Boatyard Life: Living on the Hard (Prepping for our Cruising Season Ahead!)

We’ve now been back to Y-Not at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, VA for just about a month now.

It’s been a chaotic month with a lot of boat projects, which should soon be wrapping up.

Last week, we were hauled out to attend to the jobs that can only happen out of the water – such as new anti-fouling bottom paint, servicing some thru-hulls, re-pitching our props and re-stuffing our shaft boxes.

At this boatyard, they allow you to liveaboard while your vessel is on stilts on hard ground – a condition sometimes called ‘living on the hard’.

While we had the option to move back into the van and stay onsite, we opted to just stay aboard.

It’s not our first dance at this rodeo, we survived nearly 5 weeks back in 2017 while we were hauled out in Miami too. So we decided to sit down and film some thoughts on the experience:

As a quick recap from the video, here’s our list of ‘hard’ challenges:

• No air conditioning – Marine air conditioners are raw water cooled. If we’re not sitting in the water for them to draw water from, then no AC. Unlike our time in Miami, thankfully springtime in Virginia is quite pleasant and A/C hasn’t even been desired. But we sure have put our built in electric heaters to use on some chilly evenings and mornings!
• Fresh Water Usage –

  

  Grey water (sink/shower) on our boat goes directly overboard. Which means we can really only get-away with extremely limited water usage and being extra prudent with anything that might dump overboard. And we only allow relatively clean water in the sinks after hours to not risk dumping water on our worker’s heads, or soiling the ground. Thankfully the yard’s bathhouse is pretty convenient, so we can use their shower. And the yard is super close to several dining options so we can minimize dishes.

• Limited Tank Capacity – Our main toilet uses fresh water to flush, so we have that advantage (some use raw water, which wouldn’t work while on the hard). We also have a 48 gallon holding tank for black water, so we can use our macerating toilet for overnight needs. We also replaced one of our heads with a composting toilet, so we have that as an alternative should our time on the hard exceed our tank capacity. But our anticipated time out of the water shouldn’t make that an issue, especially with such easy access to the yard’s facilities.

• 

  Ladder for Access – The boat is up on blocks and stilts, so our entry is up a 16′ ladder. Before becoming a boat owner, I was pretty much deathly afraid of ladders – but I’ve gotten much better with it. And thankfully, this yard immediately ties the ladder to the boat so it can’t walk away (a problem we frequently had in Miami). A ladder does make all the provisioning for the season ahead a little more difficult to get heavy stuff onboard.

• 

  Crew on board – Anytime the shop sends a worker to our boat, we want to welcome them with open arms. Even if it’s at a time we’re not typically up and dressed. We have taken to sleeping with our bedroom door closed, so the workers can get started without worrying about our state of dress. It can be long spells of nothing going on, to extended hours of chaos of multiple projects being worked on inside and outside.

While we were on hard anyway, we used the opportunity to get an updated boat survey done – as we need to shop for new insurance (our current insurer no longer supports active cruisers not based out of a home marina, such as ourselves).

We serendipitously discovered that our original surveyor from our purchase 8 years ago, Wayne Canning, was not too far away. He offered to come out of retirement for us, so we could benefit from him already having ample notes on our boat from back then.

It was kinda like having a graduate thesis evaluated by your freshman professor, and we’re happy to report that Y-Not passed with flying colors (which after all the work we’ve put into keeping her ahead of maintenance, was refreshing!).

All and all though, we should be on the hard for about 10 days. Which is quite manageable if that stays on track.

Atlantic Yacht Basin is also just a short walk to a shopping center with several causal dining options and a grocery store.  And just across the Great Bridge, is a lovely park with about 2 miles of hiking trails through the woods that makes for a delightful sanity break.

And having the van still onsite has made getting further afield super easy. In the past month we’ve caught a few shows in downtown Norfolk, met up with several friends, done lots of provisioning, gotten caught up on eye exams and explored other hike & bike trails.

What’s Next?

If things stay on schedule (we are on boatyard time), we hope to be launched back in the water by the weekend.  And all projects we had the yard working on should be complete.

Which means we’ll then be shifting to final provisioning, finding storage for the van either here in the Norfolk area or north of here (if you have any recommendations, we’re all ears!) and then shoving off!

We intend the spend at least the next couple of months ahead exploring the Chesapeake Bay. We’re excited for the adventures head, and look forward to having you virtually aboard!