Skip to main content

Well, we did it.

She's in the water and she's ours.  After a seemingly endless spring the weather has broken (kinda) and we got the one we were looking for.  Cygnet as she's named was put in the water on the morning of May 15 for the Sea Trial.  The old owner was there with a pal of his to get her prepped for us.  The Marina got her on the crane and into the water while we checked her over.

The big Crane lifts the Swan


Slowly into the water


The Sea Trial didn't last too long, under two hours.  We checked all the systems throughout, including the plumbing and electrical.  All seemed to work well.  Once in the water the previous owner started the engines and generator, and with just a little hiccup all ran well.  We did find a slightly low idle on the Port (left) engine, but nothing to be concerned about.  Kevin is very familiar with working on marine engines and should have it in tip-top shape soon!  The cold and rainy May day made it impossible to check the function of the air conditioning units.  All three ran well with a nice quiet fan and warm heat when in the heater mode, but the temperature was too chilly for the compressors to kick in.  We are taking the word of the previous owner that they all work well in A/C mode.

We ran her around the Calumet River with the previous owner at the helm and the surveyor in the engine bay checking the engines.  She ran great at cruising speed, about 12 miles per hour, the engines humming happily.  Then we cranked her up to full throttle.  The tachometers climbed past 4000 RPM as the hum turned to a growl.  Twin 454 Big Blocks pushing out all 700 horsepower through some beautifully balanced brass propellers.  The tachs topped out about 4200 RPM and we saw 23 miles per hour on the GPS.  OK, so she isn't fast, but she ran great and tracked steady.  All the gauges sat right where they should.  These engines were built to run, and they did their job very well. 

We returned to the marina, but went to the slips, not the launch dock as we'd been before.  The surveyor gave his report, he was pleasantly surprised at how well she did for a 26 year old boat.  She's been well taken care of, and just like a lady, she repays that loyalty.  With a handshake we settled the deal, and she became ours.  Payment has been made, documents signed, and she will now be our home. We are her third caretakers, the first owner only put 20 hours on her before he was transferred out of the country and had to sell her at less than one year old.  We've gotten her from owners that loved and cared for her since then, almost 25 years.  

Cygnet is a Swan

You can see she's ready.  As she sits next to the much smaller boats in this little harbor she stands proud.  She ran majestically and shows that she is up for many more years of love.





Comments

  1. As a boater from the Green Bay area, I love what you're doing and love reading the blog! One curious question - did the lower helm factor into your boat selection at all? Seems like that consumes quite a bit of space that could be used for living and/or storage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Started tracking your blog a couple years back and happening to revisit today after perhaps a full year's absence noted that we ended up purchasing (nearly) the same boat!

    After a period of casual investigation aimed at refining our needs & criteria, we launched into a very deliberate process this past July that resulted in our focusing on the 4207 as the perfect match for our needs. We narrowed to a short list consisting of a pristine '86 (full fwd suite/absent the dinette) that was re-engined with new 8.1 Mercs, trans & running gear in '06, the alternative being an '89 re-engined with Cummins diesels. We were low bid on the latter & aggressively pursued the '86, successfully closing on the sale in early Sept.

    The boat was located in Bay City, MI, requiring repositioning to the other coast and our home port of Saugatuck, MI. Although growing up around boats in our younger years, my wife and I were seriously lacking large boat experience and hired a credentialed skipper for the trip, learning a ton over the 5 days that ensued, say nothing of our time aboard thru the end of the season when the boat was hauled in early Nov.

    Along the way we bought a dinghy that just happened to be equipped to leverage the Weaver davits we already had installed on the swim platform and enjoyed the flexibility of scooting across the harbor as well as sightseeing up & down the Kalamazoo. We also assessed & equipped the boat to our liking, removing all conventional lighting & replacing with LED (bulbs, tape [all the indirect lighting ... master bed platform, forward suite & salon] and otherwise), flat-panel TV's in the salon & suites, replacing a shower sump, changing the fuel filters, servicing the genset, etc. As it goes with boats, there's never an end to the to-do list OR the wish list of things to replace or upgrade!

    Having spent more months living in our motorhome than our conventional house [in the Chicago ‘burbs] over the last 6 years, the 4207 seems cavernous by comparison, especially when standing in the galley and contemplating the ceiling height from that location and we LOVE it!! Also love the design that affords engine room access without taking apart the salon or otherwise.

    All this to say that we're chafing at the bit to get the boat back in the water & enjoy a full season in 2018. We may just venture across the lake to visit Chicago & travel up the western shore a bit ... will just have to see ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad to hear you are a new member of the 4207 brigade! It's a great boat and every time we look at something else we think how lucky we are to have Cygnet, it's the most ideal (if not perfect) boat for us. Feel free to drop by sometime if you are in the neighborhood.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Likewise, Kevin ...

      If you ever find yourself over on the other side of the Lake, we're at Tower Marine in Saugatuck (technically, Douglas), MI. The Air & Water Show is way up our list and a friend recommended tying off on a can in Monroe Harbor. It's Aug 18-19 this year & the Lake could well be cooperating on the weather front. We'd likely bring our dinghy along & would more likely venture up the River in that with a requisite stop to the Bridge House along the way ...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome TV viewers! Yes, it's cold today.

Thanks for making the trip over to the blog today after watching the story on TV or online.  If you take a look around the blog there are lots of answers to some of the questions I'm sure a lot of you have.  We wrote a post about all the costs and I'm sure many of you will start there. Here is the video link in case you missed it. Knowing how cold it is outside this morning you may also want to know how we are doing. Yesterday when Marcus and cameraman Carlos came out it was 63 degrees inside the boat.  Well with the wind we had last night and the brutally cold temperatures it's a bit cooler inside now, about 54.  We have an alarm set if the temperature in the engine room goes below 40, which it did at 5AM.  We took one of the space heaters out of the living area and moved it down to the engine room to keep things comfortable down there.  Inside the engine room you obviously have the engines, which don't use antifreeze like a car, and can be damaged by the cold.  T

You Live On a Boat? You Must Be RICH! Nope. Here is how to live aboard for cheap.

We've written before about how many people ask us private things just because we live on a boat. Since our lifestyle is a bit different than most  people there seems to be an idea that we want everyone knowing about our financial lives and personal habits.  Here are some questions we get: How much does it cost? What do you do in the winter? How do you heat/cool the boat? Do you ever leave the marina? Why are you doing this? Do you miss your house? How do you shower? How do you poop? Those last two come up a lot more often than you'd think.  Let's face it, most of us are a bit crude. Kevin has spent a lot of time with "proper" people, businesspersons, met many CEOs of large global companies or other folks you might think are high class.  Most of them turn into 14 year olds after a few cocktails.  That's when the real questions come out.  A lot of people are just curious, and their curiosity can overwhelm their sense of society, privacy, and politen

Converting to Video, Let's Jump On the Bandwagon

  For six and a half years we've been living aboard Cygnet, a 42 foot Carver 4207 Aft Cabin Motor-yacht in Chicago.  We've also been writing this blog on and off and have been featured on local news and other programs.  We've had fun but it's time we transition to another format.  Originally we wanted to write about our experience and felt that a written blog was the best way to do it.  But times are changing and we've seen many boating channels on YouTube become massive.  We have no desire to become full time YouTube Vloggers but we know people like video.  They say a picture says a thousand words, what do thousands of pictures have to say?   See you on the Small Screen, Cygnet. We've seen the writing on the wall because many of you haven't seen the writing.  Due to us only occasionally posting, and other factors, our once thriving blog has dwindled into triple digit readership.  It's time to get people excited again!  By transitioning to YouTube we ho