Ben, Laura, Molly and Madelyn are preparing for a year long voyage aboard Have Another Day, a 57 foot 2003 Carver Voyager 570. We are planning to do the Great Loop, a loop of the eastern portion of the United States. We will leave from Chicago, head west on the Illinois River and meet up with the Mississippi River and head south. From there we will either continue down the Mississippi to New Orleans and out to the Gulf of Mexico or we will hook up with the Tennessee Tom Bigbee Waterway and head south there meeting up with the Gulf near Gulf Shores, Alabama. Once on the Gulf we will make our way around Florida, head to the Bahamas for a while then make our way north up the eastern seaboard. We will begin heading back west at New York taking the Erie Barge Canal back to the Great Lakes and eventually home.
Molly and Madelyn will be missing their fourth and first grade years of school. We are planning to home school them for the year. We hope the combination of their parents’ ability to facilitate their education as well as the experiences along the way will make our decision to home school them a successful one.
Have Another Day's Great Loop 
We’ll be with you all the way!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My name is John Fitzgerald with Saunders Yachtworks. I left a card on the boat yesterday at Burnham Harbor. I saw your post on the AGLCA blog and then saw the boat. I admire your sense of adventure and think it is great that you are giving your daughters such an amazing experience! Our company operates two yards and offers full mechanical services in coastal Alabama. We are right along your path if you need us. Over the years we have supported many loopers and the Alabama coast is a wonderful place to visit while passing through. Look us up at saundersyacht.com. I look forward to meeting you along the way!
LikeLike
So glad to see you and your family have great weather for the first day on your once in a lifetime journey.
LikeLike
I heard a couple weeks ago that the Stein’s have set sail on their big adventure. Congratulations!
Ever since then I’ve been living vicariously through your postings while grudging pursuing the life of a lowly HVAC contractor high and dry bound to shore. May the mechanical gods be with you and the good ship run flawlessly.
Just remember my motto, if you have trouble fixing anything that breaks, just hit it with a hammer. It won’t fix it but you’ll feel much better.
Safe trip my friend and say Bon Voyage to the whole Stein family for me.
LikeLike
Hi Ben & Laura – I have been following your blog you since you left. I think it is a great experience for your kids! Not many people would do what you are doing. We completed our Loop in 2012, and boat on the Mississippi in Red Wing, MN. Going thru downtown Chicago via boat was one of our favorite highlights. Loved your last blog on maintaining the boat. I’m a bit of a great head also – love crawling thru the boat.
The best of your trip is yet to come.
Ken Goewey
20 BUCK$
Red Wing, Mn
LikeLike
Hi Ken,
Thanks for your comment. I stalked your loop via your blog. Our previous boat was a Cruisers 4450 so I was pretty active on the Cruisers forum when you were on the loop.
Ben
LikeLike
Hi – I see you toured the Yorktown! One of my dock mates was the dentist on that ship. We also toured it, and I found a picture of Jim drilling away on a sailor. Was neat to see the kids sitting in the chair. I’m sure Jim would have given them a free cleaning!
Ken G
LikeLike
I had to go search out the Cruisres forum to find the conversation – forgot that’s where I found you guys!
LikeLike
Hi Ben & Laura – I saw your post RE 5′ on the Rideau. We saw two boats in front of us hit on the Rideau.
Locals wish it was deeper, as many want to get into bigger boats. If you don’t do it, you GOTTA do the Trent. Canada was the BEST part of the trip.
LikeLike
As wonderful as the Seakeeper-gyros are (and Westport’s 125 comes with two) — if you want a way to handle more than the ROLL both at anchor and when cruising, here is a way to ELECTRICALLY, with a much-smaller FOOTPRINT and INVESTMENT, handle the other-two axes (PITCH, as in pounding, and YAW, as in broaching in a following sea), PLUS have TRIM-control, Dynamic-Positioning, and Emergency-Propulsion; go to …
https://www.rotorswing.com/wing-yacht-stabilizer and read EVERYTHING re their WING stabilization-system (not their Rotor-one re magnus-effect). I’m not affiliated with either Seakeeper or Rotorswing — i found this looking for a way to not use flopper-stoppers: 3-axis, 0-spd, tc, dp, + ep via the WING (40-100′, 12-40m). They were at the Dusseldorf boat show in 2016. (sorry i didn’t read your panbo-blog-entry before you bought the seakeeper).
LikeLike