Adventure of Redemption

​January 31st 2018 until now, July 2021- what can be said besides it has been an adventure of redemption. dictionary.com says this about redemption: “the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment.” Lynette has been teaching at the high school since returning from Mexico and selling our previous home in Redding, CA. Her work bringing in a steady stream of income has opened the way for Tim to shift into his Captain and Sailing Instructor career. Teaching has paid the bills and Tim has been able to stuff away his tips and income saving for that bigger boat to take friends, family and clients to great new places! 

Lynette has taught for four years at the district and Tim has 3.5 years with Nautilus Sailing as an instructor. It is crazy to think that we are ready to start our 5th year since our lives changed very dramatically in 2016. SV New Adventures was a huge learning vessel for us in so many ways.

Besides all the sailing, seamanship and life hacking, we learned what was missing and essentials to consider in her replacement. Lynette is 5’2” tall (62”) with a 28” inseam, this is a challenge on many boats and some things can become serious safety issues due to her height. Here are a few things that have to be remedied for Lynette to be on board with another boat: while seated on the toilet, her feet must reach the floor (not just the bulkhead); items in the galley must be reachable without a step stool while underway; and when seated in the cockpit- her feet must be flat on the sole. Next are the massive ones: We need a "canoodle corner" for snuggling: Lynette’s eyes are at 53” high, so she needs to be able to see all the way to the bow clearly. Seeing helps considerable when docking or driving the boat. She needs to be able to sit comfortably at the wheel where she can see well to steer while on watches. The final issue for Lynette is the profile of the cabin top and deck needs to be such that it is easy for her to quickly move from the cockpit to the deck without step-down distances over 13 inches. All this is indeed a tall order.

In the 42 months since the sale of SV New Adventures, it really feels right for redemption. The hunt has begun. 

I searched the internet with every term I could to find the right bluewater boat. I had looked on Yachtworld and exhausted all candidates during my spare time. March 1, 2020, I had just returned from a whirlwind set of trips to the Bahamas, Grenada and Mexico, arriving home to the COVID-19 lockdowns. I was previously booked solid through June 2020 to teach with Nautilus Sailing and that vanished faster than a box of donuts at a construction site. For some reason, the thought of flying to a foreign country to spend a week on a boat with 4 other people was not COVID-friendly, so I was home without a boat.

Just searching for “Kaufman” I had found every known design by Michael Kaufman. I have studied his work when I was doing yacht design in the 80’s. I had loved his design of the Skye 51 which was a fast bluewater yacht that I had sought after for many years. There was a beautiful one that would sail in San Diego harbor and the owner took care to sail her as often as possible with perfect trim. Lynette & I found a Skye 51 in Anacortes for sale that had been on Yachtworld for a couple years. Strange, why hadn’t it sold? We looked at it three times the final time in July 2020 where we spent 6 hours surveying her for any show-stoppers. Well, there were so many after the first hour that we just kept looking for sake of practice. For starters, the teak deck would need to be replaced, the core in the deck was wet. The masts had significant galvanic corrosion at the joints and the base. Three bids to replace them were between $80-100k alone. So that is why it had not sold in the past 10 years.

Very discouraged, and now we were seeing the boat market heating up. Yacht sales started to take off and it hit record levels in a couple of short months. Every boat, even boats that had been sitting for sale for years, started to sell at increasingly higher prices.

I had a nice phone conversation with Michael Kaufman and he was very willing to share details about the Skye 51 and his namesake Kaufman 47, which he was most proud of. The 3-cabin arrangement, similar lines it was nicknamed the “Taiwan Swan” so I started looking for that model in earnest.

Enter John Kretschmer, a prolific sailor and author of a number fantastic books, “Flirting with Mermaids”, “Cape Horn to Starboard” and “Sailing a Serious Ocean”. I had read all of his books, some more than once. He’s a real sailor who stopped counting his miles after 300,000. The boat he chose to purchase for his offshore school is none other than a Kaufman 47 named Quetzal. So, everyone who had dreamed of ditching civilization and sailing over the horizon during the pandemic was on the hunt for one of these boats. Great! I had heard of one in Florida while I was doing a delivery from Ft Lauderdale to Ensenada and I called as soon as we stopped in Cabo San Lucas, it was under contract.  Foiled again!

That is when I found www.redemptiverepair.com, Ronnie & Michelle’s website chronicling the process of rescuing Serendipity. Yes, you saw the date correctly, July 20th 2020 is when I first made contact with the owner of a completely refit Kaufman 47. Ronnie & Michelle had spent years of very skilled labor to rescue her from over a decade of neglect from her ailing owner.

Back in 2014, 27 year-old Ronnie found Serendipity languishing in a Napa, CA marina; with leaking through-hulls, ancient Volkswagen diesel  and UV damaged sails. Ronnie was not intimidated. Ronnie grew up under the guidance of his father, a man who can fix anything and owning a marina with a boatyard. He saw nothing but possibilities. Ronnie put Serendipity on a truck and she would wind her way through deserts and canyons before arriving in New Orleans at his father’s boatyard.

In 2015 Ronnie changed her name to Redemption because he and the boat were on a similar journey. The redemption of the boat was a manifestation of what was going on in his life. We have all had moments where we become aware that bigger forces are working in the midst of seemingly secular endeavors.

The redemption was an all-consuming work, he began the process with the boat in the yard, on the hard, for a very long time. The details of the refit are on their web site.

As I read each and every word, I began to get a sense of the quality of character and the spirit of excellence Ronnie possessed. For example when he tackled the wiring, he just removed everything from the AC and DC sides, started fresh following the ABYC standards. Then I noticed a new name popping up in his blog posts, Michelle. Their stories unfolded and the boat began to gleam. Both Ronnie and Michelle are professional merchant mariners, he has his 1600 GT ticket and she was a Chief Engineer on the same supply ship working in the Gulf oil fields. To say they are qualified to refit a yacht would be an understatement.

I reached out through his YouTube channel with something like, “I’m really impressed with the refit on Redemption, I’m not sure what you plans are for her but, if you’re at all interested I have a proposition for you.” What I did not know at the time was Ronnie & Michelle were sailing north to Annapolis for hurricane season. On the trip they were talking about maybe starting a family and the possibility of selling the boat, but they needed a sign. It was a very tough thing to consider.
When they got back on the grid, my e-mail was waiting for them. Serendipity? Perhaps.

We spoke on the phone for quite a while and I asked what his price target was, it matched what I was thinking of offering. He said he was in no hurry to sell, and I was not able to get all the money out of our investments at the time, so we agreed to stay in touch and inform as things changed. They had a couple who had shown interest in the boat before me; friends who were young and sailed professionally in the Caribbean. They felt it was only right to offer the right of first refusal to them. He said he’d let me know what they said.

Meanwhile, I was working to free up every bit of cash I could. It seemed like ages when Ronnie called and said that their friends had purchased a boat they really liked and were getting it ready to cruise. So we were first in line! In a verbal-handshake, Ronnie and Michelle agreed to sell us Redemption when we were all ready. I offered a down-payment and a promissory note, and he refused with, “I don’t need that, I have your word and you have mine. It’s settled.” What a refreshing thing to hear these days.

In November of 2020, Ronnie & Michelle were sailing Redemption back south to Florida and among our many phone conversations, I suggested that I could help deliver the boat and get a real sea-trial at the same time. It worked out that I could join them in Beaufort NC on a frosty day before Christmas. We sailed out of the river and took a right turn for the open sea. The winds were as predicted, a NW wind of 15-20 knots. Perfect! Except for the cold temperature, the direction from the land, kept the seas down and we had a broad reach. Our speeds were consistently above 7 knots, hitting 8.5 knots often. The motion was very smooth, down below felt like a library, in contrast to the speed when you were up on deck. We covered the 220+ miles to Charleston SC, in about 28 hours; quite impressive.

Later that month, my wife Lynette joined the crew to deliver Redemption to Fort Lauderdale, FL. It was essential that she “try on” Redemption since she was asking me to measure the height of the cockpit seats, the toilet, take pictures from 53” off the deck. She is not a tall person and we learned from our previous boat, little things matter in a big way.
The four of us, Ronnie, Michelle, Lynette and me sailed the 400 or so miles from Jacksonville, FL non-stop which gave us a feel for being underway for a few days and sleep at sea. Again it was a comfortable ride and we made really good time. We arrived just as the winds were switching to the SE.

Now several months later, we are the new owners of Redemption — the next boat Lynette and I dreamed about when we did our Mexico wrap-up video in 2017. 

We've learned many things with our last boat and subsequently chartering many, many boats. Monohull and catamarans, large and small. As a sailing instructor, delivery captain, I get to sail on a lot of boats, try them on for a week at a time in all conditions. It's been quite informative. 
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As I have sailed thousands of miles on all kinds of boats, certain things came to the surface; although it was the absence of one trait that stood out.

Sea-kindliness
Sea-kindliness is the collective qualities that makes a yacht desirable on a long trip in a seaway. Almost every boat in the charter fleet is designed for one thing, space. Space inside, space on deck for as many people as possible to party, sleep, sunbathe and swim. I cannot blame the builders for making boats that are in high demand, it's not their fault the market is sending signals to build wide, flat, boats with no real storage or sea keeping features. The increase of buoyancy while increasing the beam (the width of the boat) creates problems when the boat starts to lean over or heel. It lifts the rudder out of the water. The rudder is what you steer with.


A sea kindly yacht is one who takes care of her crew by keeping them safe and comfortable below and on deck. She also behaves well when the seas lift up, is responsive to the helm due to her shape under and above the waterline. So many current production yachts are unwieldy with a quartering sea, they tend to round up uncontrollably, and if you lose your concentration for a set of waves, you could be in danger by the third wave on the next set. Upwind, these charter boats pound like a skiff in short-period waves, which makes it difficult to do anything down below, including sleep. Since rest is critical for safety, the longer the passage, the more likely you are to make a poor decision due to fatigue. 


On one occasion in the Caribbean sea, we did an overnight passage with a crew who had no night sailing experience, it was blowing 20-25 knot trade-winds, like it does that time of year. One of the crew came up after her off-watch was over, she had slept very little, her back was spasming due to the motion below decks. She said she slept sprawled out like a cat to keep from moving, a futile attempt against a corky boat. (A boat that bobs around like a cork due to the volume) 


Performance
Performance is a safety feature too. It provides you with the speed you need to get out of an approaching storm. If you can cover 150-200 miles in a day, and you have 2-3 days notice on a storm, you can get 400-600 miles away, which is more than enough in most cases. If you have a slow boat, it better be seaworthy, because you will be in every storm.


Rigged for simplicity
One key feature we found with Redemption was how she was rigged. As a cutter, (having 2 foresails or jib & staysail) you can reduce sail and bring the center of effort towards the middle of the boat. This means the forces that can cause difficulty steering in stronger winds are reduced. A typical modern boat has a roller-furling Genoa (large jib) that you roll up when the wind blows too much. The Kaufman 47 is designed with two roller-furling sails which give you many options.
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Additionally, the mainsail has three reefpoints which allows you to really reduce sail considerably. The first sail to reduce is the main. It has everything rigged at the mast and in under 5 minutes you can reduce your sail while being secure by the mast. Release the halyard, lower to the 1st reef, then hook the tack and begin cranking the winch on the boom to pull the reefline in. It’s that easy.

There are some that are convinced that all lines must be led back to the cockpit for safety reasons. Remember the sea-kindliness discussion above? The motion of a well designed boat, improves the safety of people up on deck. The motion is predictable and less violent. If heavy weather is on the menu, then rigging jacklines is easy with the many hard points around the boat. A tether is worn when we get to wind that requires a second reef anyway. So, once we put in the 1st reef at 18-20 knots, we add the tether to our life vest/harness. (we use the Spinlock Deckvest 5D and have several for guests and crew) Keep in mind that if things go sideways in a building wind, it’s likely you’ll have to scurry up to untangle something, or tie something down that has come loose. So if you’ve built muscle memory from frequent trips around the deck in more benign conditions, it will not be a crisis. Just one hand for me and one hand for the boat, slowly and deliberately.

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This post from Ronnie & Michelle sailredemption
Today would have marked eight years with Redemption since I had her delivered to New Orleans from San Francisco, but life happens and that's not always a bad thing. Michelle and I were changing course in life in 2020 when we said our prayers on our sail off Cape Hatteras the first time for a clear sign of what to do whether continue on or sell our loved vessel. When we finally sailed into the Chesapeake, we got a notification of a message from a guy named Tim asking if Redemption or any other Kaufman's were for sale.
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Long story short, we had Tim on board from Beaufort, NC to Charleston, SC and then him and his wife Lynette from Jacksonville to Ft. Lauderdale. We all had a wonderful time, they loved the boat, our and their prayers were answered, and new course was made.
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We once again secured and shipped Redemption(right before hurricane season too) on a truck for another journey across country to Port Townsend, WA right off the Puget. I flew up there to help put her back together and see Tim and Lynette of @new.adventures.sailing off to a great start sailing in their home waters when we were done! We couldn't have asked for a better experience and a new friendship with both of them and we feel blessed knowing Redemption is in the best hands she could be and she will keep her new owners smiling and safe.
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We encourage everyone to follow Tim, Lynette, and Redemption's journeys over at @new.adventures.sailing We will continue to periodically post our cruising experiences and travels on here.
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#sailredemption