About the boat

I bought Alberg 30 hull number 329 back in April of this year. She has had five previous owners, making me the sixth owner in her history. She has been home ported in the Magothy River area of the Northern Chesapeake Bay for her entire career. There is a famous sailing club in the area who sails Alberg 30s exclusively and there are an abundance of A30s in and around the Magothy River. Since she is set up as a racer, I think that one or more of the previous owners were members of the club at some point.

She has had a number of different names down through the various owners. Chronologically they were:
Grethy
Frendly Lady (yes, without the i)
Dragon Lady (wtf?)
Scout (current)

I will be renaming her to Cookie. More on that later.

She is a masthead rigged sloop, weighing in at an advertised 9000 pounds total displacement. Shallow draft full keel at 4 feet 3 inches which will make places like the Bahamas a breeze when choosing anchorages. Her decks are cored balsa and all solid. Thank goodness since I bought the boat sight unseen (for an outrageously low price). Upon inspection I was pleasantly surprised at the great shape she was in! All of the known issues that older A30s suffer from have already been either fixed or upgraded. One problem they are famous for is that the laminated compression beam, inside the boat that supports the mast, becomes weak and fails. Replacing this beam is a major headache and represents a lot of man hours in and out of the boat. Fortunately for me this beam has not only been replaced but it has also been beefed up with two matching 3/16" solid aluminum plates on the fore and aft sides. Another reason I think this boat was raced since the loads on the rig and mast step (beam) are enormous under racing conditions where nothing is held back.

She also has a running Atomic4, 30hp gasoline engine that appears to be in pretty good shape. I plan to replace this with a smaller diesel in the 16hp to 20 hp range. The reason being diesel fumes are not nearly as dangerous as gasoline fumes. The last thing I need is to blow up the boat and myself when I light the stove. This happens and can even be set off by a spark in the wiring or electronics.

All in all I am very happy with my purchase of the boat and I look forward to getting her home so that I can get to work setting her up the way I want!

Blog? Who? Me?

Well, it has happened. I have created a blog and thus commited myself to hours upon hours of sitting at the computer updating it religiously for no one to read. In the future I will be scrambling on the water, risking life and limb and anchoring in illegal areas to get a wifi signal so that I may bring the latest news of my journey to the world!

For anyone that reads this first post, understand that it is meant to be a test so that I can set up the blog and make it pleasing to the eye. If you have any suggestions on the layout, colors scheme or anything else please feel free to comment. My feeling so far is that the map background is too busy but I like it because I love maps!