We ended up leaving SAILS at Viking Boatworks on March 1st and returning to Punta Gorda by car... On Friday March 4th I contacted Viking Boatworks on the phone to see if they had come up with the hard numbers for the bottom paint repairs… and I found that they had changed their tune and were once again back to square one and the problem was not their fault… they had determined from emails with emails to a company that deals with CAPAC systems that my CAPAC system was not working and the cause of the trouble.

The had come up with several other options for me… 1) Just recoat the bottom with new bottom paint and add zincs to the props… turn the CAPAC off. 2) Sandblast and recoat with epoxy and new bottom paint all at my cost. 3) Sandblast and recoat using their new Seahawk paints they now represent… again all at my cost. 4) Drop me back in the water and we part company… no charge!

I opted for option 4) and we are now back in the water and headed back to Punta Gorda on SAILS.

We did not get away from Viking Boatworks until 1100 hours so we will not try to make the 15+ hour cruise in one shot… we’ll stop somewhere along the way back and spend the night and get up early to make the final leg back to Punta Gorda.

We left Vinoy Basin this morning at 0630 hours and headed north up Tampa Bay towards Viking Boatworks. They are located at the west end of the Gandy Bridge that crosses Tampa Bay. We arrived at approximately 0815 hours and we were out of the water on the travel lift by 0900 hours ready for bottom inspection.

Bottom job did not look any better that it did in May 2010 when we discovered the paint blistering problem... after some discussion with the yard manager it was decided to move the boat into the yard and bock it up and have the paint company representative come out and take a look at the bottom and determine what is causing the paint to detach in water filled blisters.

At approximately 1100 hours we were blocked and sitting on the hard... the paint rep arrived at about 1430 hours and he and the yard manager walked the perimeter of the boat several times scrapping and picking at the blisters... finally they offered to sandblast the bottom and recoat the bare steel with epoxy primer at their cost and I would have to pay for the new bottom paint and it's application... plus the cost to haul the boat.

Not feeling comfortable with the quality of the work here at Viking I made a counter offer to settle.... give me X dollars back on the original work and I'll have the work done somewhere else and we'll part company.

The yard manager and the paint rep are now back in the office determining what my actual cost will be to take their offer and also another number to settle with me and we part company....

Updated info to come soon as I know...

Been a while since my last post... but we have not been cruising... docked in Punta Gorda, FL at Fishermen's Village Marina... enjoying the area very much!

This morning we left Fishermen's at 0500 bound for St. Petersburg, FL... we have to return the boat to Vilking Boatworks there and have some issues taken care of with a previous bottom job they did for us.

It's approximately 120nm from Fishermen's Village Marina to Viking Boatworks and we plan to make the trip in one day... one LONG day... should take approximately 15 hours. We are scheduled to be hauled out on March 1st at 0800.

Update to the trip after we arrive to St. Pete.

We arrived in St. Petersburg at approximately 1900 hours and quickly stopped at the St. Pete Municipal Marina to walk the dog... easier than dropping the dinghy into the water... anyway, Beech did her business and we left the marina and moved just north of it into Vinoy Basin located at N27°46.582', W082°37.752' and anchored.

We appear to be the only power boat anchored in the basin but there are about half a dozen sailboats anchored around us... very nice location to drop the hook... St. Pete skyline surrounds you on three sides... very pretty.

We have about an hour and a half to go in the morning to get to the boat yard... plan to leave about 0600 to be sure we are there by our scheduled 0800 haul out.

Today we traveled for approximately 14 hours and covered 92nm (106 miles)... average speed of 6.6 knots... not bad since we had to wait for three bridges... :)