Author Archives: Melissa

Exotic Locations

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The cruising life is fully upon us as we begin doing boat repairs in exotic locations such as Olympia and Jarrell Cove on Harstine Island here in the south Puget Sound area. When we last left you, we were taking a break from the boat yard, then heading to Jarrell Cove to rest and recuperate while we assessed the water damage to the bulkhead.

Taking a walk on Harstine Island

It’s really different dealing with this type of boat repair now that we are cruising full time. Gone are the days where we had two days a week for Mike to give his attention to the boat. In those days we packed as much action as possible into a day and then fell into exhausted, ibuprofen-laden sleep. We are learning a new rhythm now; a kinder and gentler rhythm on the whole. Instead of two days back to back of nonstop work, we only do one at a time. Then we complain about it. But seriously, yeah. There’s a lot less frantic activity so far.

After enjoying an extra day on the dock with our friends Stephanie and David Gardiner aboard S.V. Cambria, we finally took our leave and made way to Jarrell Cove, home of friends Rose and Gary Benz. Jarrell Cove is quiet and completely protected from most weather. Aside from friends, it also offers a state park with brand new docks that have electricity. We needed electricity for the next phase of project ‘Mizzen Mast Leak’.

Galapagos at the state park dock.

During a terrific visit with Rose and Gary, during which Rose served us her famous hamburgers with all the fixings (Thanks, Rose!! Yum!) our discussion turned to the aft cabin. Gary is a master wood worker and they also have a friend, Larry, who has many years of experience repairing and building boats. We made an appointment for Gary and Larry to come down and view the damage the following morning. Sometimes it’s nice to have extra pairs of eyes on a project before you start, just to make sure everyone agrees on the important things.

The next morning saw much interesting and informative discussion around the wood damage. There was head shaking, frowning, sighing, and many an expression of commiseration. But no matter how much we discussed the problem, no decisions could be made about how to do the repair until we actually got out the tools and removed the rotted wood. I was anxious to start cutting because I was worried about my beautiful painted fiberglass wall in the aft head. It backs onto that dratted bulkhead and I was worried it would have to be destroyed.

By closing the doors on either side of the cabin, we were able to isolate the work area.

Rose had found some heavy plastic for us (Again, our thanks.) and I hung a dust curtain in the aft cabin to protect our bedding. We rigged the shop vac up on deck so the exhaust was outside the boat and donned our masks. It was time to commence to cutting!

Mike and I take a ‘surgical’ approach to work that involves cutting nasty things like rotted wood and fiberglass. One of us works as the surgeon, wielding the cutting tool. The other works as the assistant holding the vacuum nozzle close to the action. We might be forgiven for being a little anal about keeping the floor swept of debris and vacuuming the area several times an hour. It makes clean up easier, and our beds stayed clean.

We got very lucky in many ways both during this phase and in terms of what we found. We had expert advice, we had electricity for the shop vac, there was only one other boat on the dock, and the noise from our shop vac did not disturb him. (Thank you so much fellow sailor!) We never want to be ‘those’ people who make all kinds of noise in a quiet place. So we really are grateful to the other sailor who didn’t even bat an eye at our shop vac and only expressed his hope we could get all the rot removed.

We found this tube in the cockpit lazarette. Is this a joke? We laughed and laughed.

With all the compromised wood cut away, we discovered another lucky thing: the 1 1/2” thick bulkhead was actually two 3/4” sheets of marine plywood glued to one another. The word ‘glued’ as it’s used here means that glue was applied to one of the pieces of wood. It has nothing to do with how much contact was made between said pieces. Therefore, by applying constant pressure with prybars of various sizes, were able to remove the outer sheet without damaging the inner sheet, then cut away the rot up in the corner and along the side of the inner sheet of wood. This is good news because now we will scarf in new pieces of marine ply, sealed with epoxy, to the inner piece of wood.

We’ll be able to cut the new piece to fill the gap left by the builders between the top of the wood and the cabin top of the boat, making that fit snug and tight. Then we will replace the entire outer sheet and epoxy/fiberglass it to the first, making a strong bond. Replacing this entire sheet means the new bulkhead will be a smooth surface with no obvious signs of repair. The new bulkhead will be much stronger than the old one. And it’s going to look good, too!

In the photo below, the top half of the wood that backs onto the engine room has been removed. This section, which is not structural, had more rot than the bulkhead. We got lucky, once more, in that the piece of marine plywood we removed from the bulkhead is big enough to cut a new piece for this opening. That saves a bunch of money.

Area with rot cut away. Notice gap at the top.

You can also see the gap between the top of the bulkhead and the cabin top. Guess the builder decided this was ok. It’s not. See those scratches on the wood? That was supposed to help the glued panels stick together. See how clean the wood is? That’s because those scratches didn’t do a blessed thing. There was basically a void in the middle between the two pieces of plywood.

Does this look like a man who knows how to use a circular saw?

All edges on the new wood and old will be sealed with penetrating epoxy. I have already applied penetrating epoxy to some areas that showed water staining but no rot.

At the end of the day, we feel lucky that the final bulkhead will be the same depth as the original, which means we won’t have to do extra finish work on the sole of the cabin and on the massive corner piece of teak that would otherwise have to be trimmed. In a nutshell, it makes the repair that much simpler. In addition, it means that my lovely fiberglass wall in the aft head can be left alone!

Lovely Jarrell Cove on a still evening. Before the rains came again.

We have until July 10 to finish this repair and so far we are very pleased with our progress. We are also pleased to be able to address each task of the project without feeling rushed and pressured, and still be able to enjoy being on the boat in exotic locals. This weekend is the Festival of Sail in Tacoma and we want some time out among the REALLY big boats. We’ll go anchor in Gig Harbor for a bit to address the next phase of this repair.

(P.S. – I’m experimenting with software that allows me to write blog posts while offline, then publish them when I get a connection. Some things, like the photos, are a work in progress.)

Sense and Flexibility

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It’s a good thing we have no stinking schedule right now. We pulled into the dock at Swantown Marina in Olympia prepared to get a ton of stuff done at our haulout. Isn’t that hilarious? Boat owners who think many good things might happen quickly? Truly we are the clowns of the sea. We had the bottom job to do, the rest of the Hydrovane to install, the mizzen mast to pull, the new rigging for the mizzen, and the leak under the mizzen to fix. That’s a lot of things.

Before I go on, let me just make a point that if you are a young person looking at your career choices, please look no further than the trades in the marine industry. Why? Because there are not enough players on that field. The ones who are in the business are very busy. They don’t even advertise. They may not even return your calls because they don’t have time with all the work they have to do. Robots will never steal these jobs. They cannot be outsourced, either. All these fiberglass people, rigging people, general boat repair and maintenance folks, welders; they make a ton of money and get to be creative with their work. And so could you. Run down to your nearest tech school and apply, ok? We need you.

Anyhoo, we thought we had a fiberglass guy lined up. Turns out, we didn’t. And by way of having good sense and being flexible, turns out that’s ok. It gives us some time to do some of the work ourselves, which will save us money. He can’t get to us until July 10. So instead of heading north at the beginning of July, we’ll be staying down in the south sound for a few weeks longer than we thought. That’s fine with us. Claire and Dan are coming home! We’ll be here a little longer to get some visits in with them. Here’s the scoop:

Long term readers may remember that when we bought Galapagos, we knew she had a leak that had damaged the bulkhead and the engine room wall adjacent to the bulkhead in the aft cabin. This is the area where the mizzen mast is stepped. We weren’t sure what caused the leak until we took some time during our last summer cruise to isolate the problem. Unfortunately the leak was underneath the mizzen mast. Not good. That meant the mast had to be pulled. Since we knew we were hauling out before the long trip, we waited until now to worry about it, protecting that area from leaking during the wet winter.

When we bought her, she looked like this.

We had the mast pulled when we arrived and discovered that the entire floor of the fiberglass ‘shoe’ (is that the correct term?) that the mast was sitting in was cracked all the way around.  Water that came down the mast, which has about a one inch hole wide open at the top (Why??) or that collected due to rain in the basin-like ‘shoe’ could pour directly down into the wall of the aft cabin. And it sure did.

The mast step is actually sitting in this basin. How could that possibly be good?

Now let’s pause and talk about how crazy this design was from the get go. Ted Brewer designed our boat. He is famous for designing strait forward, seaworthy boats. I can’t imagine he designed this part of the boat and wonder if it was the builder who did this.  First of all, the mast already has a perfectly good step and could be installed directly onto the cabin top. (When this was discovered, this saved us the money of buying a new step.)

You can see the separation all the way around. And also the 100 Drachma coin below the step! The coin is dated 1994. So the mast was pulled then. We can’t decide if we want to replace the coin with one from this year or not. We want a Greek coin.

Then there is the issue of a copper tube drain that ran from below the mast, through the cabin top,  and down into the cockpit lazarette, where it dribbles out into the gutter of the cockpit and finally drains down and out of the boat. Really? What an over-engineered piece of wishful thinking! So many, many places for things to go horribly wrong, like they did.

The only reason any kind of fancy drain system was needed was due to this weird cup-like shoe that the mast was sitting in; the one that was practically in two pieces when we cut it off the boat. Good lord. No wonder we had a leak. What appears to have happened is that this drain wiggled loose enough to allow water to intrude into the wood. Of course, you can’t see this without taking off the mast. Nice. Over time the wood got saturated and the weight of the mast compressed it just enough to break that fiberglass ‘shoe’ and pop the fiberglass tabbing on that side of the bulkhead in the aft cabin. This is why the doors on either side of that bulkhead stick.

You can see the guilty copper drain. This has been sealed with epoxy until we can get to it. The wood at the top edge and left edge is sound. Those two bolts sticking up were holding the block to the mainsheet. We’ll need to replace the fiberglass mounting this was attached to. It leads the mainsheet to the cabin top winch.

After cutting the fiberglass shoe off the cabin top, we could see rot in the core. We knew rot was in the walls as well, but not how much. We began taking trim pieces off to assess the damage and that’s where we are today. We have until July 10 to get the bulkhead repaired and ready for the fiberglass work up top. Whoopee! We have time!

Meanwhile, Mike almost finished the install on the Hydrovane, and I got the bottom painted and, oh yeah, we got the boat surveyed again for insurance. We sprung for the money to pay someone to do the sanding and I am very glad we did. Sure, we would have saved about 450$ by sanding it ourselves, but that would have been another day in the yard. Take 40$ off that 450$. Then we would have had to buy supplies and rent the sander. That would be about another 125$. Now it’s only costing us less than $300 to have someone else tear their shoulder up sanding this big hull. That’s totally worth it. Plus the guy taped the waterline for us.

Someone ditched a half gallon of blue bottom paint. We went crazy.

So we’re back in the water, right next to Stephanie and David Gardiner on S.V. Cambria! We’ve shared a couple of dinners while we were both in the boatyard, and now we get to be on the work dock with them for a day or two. I think that means we’re cruisers now! It sure is nice to put faces to blog names by meeting them.

By the way, Stephanie and David are selling their beautiful Westerly Ocean 43. This is a stunning boat and impeccably kept. In addition, we are dead jealous of their aft cabin with the centerline standard sized queen bed and ensuite. We could use their large storage space on the bow, big enough to stand in, and their ‘garage’ inside the boat that is NOT their V berth. Sure, David swooned with envy over our engine room, but still. This boat is beautiful. If you are looking for a ready-to-go blue water cruiser, take a look at S.V. Cambria.

Our loose plan is to go see our kids this weekend and leave the boat here for a day. Then we’ll go sit in Jarrell Cove for a few days and assess the damage to the bulkhead and make decisions about whether to replace the whole thing or cut out the bad parts, jack up the cabin top a smidge, and scarf in new wood. That’s still up in the air. Next weekend is the Festival of Sail in Tacoma and the tall ships will be there! We’ll take family out on the boat and have a little fun. It just makes good sense to be flexible.  It’s pretty nice to not have a schedule.

 

 

First, Leave the Dock

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When people ask Mike and me what our travel plans are aboard Galapagos, we really have to kind of shrug, give a general overview of where we dream of going, and then we fall back on, ‘First, we have to leave the dock.’

Yesterday we did it. After 5 years of working toward this goal, this day where we would finally untie our lines and leave the marina and our land lives behind for awhile, this day that had loomed large and, sometimes, dark in my imagination, came and went the way all other days come and go. As just a matter of course. The time passed gently by, a sigh rather than a wail. It was a huge relief.

There’s our slip, empty as we pull away. It was filled about 2 hours later with the next customer.

Like all big life transitions, we did feel as though we should mark the day in some way. How should we do that? Should we have a party? Should we do some ritual spitting and whirling? Should everyone gather at the dock and wave goodbye? All of that seemed too much and not right, and we ended up doing nothing formal at all, which is kind of our style anyhow. And it turned out to be the perfect choice.

Friends Carolyn and Arlen and their dandy dog Monroe saw us off the dock and held the bow line just to make me feel better. Then they were there to catch our lines as we pulled up to the fuel dock. Friend Sam who works at the marina was there to help us fill the fuel tanks. In the end, with hugs and well wishes all around, we slipped away and into the placid waters of Commencement Bay, the whole world in front of us.

The lack of obvious fanfare does not mean, however, that we didn’t have some mighty fine omens in the mix. Mike and I learned to sail on Commencement Bay. We cut our teeth on those waters in our Catalina 27, Saucy Sue. Last year we joined a racing crew aboard SV Blue Moon. As we were at the fuel dock, who should come by but Blue Moon! They were going out for a pleasure sail and we got to say hello and goodbye to her captain and many of the crew we raced with last season. It was just so very good to see them all! I have really missed those Wednesday night races and the crew of Blue Moon very much. We learned a lot about sail trim last season, but mostly we enjoyed the crew and just being aboard with them.

As we pulled out into Foss Waterway, we passed another sailboat and Mike waved to Mike Rice, his sailing instructor from his ASA 101 class 13 years ago. I kind of wanted to pull over and let Mike tell his old teacher what he’s up to now, but we carried on, the symbolism of the  moment enough.

When you add to the fact that we took on only 108 gallons of fuel to fill the tank instead of the over 200 we had anticipated, the day was shaping up nicely and the omens for the trip were all to the good.

Farewell for now, Tacoma.

As we rounded Point Defiance going with the current, there was an eagle hunting the waters off the point, my personal talisman of good fortune when we begin any trip.  There were many seals in the water sending us off, as well as some harbor porpoises. What a day!

We made excellent time on completely flat, sometimes glassy, water down to Henderson Inlet, just north of Olympia. The engine chugged merrily, happy to be useful again. The cockpit cushions I made felt luxurious. I had zero anxiety. That was the very best omen of all. We dropped our new Mantus anchor overboard, it caught as we expected it would, I made the first entry in the log book, and now the first day is over and done. Just like that. Just like any other day.

Next stop, the boatyard. We’ll do a bottom job on our big girl, pull the mizzen and fix the leak underneath that, and probably tie up some other loose ends that are best attended to on the hard.  After that we plan to find a nice place to anchor in Gig Harbor for the rest of the month. We are really looking forward to that, for some reason. (Maybe that has to do with resting!) We like Gig Harbor, and being there for awhile will offer us a way to transition to this boat life and still have a few land based amenities, not to mention access to family and friends while we are still in the area. The tall ships are coming to Tacoma in June and we plan a couple of day sails out among the big girls with family aboard. You know nothing makes me happier than that. Unless it’s seeing whales. And that will be later this summer. Get ready, whales! Mike is practicing his whale calling songs!

So, we’re off. Phase one of Little Cunning Plan, Leave the Dock, is complete. On to phase two. Where will it take us? I guess we will see!

I want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to our family and friends who have been nothing but supportive of this life transition. To a person, they have all helped us embrace the challenge, have supported us emotionally when things were hard, have offered to help when things were tough, have been proud of what we are doing, and have never, even once, tried to hold us back. This is no small thing. And this is not the experience many people have when they decide to go cruising on a sailboat. Thank you so much Claire and Andrew, Mom, Amy, Darin, Will, Reid, Jill, Dan, Carolyn, Karen, and Molly. Thank you for your support, for believing in us, for not thinking we are crazy, for knowing we have to do this now or risk never doing it at all, for all the reassurances that this will work. We love you all so much.

Thank you to all the many friends we have; too many to list here but you know who you are. Thank you for your kindness and support and your continued friendship in the face of our distracted lives. We know it must have surely looked many times like we were not paying attention. It means more to us than you will ever know that you continued to be our friends anyhow. And we will miss you all dearly.  We will pay your kindness forward in the world, to be sure. And we’ll be back.