Author Archives: Melissa

May I Have the Envelope, Please?

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This week our Little Cunning Plan reached an important milestone. Have we sailed across the Columbia River Bar? No. Have we anchored somewhere overnight? Well, no. Have we docked without drama? Decidedly not. Sorry.

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But, oh happiness! Joy! Rapture! Bring out the champagne! After weeks of perseverating, we finally have a name for our boat. We know some people have been a little, er, frustrated at our delay in naming this vessel. More than one reader has commented to us that we really need to get around to the business of naming the boat. And it would be a lie if I said we didn’t feel a certain amount of internal pressure to get it done. But we couldn’t rush the process. That’s not how we roll around here. We wait for epiphanies to come. We may have to wait awhile, but we’re generally not disappointed in the end and this time is no exception.

All this time Mike and I have been bouncing all kinds of words and names around, hoping one would have that certain ‘ring’ to it. We played word games in the car on the way to Astoria. We created lists on our iphones. Mine had, oh, about 40 word combinations. In the mornings we texted each other names that came to us in the night. We cast our nets far and wide for this. But we just couldn’t agree on one. The ones Mike came up with left me saying, ‘Hmmm’.  The ones I came up with left Mike flat.

We need a name that will fit on the transom.

We needed a name that will fit on the transom.

Finally I decided we better get more serious about this naming business. When all else fails, reach for logic and organization, right?  We would get out the large paper easel and sit it on the table. We would make our word cloud of our favorite words and write all the combinations we loved. Then we would each make a list of our top 10 names and see where the lists overlapped; like a venn diagram, except we never got that far.

I cleared the table and got out the magic marker. Surely some of its magic would bleed into our process. We made our word cloud and our lists. I picked my top 10. When Mike could come up with only 6, I knew we were in trouble, especially since my two not-so-secret top names were not even on it. Only one name was common between our lists: Saucy Swan. We both heaved great sighs. Neither of us really thought that was the right name for the boat. Logic had failed us yet again.

For the record, until the name revealed itself  my top pick was Flying Duchess, followed very closely by Queen of Skye, and in that order only because Mike would probably eventually have agreed to Flying Duchess.

For the non-boaters among you, naming a boat is harder than naming children.  This is especially true if the boat is a Coast Guard documented vessel.  Take a look at the completely scientifically accurate chart below. Then, using the link in blue above, go to the website and look up your favorite boat names. Then come back and continue reading with more compassion, okay?

                          Child Name                                               Vessel Name
Can be complex, named after many ancestors        Must be simple, one word is best
Unique names likely to attract bullies                        Unique name is best
Name said three times = kid in trouble                      Name said three times = radio use
We also wanted the name to remind us of why we have the boat; to bring up feelings we associate with the boat and with the trip we want to take. The name needed to generate the right kind of emotional tone. So that makes it all a little more complex. While it’s important to us to go through the motions of choosing a name logically, kind of like we went through the motions of choosing a boat logically, (you know, making lists and all that) in the end it is the gut that chooses the name. And it is some kind of boat name sorcery that brings the name into conscious awareness. Just like choosing a boat. You know it when it comes to you and only in hindsight will it make sense.

This name arrived through fabric. That’s right. You’ll recall that I bought fabric to cover the cushions in the salon. I knew the minute I saw this fabric that it was perfect. It had all the colors I love, and just looking at it made me happy. It’s the kind of fabric that took me exactly 30 seconds to choose. All the cells vibrated when I saw it.  I wanted to touch it, clutch it tightly to me. This was a fabric of blue water, of bright colors, of fantasy. I would not be leaving the store without it regardless of cost. So I simply could not believe it was only 5$/yard. At that price, the universe was practically giving it to me. I should have known then there was more to this fabric than met the eye.

The glorious fabric. I could eat it with a spoon I love it so much.

I got 10 yards of it, but I needed a few more. I had bought all the stock the store had, so I had to rely on the web. I knew the designer name as it was on the selvage of the fabric. But I didn’t know the name of the pattern. FabricGuru.com carried this design house and I matched it quickly. The name of the design?

Galapagos

My heart gave a little flip flop. My mouth opened on its own.

“Hey Mike! You will never believe what this fabric design is called!”, I shouted from across the house.

“What?”, he yelled. I walked into his office.

“Galapagos”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not. Can you believe it?

“Wow! (Pregnant pause) That would be a great name for a boat.”, he said.

We exchanged knowing looks, energy fields crackling as one.

“Yes, it sure is.”  I replied.

The name had announced itself.  It had presence in the room. After that, the name would not leave my head. I don’t know how Mike’s head reacted, since I’m not in there and he doesn’t tend to focus as minutely on these things as I do. But each time I asked if he still liked the name ‘Galapagos’, he looked at me in that way he does when he is confused by the question. So there it is.

Yes, hindsight is certainly 20/20 sometimes. Some people dream of doing a circumnavigation.  When we dream of this big trip, we dream of going to the Galapagos Islands and then down the coast of Chile. The rest is up for grabs. We’ve talked about this lots of times. Mike has always wanted to see that part of the world.  I studied the biogeography of the Galapagos Islands back in the day when I had planned to become a marine biologist. I only this year gave away all my research papers, written on erasable typewriter paper back in the late 1970’s; carefully footnoted and annotated. I wrote about the marine iguanas. There was another one about the Darwin’s finches. Then there was one about the tortoises. I gave the papers to my neighbors who were preparing for a trip to those islands. Maybe they didn’t read them, but somehow I couldn’t throw them away. I wrote a lot of research papers during my undergraduate years. I didn’t keep them all. Only those.

When we were looking at boats, my mantra was that I wanted a boat that could take us to the Galapagos Islands and down the coast of Chile safely.  And she appeared. How dense are we that we didn’t know her name all along?

So she is named. Maybe I’ll ask my neighbors if they still have those papers I wrote. If they do, I will put them on the boat as a special talisman. I also have a picture somewhere of me sitting on a real Galapagos Tortoise back in the early 1960’s (before animal rights was a ‘thing’). I need to find that.  I have had the special champagne for her christening for many weeks, waiting in the boat for her baptism. We’re planning to bring her up to Washington over the 4th of July holiday, gods willing. We think having the naming ceremony out on the Pacific Ocean would be just about perfect.

S/V Galapagos

S/V Galapagos. Let it be written, let it be done.

Dessert First!

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Detaching the rode from the chain.

This weekend Mike and I had an epiphany. We’re both in our ’50s and it is only now clear to us that our mothers were completely wrong. Also wrong were all the nutrition ‘experts’, doctors, school teachers, Mrs. Kravitz, and any other so-called ‘authority’  or rule-lover who insisted that dessert be eaten only at the end of a meal. Eating dessert at the end of a meal is a risky business. While you are busy filling up on broccoli and brussels sprouts with broiled chicken on the side all the desserts are being enjoyed by people smarter than you who know how to go out and have fun. We will become those people beginning next weekend.

If you think I’m really talking about food, you haven’t been reading this blog for very long. I forgive you. I’m talking about sailing and the fact that we haven’t been having any lately. And why is that? Because we are both hard-working American oldest children, that’s why. We work with almost religious zeal. You’d think we would be raptured at any moment. This must stop. If getting out on the water is the dessert of life, and I reckon it must be if we’re willing to work this hard for it, then we’re going to start eating that first and saving the work for later.

Here’s how these weekends go: Drive to Astoria on Friday night, commence working on S/V Nameless. Drop into bed around 11:00, asleep before hitting the hay. Mike gets up early on Saturday morning and commences to work again. Melissa gets up slightly later and also commences to work. Coffee is made and imbibed. Someone makes breakfast, the only meal of the day that is actually attended to. Work continually Saturday, noticing the sunshine and warm temperatures. Try to ignore it. Go to bed only when the body literally will not obey commands anymore. Repeat on Sunday, by which time the body is screaming in protest (especially the hands. Oy vey. The hands, they do hurt.) Work until almost dinner time, then load the car with this week’s projects and drive home for 3 hours. Feel greenly envious of people who were on the water today.

We had the idea that this weekend we would do work on Saturday, then leave Sunday to go out on the River and play with the boat. Work first, play later. Sounds good in theory. But the ‘play later’ never happened. Here is why:

It’s a little hard to leave the dock with this happening on deck. Mike removed all the chain form the chain locker so we could look it over. This is on our list of ‘must do’s’ before leaving Astoria for Puget Sound. Turns out that the longest chain, which is at least 300 feet, is actually in great condition. The shorter one, which was attached to rope rode, is the iffy one. So he removed the shorter chain and we’ll have that checked out. The anchor and chain on the boat are ready to go. Down below, I was faced with this:

The anchor locker was filthy. With all the chain and rode removed, this was the perfect time to get it cleaned and painted, a job that took better than half the day. Now it looks like this. Got to love Bilge Kote. I won’t bore you with the washing, sanding, and painting. I already lived it once. Why should I make you suffer? Notice that ugly net? This divides the anchor locker into two spaces and ostensibly it keeps one chain from infringing on another. It may have worked well before, but we’re not impressed now. Mike will be redesigning the interior of this space in the future. For now he put Dri Deck at the bottom of the locker to keep air circulating and keep the chain from marring my pretty painted finish. With anchors and chains off the boat, Mike was able to get to the anchor rollers. They are aluminum. Who knew? He removed them, cleaned them up, and lubricated all moving parts. . 

While I worked on the anchor locker, Mike was working on installing the fuel gauge. He was not having a good time. The hole was slightly larger than it needed to be and he’d planned to buy some Star Board at Englund’s. Problem is they’ve never heard of Star Board there. We are unimpressed with that marine store overall. They rarely have what we’re looking for. He spent enough time on this project that he actually got pretty frustrated. Enough said.

Not going anywhere with a cockpit looking like this.

While he was cursing in the cockpit, I did some sewing below. I’ve been working on cushion covers for the salon settees. This is not on our list of ‘required’ things to finish before we leave Astoria, but it’s a soothing project that I can do a little at a time. I have decided sewing these by hand is the best way since these are temporary covers. When we remodel the salon in the future, all will be replaced, so I’m doing these the fast, cheap, easy way. Basically they remain unfinished on the bottom side. That’s where the ‘cheap’ comes in. It saves fabric. I found this fabric for 5$ a yard, which is almost like stealing it. If I don’t have enough for the seat backs, I’ll just get a matching solid color. It’s a good thing I take photos or I wouldn’t be able to remember all the projects we have going on at once. Still waiting for the Bilge Kote to dry, Mike returned to his latest nemesis: the aft head. Recall we took about 30 feet of hose out of the engine room. Mike replaced that with some pvc pipe, connected with regular boat sanitation hose (to absorb vibration).  Finding a way to hook this up to the head itself in a tight space required some sharp turns. In the future we may move the head to the other side of the bathroom where the plumbing will be a straight shot into the oversized holding tank. But for now, we just need a completely plumbed head that dumps into a holding tank in order to be legal on the water. Our forward head goes directly overboard, so we’ll have to take that out of service and ziptie the seacock closed.  Check that off the list.

It’s said you can flush a raincoat down these. We will not be testing that theory.

In the future we’d like to get the bases for both heads sandblasted and let them go green. Industrial art. Perhaps walls of a pale tangerine would show these off well. With the head plumbed and the Bilge Kote dry, Mike returned chain and rode to the locker. While he did that, I began a cleaning project in the area around the aft head. Sometime in the past a previous owner decided that wallpaper and boats went well together. Maybe sometimes they do, but not in this boat, and not in a humid room like a head with a shower attached. I’ve known this was coming but take a look:

EWWWWWW! Just disgusting. There is no other way to say it. One hundred percent of the wall surfaces were covered with black mold behind the paper. Fortunately it was completely dry, having been there for a long time. I’ve been itching to get at this project because I knew it was there and it grossed me out. Since the head wasn’t plumbed we never used that bathroom, just passed through it. Now that we have a head we can use, I wanted it to be clean.

I ripped off all the paper, spraying the backing and walls with bleach water as I went to kill any spores. The paper was put on with what appeared to be standard wall paper paste, something that mold loves. It was the perfect medium, just one big petri dish. I sprayed down all the walls, scrubbed with bleach water with a drop of dishwashing soap, using a big green scrubby pad. That took off most of the black spots and revealed that the walls had been painted previous to papering them. I am going to repaint, so I got most of the black off, then got out my electric sander with dust collector. Masked, with the widow open, I commenced to sanding and the stuff zipped right off. I used the shower head to spray down the walls after wiping them down to take most of the remaining dust off. I’m almost finished with the removal of the nasty stuff. I still have to remove the paper behind the mirror and on the base cabinet. It’s not pretty, but it will do for now.

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In the middle of this, Mike re-routed the raw water vent from the engine. That only took a couple of hours. Meanwhile, the sun was shining. Sunday morning the wind was calm, the river looking almost welcoming. The boat was too ripped apart to do any kind of ‘going out’. In the car on the way home we made a pact of sorts. Next week if the weather is fine, which, in Astoria means that the wind is pretty calm and the river is not gnarly,  we will go out first, and then do our work after we’ve played for awhile. Perhaps we will also eat cake for breakfast.

Skidding Towards Victory

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Note: Apologies if the photos are looking weird on your browser. There is a problem with the integration of WordPress and Picasa and I’m working to resolve it.

We dared to say it this weekend. We dared to say we are getting just that close to being able to bring this boat up to Washington. So close that we are actually looking at our calender and beginning to make plans to take leave from work. So close that we’ve created a list of things that must be done before we leave. These are musts, not wants. We must, for example, have a plumbed head on board. We must make sure our safety equipment is up to date. We must call our boat insurance and add the engine to the policy, and be sure we are fully insured for this part of the Pacific Ocean. We must have good ground tackle. It’s exciting to be making that kind of list.

Mike is like the energizer bunny of late. He has so many projects on his ‘to do’ list, rambling around in his head, that I don’t know how he keeps them all straight. He trouble shoots issues during the week, shops for parts, then when we get to Astoria he hits the ground running. This week a new fuel gauge was on his list of projects. Until now, the only way to actually know how much fuel is in the tank was to remove the cover plate and look.  That’s too much work. Plus, every time you open the tank you risk exposing the fuel to dust and dirt. So he ordered a fuel gauge and set about to his business. In his  mind the most daunting part of the task was making a hole in the aluminum port cover. This little Ryobi drill has more than paid for itself with tasks like this one. 

A little cleanup with the dremel to make the edges smooth, insert gauge into hole, and voila, sort of: 

Next week he will install the visible part of the gauge. It will be next to the engine panel in the cockpit. There is already a hole there, but it’s just that much too big, so a piece of Star Board must be bought to finish it off. Next week that’s on the agenda.

As much as I’d like to sit around reading novels while Mike works his ass off, I, too have projects going on. First on the agenda was finishing up those port screens. Last week I began this project by removing the old screening material and cleaning up the aluminum frames which had old dried adhesive and worn out weather stripping. We won’t need them for awhile, but it will be nice to have them this summer. This week I rummaged around in the attic and found our old window screens from before we put new windows in the house. They had that fabric screen material that I wanted for this project. I cut the screening out with a razor blade and set it aside. Here’s a ‘before photo’.  

I needed silicone to attach the pieces of screen to the frames, and weather seal to go around the outside to provide a friction fit inside the port holes. This week found us at West Marine for something else, so I looked for the silicone. A small tube for 15$? Um. No. I am way too cheap for that. We went to Home Depot and I found a small tube for 4$, but it looked like I might need two. This was in the glue section. I put them in the cart, then toddled off to find the weather stripping. I found that, and just next to it a large tube of what, in effect, was the same kind of thing. Siliconized caulk. 3$ for a large tube. Just goes to show it pays to look around. Considering that the screen material was, in effect, free, the total cost of this project came in at 11$.  I consider that a win.

I put a bead of this stuff around the inside edge, then lay the screen on top and pressed into place. Little pieces of screen on each side will help remove the screen from the port easily. This stuff lays on white, but dries clear. After applying the rubber weather seal, they were done.

A perfect fit!

Next up was a new fresh water pump. If you recall, our brief ‘shake down’ cruise last weekend presented us with a water pump leaking like a sieve. We had researched which pump to use, noting that the old one was a ShurFlo, but we couldn’t tell which model or even how many GPH it was rated. We went with our Bible of Marine Information, Practical Sailor, to tell us what to get. They had done a review of water pumps in their May 2011 issue. I went to the shelf and pulled that issue and read the article, then we decided to go with the ShurFlo 3.0. The article described this particular pump as being the best one for people who want to take a ‘belt and suspenders’ direction with their choice. That’s us.  You’d think we’d want a larger pump considering the size of this boat and the number of faucets. But we don’t want to tax the system by putting too much pressure through it, and we are unlikely to be using more than one faucet at a time.

Down at the boat, Mike decided that the installation of the new pump would be a dandy project for me to take on. He would be working on another small project in the engine room (adding a rubber washer to the brace for the exhaust elbow to dampen vibration) and would be there to coach me and answer questions. He would teach me how to solder. (Be still my heart! Man-cave mysteries about to be solved!) Wide eyed, I asked him if he was serious. Did he really want me to install said pump? I felt the ground shift underneath me just a little as a bit of cognitive dissonance was created. But he looked dead sexy in his new glasses and, well, he believed in me. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

To be frank, the whole thing was pretty anti-climactic. Unscrew the threaded connections to the hoses, unscrew some other screws, clip some wires. Then use same screws to go in same holes, attach the threaded connectors, strip some wires and wind them together, solder, cover exposed wire and ‘Bob’s your uncle’. The worst part was stripping the wires to prepare for soldering.  This was probably the easiest part of the refit yet because it looks like we chose an identical pump. Works like a charm. 

In other project news, I’m in the middle of a temporary re-do of the aft cabin.  I ran into such a good deal on fabric that I had to take advantage of it. I am making covers for the berths. I’m pretty tired of having an aft cabin that always looks messy. After working on messy projects all day, we would like a more soothing environment to sleep in. This is what we had to work with:

We’ve been using heavy sleeping bags as sheets, then using our blankets to cover. The sleeping bags were comfortable, but slide around and hang off the side creating a messy space. They are hard to fold and put away in the morning as well and take up a lot of space. Eventually we will do a more serious remodel this cabin but there are more urgent things on the agenda. So meanwhile I wanted something cheap, easy, and hopefully something we could reuse after the remodel. I wanted to create a covering that would act as both a sheet and as upholstery; something that would give the space a bit of a facelift and our raise our spirits as well.

My thought was to go to a thrift shop and get something to recycle but I was not finding anything that was worth the effort there. Instead I went to Hancock Fabric, which was having a huge sale, and found the perfect fabric, in the perfect colors, for 5$ /yard. It was front and center when I entered the store.  For less than 50$ I had enough fabric to do the aft cabin. For another 50$ I bought fabric to make slip covers for the settees in

the salon.

 

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In our Cal 34 we used a memory foam mattress topper on top of new foam cushions in the V berth and we found it to be a satisfying and comfortable solution. I wanted to reproduce that comfort in this boat. I had twin size memory foam topper from Andrew’s years in the dorm, and a twin size mattress cover as well. These would do for the small berth. (And as an aside, THIS is why I have trouble getting rid of stuff. I’m always repurposing things.) I cut the mattress pad to fit the irregularly shaped cushion and tacked it into place with needle and thread (you cannot see this in the photo).  This will keep the topper in place and provide air circulation between a body at rest and the memory foam. I don’t plan to remove this mattress pad until we replace the whole sleeping unit during the remodel phase. But if I have to, it’s simple enough to snip the threads. 

They I lay the fabric on the berth, cut to shape, pieced it where necessary, fit it using pins, then removed and took it to the sewing machine for finishing. I’m pretty happy with the result and Mike pronounced this berth to be perfectly comfortable. This fabric is definitely a win, and 100% cotton as well. Note that the colors match the pillow cases and blanket that were already on board.P1050196

Next is the double berth (a misnomer if I’ve ever heard one). That will be more difficult because I would like to replace the really worn out mattress. At one time it was a good one, but now it’s not. Since we’ll remodel in the future, I don’t want to spend good money on a new mattress or even new foam at this point. Let the scrounging begin.

Our final work of the weekend: Mike installed the mizzen sail before I even got out of bed on Sunday morning. Then we needed to figure out how to use the Lofrans Falkon windlass and take a close look at the anchoring gear. The windlass works great. We’ve never had an electric one before and both have serious trust issues with such things. Therefore we had to be sure we knew how to do it manually. 

Here’s what we have to work with. This compartment needs cleaning and some minor fiberglass repair, but that’s not on the list of things that must be done before we leave this marina for Washington. This, however, definitely IS on the list:

Would you trust your boat to this chain?

Would you trust your boat to that chain? I think not. The other chain is loads better, but we will be checking each and every link, and we’ll likely replace it before we leave. The latest issue of Practical Sailor came this week. There is a review of anchor chain. Very timely, no?

Finally, we are getting serious about this whole boat naming business. Honestly, it was easier to name our children! I am about to get out the large presentation paper and create venn diagrams, if not spreadsheets. Progress was made, however, when the name of the new engine popped into my head: Hiram. Yes, we have named the engine Hiram after Mike’s Grandfather Boyte, whose nickname was ‘Red’. So there you go. Let it be written, let it be done. Red Boyte lived a long and fruitful life. Let it be so with our engine.

Lady Washington comes a-visiting

Look who visited Astoria this weekend! The Lady Washington.