different story. There are two spots we can fit at at the Friday Harbor outstation- we just make the cut off of being under 70′. There is one spot at the Eagle Harbor outstation. At Henry Island, and other marinas further North in the Broughton’s, there is limited 50a power but an abundance of 30a. We have yet to purchase a reverse-y pigtail 50a to two 30a for us to hook up when 50a is not available. Sorry in advance about our quiet generator.
None of this is meant to be complaining. It is meant to be shared as common knowledge of what we have experienced. Boating is about the journey. We hope we can be of help to others who are thinking about making the same leap as we did, from small to big, in the boating community.