Captain Chris Yacht Services

We’ve hired Captain Chris Yacht Services (Chris and Alyse Caldwell) for three days of training on our boat.  Today was day #1 with only Chris.  We covered  the entire boat, inch by inch, learning what each switch, piece of equipment or other piece of metal or part was, how it worked, how to operate it,  and how to do basic maintenance on it.

As you might guess, we spent most of the time in the engine room.  We spent the first hour covering 20% of the engine room alone!

After lunch we did hands on work,  changing fuel filters on the main engines and cleaning the raw water strainers on the generator and air conditioner.  If you don’t know what those are, don’t worry: you must not have a large boat, so you don’t need to know, but they’re important systems for us to understand so the boat will move in the morning when we are ready to cast off.

All in all, it, was an extremely valuable learning experience.  It took most of the mystery out of the boat. We now actually have a sense of “how this boat works”. While we’re sure we will have to refer to our notes in the future, we understand the basics and are feeling comfortable with the mechanical, electrical  and other systems on the boat. It helps that we spent the past 18 months taking Power Squadron courses in subjects like Engine Maintenance and Seamanship, but that was largely books and theoretical stuff; supplementing it with this hands-on training on the boat where we’ll live for the next year made all the difference in our really, understanding it all.

For the next two days we will be moving the boat over the water under the guidance of Captains Chris and Alyes.  Full reports will be given, but if they’re as valuable as the systems work of today, we will think this is some of the best money we have ever spent on this Great Loop venture!