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Lots of boats come to Oriental, some tie up at the Town Dock for a night or two, others drop anchor in the harbor for a while. If you've spent any time on the water you know that every boat has a story. The Shipping News on TownDock.net brings you the stories of the boats that have visited recently.

Living the Dash
Exposition In No Hurry
May 7, 2010

T
he Poormon family is living the dash. “On a tombstone, it’s the line between the date you were born and the date you died” says Todd Poormon, “now that’s how you live the years between those two dates… that’s living the dash.” For most of us, living the dash may mean decades of commuting to the office. For the family of three aboard the “Exposition”, it has meant reviving an abandoned boat and fueling their voyage with a mixture of odd jobs, improvisation and the occasional bit of loot plucked from the anchorage.

Sailing the dash: Todd, Maria and Kim Poormon with collie “Bud” at the town dock.

Todd and Kim have known each other since they were teenagers and met at a carnival. Both grew up in New York state – he in Waterloo, she in Seneca Falls. They later moved to Holly Hills, near Daytona, Florida, where they own a home. For the past three years they and their daughter Maria have traveled by boat between Florida and New York because, as Todd says,“I’m 45” and “want to do it now while I have the exuberance”.

Exuberance. It’s what fuels the Poormon’s voyage.

Take their vessel “Exposition”.

Exposition.

Todd found the 32-foot fiberglass cutter three years ago in the Gulf Port, Florida municipal anchorage. The boat was in a semi-abandoned state – the underwater part of the hull covered in three years’ worth of marine growth. The vessel was in such poor repair, there was concern it could sink at anchor, creating a hazard to navigation. So Todd struck a deal with her owner. If the engine started and the vessel could “move the boat fore and aft” Todd would buy her.

The engine started. The vessel moved. Todd bought her for “a heck of a deal” and the adventure began.

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Despite the vessel’s deteriorated state, much of the damage was superficial. “Bags and bags” of garbage where removed from below decks. The hull was scraped and painted. The rig was tuned. In months, the family was on their way.

From Florida, the Poormon’s traveled up the ICW as far as New York City. There, they followed the Hudson river north toward upstate New York, where they grew up. In Castleton on the Hudson, south of Albany, they dropped Exposition’s mast and toured the Erie Canal. That winter, they headed back to Florida. This year, they’re headed back to the Erie Canal. One of their goals? To see “if the scuttlebutt is true” that the hand cranked winch they used to lower their mast last year has been replaced by an electric motor.

Stern with no name: the Poormon’s boat came into their lives called “Exposition”. But they liked the name “No Hurry”. Fearing the bad luck that’s associated with changing a vessel’s name, they amended the name to “Sailing Vessel Exposition Sailing as No Hurry”. No word as to when the name will appear on the stern.

The Poormon’s consider themselves coastal cruisers, preferring the backwaters to blue water passages. Their vessel, with its high free board and 3 1/2-foot draft, is their “motor home on the water”. Jerry cans stowed on deck insure plenty of fuel for motoring. Seven solar panels provide power for refrigeration, navigation and charging of ship-board electronics. Sail bags and a life raft canister occupy the space between the mast and the forward hatch.

Jerry cans, shore cords and coiled lines…
Homeschooling break: Between lessons, Maria works on her computer while Kim mans the galley.
When asked what she misses most, Maria says “her room” back in the family’s Florida home.

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One of the questions the Poormons get most is, “What kind of boat is that?” With her ample free board, wide beam and square stern, she harks back to the 1970s era of cruising boats. Is she a Morgan Out Island? A flush-decked steel cruiser? Todd has turned the question into a game.

What kind of boat is this?

The rules are simple, the stakes nautical. Folks get three shots at guessing “Exposition”‘s pedigree. If they get it right, they’re invited aboard for a shot of rum. If they get it wrong, they owe the ship’s crew two.

So far, it’s kept the crew of “Exposition” in a steady supply of drinks. (Publisher’s note: TownDock.net staff only ventured one guess in the game as it was too early in the morning to risk losing – or winning. To keep the game going, “Exposition”‘s make and model will be kept a secret.)

Todd Poormon has a game for you.
To listen to Todd and the family explain the game, click on the audio player:


Kim lifts Bud, the family’s teenage collie, aboard.

Then there’s the matter of finances. Living the dash takes cash. In some cases, lots of it. The Poormon’s spoke with a couple who spend over thirty thousand dollars per year cruising. So how do the Poormon’s do it – and what do they spend? Todd and Kim’s specialty are cobbler and drawing maps for land surveyors – jobs not associated with cruising under sail. So the two have picked up work along the way including building seawalls, leather repair and driving piles for two weeks.

To stretch funds, they anchor out when possible – a tactic that on one occasion helped pump up the kitty. In Fernandina Beach, Florida, “Exposition” fouled her anchor in the anchorage. The family dragged the obstruction to the surface to discover they’d latched onto an orphaned, high dollar, stainless steel WASI anchor – complete with chain. They quickly sold the treasure to a visiting yachtsman “for a few hundred dollars…” After shelling out forty dollars of their “new-found wealth” for an overnight slip in a marina, they returned to life on the hook.

Money hook: the Danforth-style anchor sporting bent fluke after its encounter with another anchor.

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Other ways to economize have included bartering or salvaging much of “Exposition”‘s on-board gear. A washer and dryer in need of repair was traded for a Loran unit. The 12-volt fridge was found on the side of the road and repaired with a can of coolant. That project set the family back twenty-three dollars. The stainless steel alcohol oven and stove cost one hundred dollars. Then there’s the wood stove.

Todd found the shell “in a guy’s yard” on Tangier Island. It wasn’t working. When he approached the owner about buying the stove, he was informed the stove was being thrown out. Ever-resourceful, the family set about rebuilding the stove for shipboard use.

The stove after remodeling.

Originally a Dickinson diesel heater, Todd refitted the stove to burn wood. That way the family could “pick up limbs and driftwood” to keep warm, thus saving money. He cut down a barbecue grill to fit inside the burn chamber. To knock the ash off the embers, he stacked two pieces of grill, one atop the other, inside the stove. To catch the ash, he built a metal ash tray that sits at the bottom of the stove.

Watch your fuel: burning diesel is expensive. Burning pressure treated wood is worse.

The biggest challenge, though, was fueling the stove. In Cape Charles, the family gathered pieces of pine at a construction site. They burned fine in the new stove – until Todd says, “I didn’t feel so good”. The wood, it seems, was making them sick. That’s when Todd realized that, “we’re getting poisoned!”

The family had inadvertently fueled their stove with pressure-treated wood.

Lesson learned,they switched to non-treated wood. Hardwood is preferred as it creates the most heat for the least ash. Pine is next followed by charcoal briquettes in a pinch. Size also matters. Anything “larger than a brick” doesn’t fit into the stove.

All in all, the thrifty measures have paid off. In the last four months of their cruise, Kim and Todd reckon they’ve spent “around two thousand dollars”.

Sailing the dash: from Oriental, the Poormon’s plan to visit the Outer Banks, then continue to the Erie Canal.

So what’s sailing the dash been like?

Three years into their voyage, the Poormon’s marvel that more people haven’t cut the ties that hold them from their dreams, whether it’s going sailing or just making a break from the ordinary grind. What’s keeping most folks back? Todd says it mostly in peoples’ heads. “The only thing stopping you is you” he says.”

Which brings us back to how we live that slim line between the date we’re born and the date we pass. “Live the dash.” he emphasizes. Because “it’s all you’re gonna have.”

Posted Friday May 7, 2010 by Bernie Harberts


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