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First, I guess that I should explain what brought us here... We were in the Bahamas on our beautiful sailing catamaran "Felix," anchored off of Farmers Cay, looking out over the clear blue waters and talking about where we wanted to go... in terms of our future that is. We decided that we love cruising and really wanted to continue to enjoy that lifestyle. At the same time, we also want to continue to work part time. When we bought Felix, we thought that she was the "perfect" east coast/Bahamas cruiser and to that extent we still do, but to work in the States while living aboard requires a different type of boat. What we needed, that Felix couldn't give us, was the extra room needed to store Deb's work clothes and the extra weight-carrying capacity to haul my work gear. These requirements got us hustling back to the States to put Felix on the market so that we could move forward with our plan.
The problem of selling Felix was WAY easy compared to trying to determine what boat would ultimately meet our needs. A lot of boat types and styles were eliminated right off. She would still need to meet most of my long standing requirements, shallow draft, fitting into most slips, being able to be hauled at most yards, having a solid structure to build upon, etc. Sailing would have been nice (but for the draft and heeling) and a bigger sailing cat would have been perfect, except you can only get them hauled at the few yards with wide lifts. And trying to find dockage... yes, you can find dockage, but probably not at the marina that you would like to stay. Even then, you have to be on a waiting list for months to get a T-head slip. No thanks... we really do believe that life is too short for all of those compromises.
So we started to seriously look at trawlers. The only 2 types of boats that ended up catching our attention were the 40' Pilgrims by Ted Gozzard and the 36' Kadey Krogen Manatees. We looked at all of the Pilgrims and several of the Manatees on the market and weren't pleased with the general condition of the ones we looked at. The last Manatee that we looked at, Bucket, was an older Manatee in Ft. Pierce, FL. She wasn't loaded with gear, but because the first owner had only used her as an office for 21 years, she was in surprisingly good shape. The second owner bought her in 2005, upgraded her somewhat and then did the Great Loop. Upon his return, he put the boat on the market.
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Original Line Drawings Of the Kadey Krogen Manatee |
The survey showed, that with a bit of time, money and effort, this boat had a lot of potential. The biggest issue was the blistering of the hull. This is very common with Kadey Krogens (or most other boats...) of this vintage. We negotiated a little off of the agreed price, but nowhere near enough to cover the repair. But then, I couldn't really expect the former owner to pay the full price to upgrade the hull to new condition on a 25 year old boat.
Before Deb and I spend all of the time and effort on the rest of the boat, we wanted to get the hull right, remove the blisters and restore the solid structure of the hull. There's only one company that I would go to for a blister peel/relaminate job and that is Osprey Marine Composites in Deale, MD. I've been reading about their innovations with peeling hulls and fiberglass work for over 20 years now. Everyone in the industry knows that if blister job was done by Osprey Marine, the resultant hull is stronger AND better than it ever was even new, leaving the factory. In over 20 years, Osprey Marine has never had blisters reappear on any hull that they have done a blister repair on! You'll be able to read about this and see pictures as this is the first posting on the first Projects Page.
Below is a link to the Ad for the 1984 Krogen Manatee that we bought.
She was called "Bucket" by the former owners. We changed her name to "Fat Chance" since none of our friends liked "Fugly", our top choice in names (sounded kinda endearing, in an uncle Fester in an Adams Family sort of way, to us...).
There's also a clumsy video of the boat, which I made as Tom (from Dream Catcher) and I were bringing her back from Florida before starting any projects.
Finally! You've been asking for an updated walk through of Fat Chance and here it is. I took this one while anchored off of Staniel Cay in the mid Exumas, Bahamas. Most, but not all of the projects have been done. There are a couple asthetic projects and a couple electric projects left that I just couldn't get to before leaving for the Bahamas, so they're on our list to do next summer.
The Updated Fat Chance Walk-thru Video
Enjoy!