We bought our boat unseen. Gregg works in another province and his schedule didn’t line up for a personal inspection. We had to trust that the photos were current and the survey guy wasn’t dishonest, after experiencing a costly trip to St Croix to look at a boat that appeared pristine in the ad but was in a sad state of affairs when he got there. The guy didn’t even go out to the boat ahead of time to air it out, so Gregg was nasally assaulted by decaying garbage bags that had been left closed up on board in tropical temperatures to ferment. The boat was so neglected a penny had fused into the varnish on the floor and all the teak and holly flooring was moldy and the black crawled up the walls as if the boat had sunk at one point and was put away wet. They used the photos in the ad of when they purchased her and at that time she was in beautiful shape. We complained to the agent and found out the seller was his good friend and even though we sent dozens of pictures to confirm our disappointment he never did change the listing page. We learned the term buyer beware, but when we found Catalyst II we had to go on faith. She was the one and after asking the most important question of the surveyor, are you best friends or related to the seller, he laughed and said no, that the boat was in good shape and we had nothing to worry about.
Catalyst is not a youngin, she was built in 1988 so one has to expect problems. The only hope is that they’re fixable and at a decent cost. I keep hearing how a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into and then we all laugh, albeit nervously.
Catalyst's engine has died three times since taking ownership in 2015. Not knowing her history this cat boat could have used up most of her nine lives so we are trying to take good care of her in her senior years. Our breakdown was when Gregg and friends sailed the boat to Nova Scotia from its home port in Newfoundland after we purchased her. The engine guy figured it was something from the original installation that got stirred up from the rocking and rolling of the sea. It blocked the fuel line and there was that dreaded silence. After several hours Gregg’s brother found the offending piece that caused the grief.
Catalyst is not a youngin, she was built in 1988 so one has to expect problems. The only hope is that they’re fixable and at a decent cost. I keep hearing how a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into and then we all laugh, albeit nervously.
Catalyst's engine has died three times since taking ownership in 2015. Not knowing her history this cat boat could have used up most of her nine lives so we are trying to take good care of her in her senior years. Our breakdown was when Gregg and friends sailed the boat to Nova Scotia from its home port in Newfoundland after we purchased her. The engine guy figured it was something from the original installation that got stirred up from the rocking and rolling of the sea. It blocked the fuel line and there was that dreaded silence. After several hours Gregg’s brother found the offending piece that caused the grief.
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Left to right, Terry, Gregg's brother, Gregg on the phone to me saying the engine was working, and the engine guy from NL, sorry I can recall his name. The offending bit that clogged the line.
Once the boat was home we had our local engine guy come on board to inspect the motor before going on a trip down the coast of NS and he told us quote “she’s ready to go to Bermuda”. Two days in and the engine died, in a thick fog and hurricane swells that were coming up from a storm in the US. We were towed to the closest Marina by our friends Nonsuch that was traveling with us. A hairy trip when the lead boat would disappear below us in a rolling sea and then would pop up and we would then be low in the trenches as the waves rocked our haul. With absolutely no sailing experience in rough seas, I believed we would die, surely a 28 year old boat couldn’t hold together after taking such a beating. We had four dogs on board and I had to be below with them because the boat was rocking and rolling so much they could have been thrown out of the cockpit into that angry sea, never to be seen again. (Gregg say’s I’m dramatic......)
Because I was below I was so sick I had petechiae hemorrhaging around my eyes from retching, an intensity not seen since my pregnancy 35 years before when my head hung in the bowel upwards of six times a day. I wet my pants and maybe something else, from the violent heaving, my body thrusting upwards and over the sink with each gut purge. The pups, bless their little frightened little souls watched me with eyes as big as saucers and when I was able to lie on the berth, smelly from my ordeal, they crowded next to me for comfort and safety. (I’m not sure who was being comforted the most, them or me.) Luckily they didn’t get sick. But the tow boat’s dog didn’t fare as well and heaved a few times. One time as we lay in the aft berth the boat slammed down on a wave so violently, my entire body rose off the mattress in a split second hover.
Oh and I should mention, at one point the tow boat's engine sputtered and threw out some smoke and he quickly turned it off. I'm not sure if anyone else was crapping bricks but you can see how foggy it was and the nearby shore sounded like thunder as the waves crashed on it. Chris figured out that the prop was tied up with all the stirred up sea grass so he donned his wet suit and fins and jumped in the water to free it. The other problem, we couldn't turn things on to risk draining the batteries without an engine to charge them. We were certainly roughing it in this wild, misadventure.
But like giving birth, a day later and the pain is gone and once the seas calmed and the threat of death had passed it was becoming a distant memory. Once the engine was repaired, the sail home was awesome, perfect in every way as if nature felt sorry for us and wanted to appease my worries, make me love my beautiful boat again.
I ribbed the engine guy when he came to rescue us at the Lahave River Yacht Club, "You said we could go to Bermuda, you didn’t say the Bermuda Triangle!" He thought that was hilarious. This time it was water in the lines and he put on a new Racor fuel filter to replace the inferior one that was there, got rid of the water in the lines and we were good to go.
Because I was below I was so sick I had petechiae hemorrhaging around my eyes from retching, an intensity not seen since my pregnancy 35 years before when my head hung in the bowel upwards of six times a day. I wet my pants and maybe something else, from the violent heaving, my body thrusting upwards and over the sink with each gut purge. The pups, bless their little frightened little souls watched me with eyes as big as saucers and when I was able to lie on the berth, smelly from my ordeal, they crowded next to me for comfort and safety. (I’m not sure who was being comforted the most, them or me.) Luckily they didn’t get sick. But the tow boat’s dog didn’t fare as well and heaved a few times. One time as we lay in the aft berth the boat slammed down on a wave so violently, my entire body rose off the mattress in a split second hover.
Oh and I should mention, at one point the tow boat's engine sputtered and threw out some smoke and he quickly turned it off. I'm not sure if anyone else was crapping bricks but you can see how foggy it was and the nearby shore sounded like thunder as the waves crashed on it. Chris figured out that the prop was tied up with all the stirred up sea grass so he donned his wet suit and fins and jumped in the water to free it. The other problem, we couldn't turn things on to risk draining the batteries without an engine to charge them. We were certainly roughing it in this wild, misadventure.
But like giving birth, a day later and the pain is gone and once the seas calmed and the threat of death had passed it was becoming a distant memory. Once the engine was repaired, the sail home was awesome, perfect in every way as if nature felt sorry for us and wanted to appease my worries, make me love my beautiful boat again.
I ribbed the engine guy when he came to rescue us at the Lahave River Yacht Club, "You said we could go to Bermuda, you didn’t say the Bermuda Triangle!" He thought that was hilarious. This time it was water in the lines and he put on a new Racor fuel filter to replace the inferior one that was there, got rid of the water in the lines and we were good to go.
 The prop is now untangled and Chris is climbing up on the swim platform behind the suspended dingy. |  100 feet of rope and sometimes you could barely see the tow boat ahead. |
The third time, last summer, we had just launched out of South Shore Marine and planned to motor to Mahone Bay about two hours away. We weren’t quite ready with the lines, we planned to address this at our mooring in the bay. The engine died a couple of miles out with alarm blaring as it overheated. Of course there were strong winds that time. I’ve never seen my husband move so fast getting her ready to sail to keep her off the rocks. Yes if the shore got too close we would have thrown out an anchor but he was spry and quick and we got under sail within a few minutes. We made it to Strum’s island in a fading breeze so we were forced to call the marina tender to tow us in. Our poor little wounded boat, limping along behind the rescue tender.
Three times breaking down made me loose a little faith in our boat and quite frankly it scared me. We have a lot riding on this cork in the bathrub, our pups are my babies. Gregg laughed and said this was par for the course, he's an old salty dog that’s been around so he wasn't phased in the least, well he said he was 'concerned' being towed in the large ocean swells and fog, but that was as much as he'd admit and my pants would argue with that. I was starting to doubt my boat, was it forsaking me? Perhaps I wasn’t the princess I thought I was, floating around in my teak womb feeling all happy and smug, maybe the universe was throwing out a humbling lesson.
This time it was the thermostat and along comes the engine guy. Gregg was called away to work the day we launched the boat, not a great day overall, so she sat on the mooring for three weeks until the part arrived. I was there to lend a helping hand and fetch tools and listened to the guy complain about the Westerbeke not being a great one to work on with its massive bulk and limited space. He would have to get to the back of the engine to install a thermostat that was actually missing, apparently they couldn’t get the cap back with it in place so they took out the thermostat all together. The engine guy struggled with it as well and after the fourth time got the cap threaded on properly so it didn't ooze coolant, which had been leaking into the bilge since the engine died. Then he did some things to the heat exchanger which we plan to replace this year.
On a happy note, without being able to stand, he would have had to lay his body over the engine to get to the back and was delighted to hear that the entire cockpit floor lifted off for easy access on the 33. I found this out by accident when I was cleaning the cockpit but later read about it in the Nonsuch 33 Specs I found online. I think being able to stand or sit on the milk crate and work in the spacious back end of the engine, he was happier to hang around longer and find an even more serious problem lying in wait.
I asked him what he thought of the flow of engine exhaust water coming out of the stern. He wasn’t happy with it at all. Gregg had never been happy with the flow either, thinking it was a little too little. He asked other Nonsuch owners if their boats had better flow. Everyone told him it was fine. The boat wasn’t overheating that much but perhaps it ran a bit high. We weren’t using the motor a lot, Gregg is a seasoned sailor so sometimes we’d even sail right off the mooring and to it. Mostly we ran the engine to charge the batteries while at anchor so it wasn’t taxed a lot.
Engine guy, I should use his name, Kenny, didn’t like the flow and went looking for a problem. He’s happily sitting on an inverted plastic milk crate checking out the strainer. He decided to remove the hard, black hoses from the raw water strainer. He struggled trying to pull them off after the clamps were removed but they had fused to the metal and finally he had to cut them off with a hack saw then carve the remaining bits off with a box cutter. They must have been replaced at one point because he commented that it really wasn’t the right material used, whatever this stuff was it went hard as a rock. He said he would put on new plastic piping so we can see the water flow to and from the strainer, that way it would be easier to check for particles getting in.
What he removed from the old hose was mind blowing. With tweezers, Kenny kept pulling seaweed from the small opening, probably stuck in there from Newfoundland because the boat didn’t have good flow since we bought it. I put a screw next to it to show a size comparison and the pipe was no bigger than a dime in diameter so that was a a sizable clump of plug, not much water was getting by it. So he put everything back together, opened the sea cock, turned on the engine and we hung our heads over the side. The water came gushing out of the pipe like a mini Niagara Falls and we high-fived. I made a short video so I could send it to Gregg in Alberta.
I am amazed at the chronological timing of events. The boat seems to deliver only one disaster at a time, but as soon as we fixed one problem another cropped up so we are systematically repairing or replacing one thing after another....stay tune next for the diesel tank rupture, another stinky story, literally....
Three times breaking down made me loose a little faith in our boat and quite frankly it scared me. We have a lot riding on this cork in the bathrub, our pups are my babies. Gregg laughed and said this was par for the course, he's an old salty dog that’s been around so he wasn't phased in the least, well he said he was 'concerned' being towed in the large ocean swells and fog, but that was as much as he'd admit and my pants would argue with that. I was starting to doubt my boat, was it forsaking me? Perhaps I wasn’t the princess I thought I was, floating around in my teak womb feeling all happy and smug, maybe the universe was throwing out a humbling lesson.
This time it was the thermostat and along comes the engine guy. Gregg was called away to work the day we launched the boat, not a great day overall, so she sat on the mooring for three weeks until the part arrived. I was there to lend a helping hand and fetch tools and listened to the guy complain about the Westerbeke not being a great one to work on with its massive bulk and limited space. He would have to get to the back of the engine to install a thermostat that was actually missing, apparently they couldn’t get the cap back with it in place so they took out the thermostat all together. The engine guy struggled with it as well and after the fourth time got the cap threaded on properly so it didn't ooze coolant, which had been leaking into the bilge since the engine died. Then he did some things to the heat exchanger which we plan to replace this year.
On a happy note, without being able to stand, he would have had to lay his body over the engine to get to the back and was delighted to hear that the entire cockpit floor lifted off for easy access on the 33. I found this out by accident when I was cleaning the cockpit but later read about it in the Nonsuch 33 Specs I found online. I think being able to stand or sit on the milk crate and work in the spacious back end of the engine, he was happier to hang around longer and find an even more serious problem lying in wait.
I asked him what he thought of the flow of engine exhaust water coming out of the stern. He wasn’t happy with it at all. Gregg had never been happy with the flow either, thinking it was a little too little. He asked other Nonsuch owners if their boats had better flow. Everyone told him it was fine. The boat wasn’t overheating that much but perhaps it ran a bit high. We weren’t using the motor a lot, Gregg is a seasoned sailor so sometimes we’d even sail right off the mooring and to it. Mostly we ran the engine to charge the batteries while at anchor so it wasn’t taxed a lot.
Engine guy, I should use his name, Kenny, didn’t like the flow and went looking for a problem. He’s happily sitting on an inverted plastic milk crate checking out the strainer. He decided to remove the hard, black hoses from the raw water strainer. He struggled trying to pull them off after the clamps were removed but they had fused to the metal and finally he had to cut them off with a hack saw then carve the remaining bits off with a box cutter. They must have been replaced at one point because he commented that it really wasn’t the right material used, whatever this stuff was it went hard as a rock. He said he would put on new plastic piping so we can see the water flow to and from the strainer, that way it would be easier to check for particles getting in.
What he removed from the old hose was mind blowing. With tweezers, Kenny kept pulling seaweed from the small opening, probably stuck in there from Newfoundland because the boat didn’t have good flow since we bought it. I put a screw next to it to show a size comparison and the pipe was no bigger than a dime in diameter so that was a a sizable clump of plug, not much water was getting by it. So he put everything back together, opened the sea cock, turned on the engine and we hung our heads over the side. The water came gushing out of the pipe like a mini Niagara Falls and we high-fived. I made a short video so I could send it to Gregg in Alberta.
I am amazed at the chronological timing of events. The boat seems to deliver only one disaster at a time, but as soon as we fixed one problem another cropped up so we are systematically repairing or replacing one thing after another....stay tune next for the diesel tank rupture, another stinky story, literally....
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Coolant mixed with all the rain water leaks on the boat. Wish we had a dollar for every time Gregg or I sponged out the bilge until we found all the offending leaks and fixed the engine problems. Fresh water, diesel and coolant, always something, except never salt water, that's a whole other kind of problem.....
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