Sea Feaver

SEA FEVER (SF) – FAQ’s

What kind of boat is SF?
Sea Fever is an aft-cabin motoryacht. The main defining feature of the motoryacht style, is the big windows in the salon. There are many other styles of boats, with beautiful interiors, but all the living quarters are more “down under”. We like the windows, light and air (when we can open the door, hatches and windows. The aft cabin design gets double use of that footage, with the master stateroom underneath the aft deck (other boats will have their aft cockpit closer to the water, often for fishing purposes, with no bedroom underneath)

How big is SF?
44’ long, 14.7’ beam (width) and 4.5 draft (depth from waterline), 19’ high (from waterline).

How long have you had this (other) boat?
We bought SF in 2011, in Virginia Beach. We had For Play (a smaller version of SF) for 12 years before that.

What is this trip you are doing?
We are doing the Great Circle Loop – a 6,000-7,000 mile continuous route by water. The IntraCoastal Waterway (ICW) goes from Texas, around Florida and ends in Norfolk. From there, the route goes up the Chesapeake Bay, around Jersey shore to NYC, up Hudson River. The cross-over can be done through the Erie Canal or the St Lawrence Seaway, to the Great Lakes – across all those and then down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf – and then back to Florida.
We bought our first boat in Wilmington, NC, in 2000. We went south for various reasons (even though the Loop should be done counter-clockwise because of the river currents)…took For Play all the way to Key West and across to the Bahamas. Our thought, then, was that we would go to New Orleans or Texas – sell that boat – buy a different boat in the middle of East Coast and head northward for the second half of the Loop. But we were ready to head to the Gulf Coast right after Katrina and that area/marinas, etc was pretty beat up; we weren’t ready for the boat to be farther from home; and, we thought we might keep that boat for the whole Loop. Soooo, we turned around and just repeated all the area that we had done.
For other reasons, we DID end up selling For Play and buying Sea Fever – then headed north to complete the rest of the Loop. During the summer of 2012, we lived aboard for four months and cruised the Chesapeake Bay, up Potomac to DC, Jersey Shore, NYC and Hudson River. We left Sea Fever in a building on the Hudson River, just south of Albany NY, for the winter.

During the summer of 2013, we lived aboard for 5 months and covered about half of the loop! We started where we left off, on the Hudson River, went west on the Erie Canal, across the eastern end of Lake Ontario, westward into Canada on the Trent Severn Waterway and across the vast Georgian Bay, then North Channel (Lake Huron), down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to Chicago…then south on the rivers – Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland – continued south on the Tenn-Tom Waterway to the Tennessee River. At that point, we took a detour eastward on the beautiful Tennessee River to Chattanooga, where we are lingering for much of 2014. This is the closest SF will ever be to Atlanta…so we will probably head back out sometime in August …….Summer of 2014 – cruised from Chattanooga to Stuart, FL and completed the Loop!
How long will you be on the boat?
All the distance on For Play took 12 years. Historically, we only went to the boat for 5-10 days at a time, moved the boat about 30 miles per trip and lingered (boat stayed and we went back and forth) in places that we liked. Last summer and this summer is definitely the longest we have been live-aboards – between 4-5 months each – flying home and elsewhere for work, when needed. When we head back out at the end of this summer, we will hopefully “cross our wake” (complete the Loop) in Stuart, FL by Thanksgiving 2014.

How did you get interested in doing this?
Debi can’t remember how she first heard of the ICW, but she does remember that once she heard about it, she was hooked on the concept of going to a lot of places by water. We have had a lake boat, for years, and that is fun but every time you are on the boat, you basically go out and repeat the same circle every time/week-end/month/year. J
Later, when Debi learned that this concept could take us on a BIG LOOP, she was bound to complete that journey. Jim has been taken hostage, but also likes arriving into new ports.

How did you learn how to run the boat?
We did not learn the proper way – wise people would take the Coast Guard Power Squadron or similar course. We watched a video and read a book called “Idiot’s Guide to Boating”….and that was it! We just took off from Wilmington, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC– in December of 2000 – so, fortunately, there weren’t many boaters out on the water. We learned from trial and error – was at the mercy of always changing mechanics, etc – so we made a lot of errors! But we have learned a lot and are much better prepared now.

How much fuel does the boat hold? Mileage?
We don’t have a manual with complete specs for SF, but we think she holds 550 gallons of fuel and we get about 1.2 miles per gallon. Unfortunately, Jim has figured out that math –

How are you managing your lives, being gone so long?
Debi planned extensively to make our two businesses “remotable”. Kathryn (part-time Innkeeper) and Josie are handling Sugar Magnolia, quite ably. We have the best EMSTAR team we have ever had – they all are taking care of their own projects. But we also work, on the boat – with today’s technology, we are able to stay in touch with our staff, join meetings by phone and/or by computer, etc. Debi goes home most months to supervise payroll, but some months she did that in absentia by leaving our bookkeeper with a stack of signed checks. L So far, everything has run smoothly and we are enjoying our waterfront office.