How embarrassing!  Let me count the ways how WRONG this whole bilge pump set-up is:

1. Inferior quality hose
2. A single, rusted hose clamp
3. Poorly spliced wires dangling in the bilge water
4. The float switch (in the foreground) held on with just one screw
5. The hose discharge barely above the waterline allowed seawater to backfill into the bilge
6. Filthy,
7. FILTHY bilge!

We certainly have our work cut out for us!  After the very clean & dry bilges on our PDQ, seeing these was quite the shock. Cleaning up & fixing up was first on our very, very long list.

This display we installed warns us if there is ever more than 3″ of water in any of our 6 bilges. The photo on the right shows a water sensor 4′ down into the bilge beneath our generator.

After our scary engine bilges, we went to the other extreme by installing a high-water alarm system for all 6 of our bilges. Our 6 isolated bilges (plus 4 waterproof “crash” compartments) provide great safety in the event of water intrusion (aka sinking).  On the other hand, running wires thru-out our boat for 6 bilge switches was quite the challenge taking nearly 2 weeks.  While we were torturing ourselves, we also ran wiring for high temp engine alarms, an additional generator temp sensor & for improved lighting in the galley.

After several frustrating days, Amazon to the rescue with a remote camera hooked up to my iPad.

Safety in many forms – we installed a fire suppression system in both engine compartments (the tank is installed at an angle as required for this model). Even though diesel engine fires are extremely rare, our insurance company required us to install them.

Interrupting our projects was week-long Connecticut River flooding from the heavy rains in Massachusetts & Vermont.  THOUSANDS of trees & pieces of debris floated by and MILLIONS of gallons of raw sewage (thanks Hartford & Springfield 😦

How I miss having a workshop! It took pretty crude methods to turn this 5″ shelf into a 2″ shelf to accommodate our new convention/microwave over our stove in the galley.

Our quickest project was installing a new chainwheel (the shiny thing to the left) on our anchor windlass. While the prior owner had recently replaced one of the two anchor chains with 200′ of new galvanized chain, it wouldn’t go even a foot without jamming as it was incompatible. “Only” $650 (for that shiny thing) & only an hour of labor was record breaking!

A “famous” Smith Island cake (shipped in from tiny Smith Island in the Chesapeake – population 200), along with donuts from Neil’s Donuts in Middletown, CT kept our spirits up when wiring went wrong.

Now officially “Twin Sisters”

We are finally past the half-way point of our projects & can finally see the light at the other end.  We may actually take our boat out someday soon!

As the old saying goes, the two happiest days of a boater’s life are the day they buy a boat & the day they sell it!  We were very happy they both occurred within only 1 1/2 months – buying our new Manta powercat & selling our PDQ.  Owning 2 boats is definitely something no one wants to do & something we couldn’t afford. An added complication was that our PDQ was still in Florida – which our insurance company will not insure with hurricane season approaching…

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of our new space

A tiny galley for a house, but a HUGE improvement for Lori

One of the nicer features of our new ride is this semi-enclosed cockpit with lots of air & light

Good friends pick you up for dinner – GREAT friends wait around for FedEx to deliver our new Ultra anchor to their house, bring it to us with champagne, toast our new boat AND take us out to dinner!

With a “quick” (6 week) 1,800 mile trip from St. Pete, FL to Deep River, CT we still sneaked in a stop at Carolina Beach, NC for Britt’s Donuts – priorities!

BUSTED! In 13 years of cruising, our first U.S. Coast Guard boarding. They were pretty chill & we (wisely) didn’t let them know they were impeding our Happy Hour after a long 90-mile day of cruising in the Chesapeake.

So far, we love our new boat with all our additional space, comfort & features. She’s much more stable both underway & at anchor. While I’ll miss not having a flybridge, the enclosed helm/cockpit is great underway, especially on cool mornings & on rainy days. Filling up our 500 gallon fuel tank is … painful, but surprisingly, we burn (only) 2 1/2 gallons of diesel per hour at 8 knots – the same as our old PDQ. However, we won’t speak of when we go 14 or 18 knots … yikes!

This summer will be extremely busy, with upgrades we wish to accomplish, along with upgrades being required by our insurance company. We hope to get-in some local cruising … after all of our chores are done!