Hello Listees

My wife Ruth and I left the boatyard in China over two years ago, seems like
less time than that looking back. We had a Diesel Duck 462 built by Seahorse
Marine in Zhuhai. I didn't sell shoes for a living like Peter but worked on
cars my whole working life. We too had had no boating experience prior to
deciding to buy a boat and see what the world looked like from sea level.
I had already seen a considerable amount of it from a bicycle seat. In 2000 I
did a bicycle tour of the world which lasted one year. I traveled through 40
countries and pedaled 25,000 kilometers. I got to see parts of the world and
mingle with people of those parts that are off the beaten tourist paths. That
was what I really liked about it. When you're on a tourist bus you get to see
all the places setup to greet tourist learning little about the area except
the prices of all those local trinkets for sale.
There was a guy on my bike trip that had done some sailing and when he told me
he crossed oceans at 5 knots I didn't believe him at first. He had sailed from
Panama to Australia in 1964 with two other fellows. He told me of their
experiences on some of the South Sea Islands that seemed unreal. He said after
a weeklong stay on one island the locals stood on the beach and cried when
they departed.
Anyway in 2002 I found a book by Lynn and Larry Pardey and the rest you can
almost fill in from here. I came home from work one day in March of that year
and told my wife I wanted to sail around the world. She didn't think before
saying "me too" and we were on our way.
Our first boat show was that fall at Annapolis, the sail boat version. We were
very proud when we reported to total strangers that we were planning to sail
around the world. I don't remember who it was that replied "when people get to
be your age they get rid of their sail boats and get power boats". I started
to believe our dream was sunk before it had even got started but luckily I ran
across a Jim Lieshmen revised edition of Bob Beebe's book, Passagemaking Under
Power. In that book Jim mentions an economical alternative, George Buehler. I
wonder if Jim has ever regretted that, probably not as I have met him and he
seems to be a very good guy.
I Googled George Buehler and found his site and on it a link to Seahorse
Marine. I first contacted SHM in November 2003. Bill Kimley and I started
emailing back and forth and soon he told me about 462-1 under construction. I
ordered a set of preliminary study plans from George and liked what I saw. I
really didn't know what I was looking at but liked the openness of the salon
and the galley in the passageway beside the engine room.
In May of 2004 I finagled a ride on a Diesel Duck 44 belonging to David Katz
from San Francisco to Paulsbo for the Trawlerfest up there. It was my first
passage ever and I have never been so sick in all my life. I wrote a long
letter to George Buehler about my experience and he put it on his web site and
it's still there at the bottom of this page:
http://dieselducks.com/Duck44study.html
My wife and I flew to China in November 2004 to see hull # 1 and we put our
name on the next boat which turned out to be hull # 5.
We have been living and traveling on Dora Mac, named after my Mom who was Dora
Mignon McManaway Johnson, for over two years now and have really enjoyed SE
Asia. I can see why people get stuck here. We do have plans to move on though.
We are in Kota Kinabalu, East Malaysia and intend to head back to the Malay
Peninsula in three days. Then we will go up the West side, have the boat
pulled for a bottom job and head across the Indian Ocean beginning in January.
For the last month I have been talking to cruisers about their experiences in
the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. All reports have been very positive.
One couple spent five years there and another spent ten. The Greek Islands
seem to stick in everyones memory as being a great place. We are looking
forward to Turkey too. I don't know how long we will be in the Med, we didn't
intend to stay in SE Asia two years but here we are and to be honest I hate to
leave. There is beautiful cruising grounds, no serious weather this close to
the equator, and everything is cheap by comparison. I did learn to watch the
weather while we were in the Philippines though. We darn nearly got caught up
in that storm Frank last July 2008. We had just left the area three days
before where that ferry was sunk with a loss of 800 lives.
The boat has performed very well but I wish I could figure out how to keep
barnacles off the propeller. We normally make 6.5 knots at 1450 RPM burning
1.66 gallons per hour. If the propeller is fouled we drop a knot and burn one
gallon more per hour. We hold 2,000 gallons so he have quite a range but it
also allows us to wait out a spike in oil prices and buy fuel at the lowest
price. I did get caught in Indonesia last year and bought 750 gallons at $3.16
USD per gallon.
If any of you are interested, my wife maintains a blog at: www.mydoramac.com
She talks a lot about our adventures on and off the boat.
I think one of many things I have learned from the traveling I have done is
that not everybody thinks like me. On my bike trip I was in Chili and a man
asked me where I was from. I boastfully said America. I was knocked into
reality when he said where you think you are now. Also many of the things I've
seen don't seem normal to me but they are apparently normal to the people who
live them. I think Mark Train said it better than anyone: "Travel is fatal to
prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it
sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things
cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's
lifetime".

Randal Johnson

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Randal -

I like to second Phil's recommendation for Prop Speed and add a couple
cautions.  I've had it put on in a good boat yard in Ft Lauderdale several
times and had both good and bad luck.

The key I think is to do the application exactly like the Prop Speed
distributor recommends and trains the yards to do.  It is a two man job and
the only time I've ever had less than great results was when they deviated
from that process.  No reason you couldn't do it yourself if you had someone
to help but one guy needs to do the primer and the other needs to follow him
with the top coat.  The primer seems to be the important part - too much or
not enough and you'll get less life out of it.

And Prop Speed won't keep all the growth off but will let you to gently
clean it off.  I use a glove with a latex palm or a sponge and the barnacles
and other hard growth will wipe off particularly if done regularly so they
don't get a good start.

Jon
Outbound
Hatteras 58 LRC