November 10th, 2016

Captain Gabe Lucy

It’s finally time to break in the new boat, hopefully without any actual breaking. We’ve been stuck on a dock in Salt River for the past week, actually the boat has been stuck there while the crew and I have been staying at a large Mediterranean villa overlooking the ocean. Nonetheless, we were really excited to get out and do some sea trials and take a break from covering our bodies in mosquito repellant. But before we left Salt River and headed north to St. Thomas and St. John we had to navigate the pass that has no channel markers, a shifting sand bar and unmarked sunken ships. One of the Gold Coast guys told us last April two boats on the same day crashed and sunk at Salt River. Of course I signed the Ownership papers the day before sea trials. We ended up enlisting one of the Gold Coast Shareholders and a few locals to help us navigate out the pass so that Trilogy III didn’t become another monument in Salt River. Luckily it was very uneventful, but we did pay our respects to all of the sunken boats.

 
Once out of the channel we headed southeast to Christiaansted to drop off our new friends and fuel up. We were really excited to see the boat under power. The crew smirked when they saw that the boat could motor 20 knots at 2400RPMS into the wind and the ride is so smooth, burning 8 gallons an hour on each engine. With only one engine running at 1700 RPMs and 2.5 gallons an hour, the boat was doing a good 8 knots, add some sails and the crew are hoping to do 250 miles a days during the delivery. After a short sail with our new friends and topping off our tanks we headed north to St. John.

 
We made quick work of the 30+ miles north to St. John and were there in 2 hrs. The Trilogy crew were already talking about creating a new trip on Maui that Circumnavigates Molokai. At 20+ knots this boat feels like it is only doing 10 knots because the boat rides so smooth and balanced. All systems were a go. Capt. Jim showed Capt. Seth how to check the engines with a heat laser similar to the ones you might have seen for checking your meat on the grill. To “break” in the new engines, Jim and Hoover were changing the alternating the RPMS every hour to Cummins standards.
 
Our goal was to head north to the Windward Passage, unfortunately it really wasn’t that windy, but the Captains were happy with the performance and decided it was time to stretch the anchor, check the bottom and rudders, and maybe go for a snorkel. This was probably the only chance for the crew to go for a snorkel in the Caribbean before casting off. After a week of 12 hour work-days, this made it all worth it. We pulled into a small bay named Francis Bay. Both Jim and I had anchored up in this bay in the past. As the clouds broke and the sun came out, Capt. Kama said, “Now this is paradise!” For those of you reading this, the Caribbean is great, but Maui is still “No ka Oi.”

A few days earlier Jim and I bought a small kayak at Kmart because in the event the crew ever needed to paddle to shore. I went out for a quick paddle and of course Kama was quick to flip me over. This gave me the idea to do a photo shoot for the new boat. We told Kama to jump in the kayak and start paddling south with his GoPro and we would set sail and make a couple passes with the sails up for our marketing team. We had Capt. Carrie stand on the bow as our model. After a few passes, Hoover decided to give Kama a little hazing when at the last second he turned the boat directly at Kama. Watch the video on our Facebook and Instagram page to see what happens next, but kids…don’t try this at home. Hoover was laughing and high fiving everyone. Hoover told us back in the day when he was the captain for the movie “Waterworld” he had to sail over the photographers to get the shots, I think this was before Kama was even born and when my mom had a huge crush on Kevin Costner.

After the shenanigans we decided to head to Red Hook Marina in St. Thomas. When I called the marina to get a slip for the night, I handed the phone to Jim to sweet talk them to give us a good slip on last minutes notice. When Jim got off the phone, Hoover who overheard the conversation came up to the helm laughing and said to Jim, “I knew you had “butter lips!” Jim and I were rolling over laughing because we had never heard that term and I decided his new nickname would be “Capt. Butter Lips! “ I’m hoping it sticks. Jim is an East coast native, so Kama and Seth have been teaching him Hawaiian slang, they will say the word then use it in a sentence. So far Jim is learning “shoots bra,” “like grind,” “pau,” but they don’t think he is ready for “da kine.”
 
In Red Hook we posted up at the end of a T-Dock for the night. We had to be up early to get back to St. Croix before 9AM so the welder could finish up some work, but that didn’t stop us from going out. One of the Gold Coast guys nicknamed “Ghost” had joined us for the ride to St. Thomas and showed us around Red Hook. Hoover stayed back for a little bit and actually had visitors that read our first blog and noticed the red lights in the cabin from up at a bar. Mahalos to Jani Douglas for stopping by, looking forward to seeing you in the spring. We love our Trilogy Ohana! I wonder who else the crew will meet along the way.

 
We slept six in the main cabin, but Kama slept on the trampoline wrapped in a sheet. It was ladies night at the bar just up from the boat, so we along with the rest of St. Thomas slept to the sounds of the latest hits.
 

We made it back to Salt River the next morning and again made it safely through the pass. Jim re-plumbed the water maker and got it running smoothly on the way back. He said he is looking forward to all the showers he will be taking on the aft swim step. Fresh water is one of the most important things to have on a boat. The generator was also working great, but something got into the intake and Jim already had to replace an impeller. Luckily we got spare parts for the engines, water maker and generator for the trip.

Back to provisioning, tuning the rig and running around St. Croix to get some last minute items. The welder is finishing up some work and the crew hope to cast off on Saturday and head for the canal. The crew loved reading the comments from the blog and once they leave the dock and set sail, they should have plenty of time to put their feet up and write blog entries. I will update everyone as to how to track the crew’s progress very soon. We are also going to track the progress of Seth’s hair and beard apparently. He decided to shave his beard and head before the trip so we could track it’s growth.

 On a separate note, one of our Trilogy members and my brother-in-law Denver Coon is delivering the trimaran Pipeline from Tahiti to Maui right now. No, this is not a new addition to our Trilogy fleet, but wish him luck! We sailed the same boat from Florida to Tahiti 6 years ago and you can see some of the videos from our trip if you search YouTube: pipeline trimaran. Very exciting that the crew are following a similar route.