Pearl Lee – Endeavour 43

 

Endeavour 43

Finding Pearl Lee

SV (Sailing Vessel) Pearl Lee is a 1981 Endeavour 43 Ketch designed by Robert Johnson and built in Largo, FL. She is number 191 of 199 Endeavour 43s ever built. We became the third owners of this particular Endeavour 43 finding her in LaSalle, Ontario, Canada. We fell in love with her layout above and below deck and managed to negotiate the purchase. It took several weekends of traveling between Rockford, IL and LaSalle, ON for us to get her ready for the trip home. Eventually we brought her 750 miles through the Great Lakes to Racine, WI. Due to her age and American origin, importation was no problem at all, thanks in no small part to very helpful US Customs officer at Drummond Island.

Endeavour 43s have two private staterooms, each with a private head (toilet) and shower. She’s 43 feet long on deck, plus bowsprit and dinghy davits, for a total of about 50 feet. At 14 feet wide and 33,000 pounds empty Pearl Lee is a big girl, but her bow thruster helps when docking. Pearl Lee needs 5’3″ of water to float. Her main mast towers 60 feet above the water plus antenna and wind instruments. With 200 gallons of water she is built for extended cruising.

The Engine Room

She’s powered by a Perkins 4.236 (4 cylinder, 236 cubic inch) diesel producing 86hp. It’s a marine version of a popular old tractor engine. We get about 6 mpg and with 153 gallons of fuel, we don’t have to make many fuel stops. Without pushing her hard our speed under power has ranged from a peak of almost 15 mph (on the swollen Mississippi) to a low of 6 mph (going UP the Ohio). Of course our preferred propulsion method is sail, and under good conditions, and with no current, we sail between 7 and 9 mph. The engine room is also home to our water filtration/sterilization system, water heater, pressure water pumps, battery chargers, etc. Sort of like the basement or utility room in your house.

Electricity

When we’re away from the dock we get our electricity from four 280 watt solar panels. They are hooked to a Midnite Solar Classic controller which charges our eight golf cart batteries which are wired to give us 12v power. With 900 amp hours of battery capacity we don’t worry much about running low, even on rainy days. You can read more about our electrical system here. We don’t run our air conditioner while away from the dock, but manage to stay comfortable with some innovations in addition to the occasional swim. You can find information on  how we stay cool without AC here.

Why Pearl Lee?

From Kristi: She is named Pearl Lee after Tom’s mom who was a very stoic woman that complained about nothing despite having cancer for the second time when we lost her. She had to have her Mompacemaker removed for radiation with the second round of cancer and that slowed her down immensely yet she never complained nor asked for help. We moved Pearl in with us about 3 weeks before she died and I became her sole care taker. She had a few strokes making verbalizing some words impossible, like Kristi, and she would ask Tom, “where’s my Chi Chi?”, so Chi Chi became my name.

After Pearl’s death, we began looking at boats, found the Endeavour and fell in love with her. Tom suggested we name her “As You Wish” (something he says to me often) and I suggested “Pearl Lee”. It stuck & I cannot imagine a better name. We like to think that she’s watching and smiling at our adventures.

Follow along as we repair, restore and modify our floating home. We often use unorthodox, but well researched, methods and equipment.

Here is a quick tour of our home, SV Pearl Lee.