From Acorn To Arabella.
This week, we continue cruising the Intracoastal Waterway down the east coast of Florida. We miss sailing, but offshore waters were calling for sloppy seas and light winds. With few safe harbors to duck into in the case of emergency, we decided to stay grounded in the ICW. And when we say “stay grounded in the ICW” we REALLY mean it.
That’s right, despite following channel markers and using a Garmin chart plotter…we ran our sailboat aground on the way from Saint Augustine to Daytona. The shifting Florida sands can be hard to anticipate. Fortunately, a new friend we met in Saint Augustine was nearby and happy to come to our rescue…James Bond style (but with better music)!
We tried twisting her off the sandbar. We tried pushing her off the sandbar. We tried kedging her off the sandbar. We kedged so hard, but to no avail. It wasn’t until a Tow Boat US boat happened to cross our path that we had the power to get our 27,000’ wooden sailboat floating again. Boy, did we put on a show.
All of this motoring requires a lot of fuel, and our Keenan Filter system comes in handy for consolidating our fuel, ensuring we have enough gas to get where we’re going without having to switch between fuel tanks while underway. We can’t speak highly enough about Keenan Filters—and we’re not getting paid to say that!
Another mechanism we’ve been really happy with is our manual windlass. We’ve been anchoring pretty much every night, and dropping and weighing anchor is easy-peasy—even when caught in an afternoon rainstorm.
In Fort Pierce, we stopped for provisions and fuel (and Robin hit the local coffee shop…of course). We also got to watch a wrecked wooden boat get torn apart by an excavator! Then, we got back to it, making way towards the Okeechobee Waterway and Lake Okeechobee.
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Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat: Episode 337
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00:00 Intro
00:27 St. Augustine to Daytona Beach
02:35 Stuck In The Mud
09:16 Why We’re Not Sailing
13:00 More Love For the Keenan Filter
18:42 Anchors Aweigh
21:32 Its Raining in Titusville
24:30 Fueling Up, Movin’ On
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Acorn to Arabella started as a wooden boat building project in Granby, Massachusetts. Steve began the journey as an amateur wooden boat builder crafting a 38′ wooden sailboat in his backyard: designer William Atkin’s Ingrid with a Stormy Petrel’s gaff rig. These videos follow the journey from tree felling, to lumber milling, to lofting, to the lead keel pour and now sailing the boat—sharing details of the woodworking, carpentry, metal smithing, tool building, and tool maintenance that traditional wooden boats command. This ultimate DIY project continues beyond the boat shop, as Steve and crew travel and learn to cruise aboard the handmade wooden boat that they’ve built. Just kidding about all that, this channel is about a Siberian Laika named Akiva.
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Original Soundtrack available at benfundis.bandcamp.com
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