Thanks for the info folks, I'll take a better look at it this week. I like the idea of using an echo charger.
I am fairly certain the alternator is only hooked up to the starter battery, which I assume is because the starter is not a gel battery and the two house batteries are. The batteries are fairly recent (in the last year). It's not ideal, but we'll get it there one way or another. Right now, the house batteries are only hooked up to the shorepower charger.
Steve Laume wrote:Congratulations on selling Mariah and the purchase of your new mystery boat. You really do have to tell us what beauty swayed you away from another Cape Dory.
The boat is a Golden Gate 30, a Chuck Burns design that was built under several names (Bodega 30, Golden Gate 30, Bay Island 30, and Farallon 29). Most of the companies that built the boat went under over the years, but the design kindof lingered until the last manufacturer went bellyup in the 80s.
We were enamored with the design when we went aboard a Bodega 30 about 2 months ago, I've not seen another full keel boat that had such a functional interior layout in 30ft. The Bodega had 5 berths, a full galley (stand in), and nav table. We pretty much immediately realized that we needed to move up to another boat if we were going to spend any kind of time living aboard. We wanted to emphasize build quality and safety over interior, but the Carl Alberg interior below 33ft just didn't work for us, there wasn't enough space and the layout was difficult for us to make work living aboard.
We contemplated reworking Mariah's interior to our suiting, but decided that, at the end of the day, we were better off just moving to another boat. The other issue being that we couldn't spend the money necessary to get another boat that had the interior we wanted (CD33, PSC31, etc). The price of the GG30/B30 was more in our range, but had everything we wanted. We ended up finding the GG30 and were kindof surprised, since there aren't many on the East Coast, the boat was stripped in 2010 and fitted with a new 2YM15, all new electrical, plumbing, new interior, dodger, fridge, hot water, etc. The boat needs a little work here and there, but for the most part, it's completed and has everything the two of us need. The interior layout of the GG30 is very different than the Bodega we looked at, but it was something that still worked much better for us.
The space down below is created by a MUCH smaller cockpit, I'd say it's about 3ft shorter than the cockpit in Mariah, but for the two of us, that isn't an issue. We love all of the CD boats, but with recent changes in our life, we'll be able to cruise more and the GG30 fit our needs a lot better than other 30ft boats in our price range.
Here are some pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1147519397 ... 64bM2dOYLg
She does have bronze portlights, does that mean I can still ask questions here?
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)