Nigel parachutes in

Greenline cruiser under construction in Slovenia, 2010. Photo by Nigel Calder

Today we drove down to SFO to pick up our friend Nigel Calder, who knows so much about the technical systems on boats that I don't even have the vocabulary to list his areas of expertise. I just know he's a legend in the boating world, and he happens to be Mike's best friend of 30 years and our neighbor in Maine. If you want to know more about him go to this link and scroll down to read Nigel's story, omg.

This generous person heard we were looking at a 2013 Greenline 33 foot hybrid motor cruiser as our project live-aboard, and that the boat is missing its lithium-ion batteries. This is some of what he did in the last 48 hours:

It's 4:30pm in Maine so this is okay

• Wrote his friend Japec Jakopin in Slovenia, who designed & built the boat 

• Wrote his friend Nejc Česen in Slovenia, who designed the boat's hybrid propulsion system

• Called his friend Jean Marc Zanni in Florida, who performed a previous survey on the boat and gave the current owner a quote on replacement batteries

• Wrote his friend and business partner Bruce Schwab at Ocean Planet Energy to make sure the battery quote was a good price (it was)

• Tracked down the hull number to see if his friends could pull up a history on boat being sold

• Tracked down the Greenline 33 Owner's Manual and read it cover to cover, taking notes

• Sent us a shopping list...

  • (4) 12V batteries Group 24 or larger (e.g., Group 27 or higher), each 600 Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) or higher (Walmart might be the best bet – you should be able to find something for a little over $100 each)

  • 6 feet of 1 SAE battery cable or larger (next size up is 0, also written 1/0 and pronounce one-aught)

  • 4 positive battery post clamps

  • 4 negative battery post clamps

  • 4 bottles of red wine

  • We will need simple tools + something to cut the battery cables

  • corkscrew

• Got up at 1AM last night, drove 1 hour to Portland, hopped on a 3:30AM bus to Logan, flew to San Francisco,  and emerged at midday today with a suitcase full of tools and a 4 page single-spaced checklist of electrical and other issues that he plans to go over on the boat, tomorrow.
  

There's surely more he did that we don't know about. When I tell people we have an embarrassment of riches in the friends who are helping us on this project, I am telling the EXACT TRUTH. (I need to go back in time to write up some of the other extraordinary helpers... this is why I should have started this journal at the start.)

Anyway, we raise a glass in perpetual gratitude to our friend Nigel and we'll see how tomorrow goes, and if we move forward with the boat.