Category Archives: Sailboats

It’s All Part of the Process

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Mike and I need to stop perseverating and just calm ourselves down. Maybe a few Quaaludes would help, or large quantities of alcohol. I have some sleeping pills, but they give me a massive headache. That won’t work. But basically if we don’t find some kind of mind numbing drug substitute, we’re going to be spending the next week talking each other off the ledge continuously. Our sea trial and survey is a week from Wednesday.

Her pretty stern.

Her pretty stern. Is she going to look less like the incredible hulk when we get this cover off of her?

I wish when we made the offer on Flying Gull we hadn’t needed to be in such a hurry. I mean, we haven’t even seen this boat without the huge canvas cover on her.  I just hate the feeling of being rushed in these big life decisions, and yet we felt compelled to not let this boat fall from our grasp without trying. The fact that it turned out to not be quite the crisis we thought it was only rubs salt in that wound. On the other hand, maybe we needed a little shot in the behind to get moving. I mean there is no way that we would be getting to have a sea trial on Flying Gull, or even see her without her clothes on, without having made an offer of a long term commitment. It feels a little like an unsettled engagement. So you see how we roll lately.

I guess we are doing the thing that all people do when struck by lightning; things like making sure all of our faculties are still intact. But we’re also overloading with information about this boat and boats like this boat. Our brains feel like they are literally on fire. We look at other boats on Yachtworld, looking for what we could get if this one falls through. Some of them look pretty good, but none have the charm of Flying Gull.

The wheel in the cockpit. I wonder if we could put engine controls back here somehow.

The wheel in the cockpit. I wonder if we could put engine controls back here somehow.

We’ve talked yet again to Peter Kaiser, who owns S/V Awab, the sister ship to this one. We’ve asked him so many questions about how he handles his boat and what kinds of situations give him pause. He is a wealth of information and very kind to talk to us for so long. He bought Awab when he was a complete novice in terms of large boats, so that gives us a little hope. He is clear that this is a big, heavy boat and that this causes problems in certain situations. He is clear that this is not a boat that is easy to take out sailing for 3 hours in the evening. We will not be in and out of the slip in less than 15 minutes like we are with Moonrise.  He is clear that to really appreciate this kind of boat, you need to live on it. But he is also clear that he loves his boat better than any other boat he’s ever seen and that all of these things are worth it.

One thing Peter told us was that he had some pretty squirrely adventures with Awab until he sprung for an $11,000 bowthruster. And this solved all the problems he was having with handling! Wow. I’m afraid I almost hit one of those ledges I’ve been talking about. The fear began talking to me again. It goes something like this: ‘This boat is too big. We weren’t really looking for a boat this big. No one can dock this thing alone. The engine controls are only in the wheelhouse, not in the cockpit. You can’t get out of the wheelhouse very fast. But we really love this boat, damn this boat is beautiful. ‘  You can see why we are all over the bipolar spectrum.

S/V Awab, built 18 years later than Flying Gull, for the same owner, using the same plans. The owner wanted this boat slightly longer and beamier. She also carries 3 sails to Flying Gull's 4.

S/V Awab, built 18 years later than Flying Gull, for the same owner, using the same plans. The owner wanted this boat slightly longer and beamier. She also carries 3 sails to Flying Gull’s 4. Photo courtesy of Awab.net.

We figure that the test sail is going to be the make it or break it moment for our relationship with this boat. It’s a huge gamble for us, and also for the owner who flew up to handle this sale, not to mention the broker wanting to close the deal. So not being able to be sure until the test sail is tantamount to not being sure you won’t jilt the groom at the alter. And yet, that’s better than a bad divorce two years later. No pressure, though, right? So we heave a lot of big sighs, talk each other off the ledge, find something to distract ourselves, and take solace in the fact that we have hired one of the very best surveyors. In the quiet moments, we both already feel connected to the boat. Logic and the heart move closer together. But the test sail looms. If it’s a stormy day, you can blame us because we pray for wind.

Enough already about boats. Tonight there will be DVD’s to watch! Just say ‘yes!’ to comedy when drugs are not available. By the end of this month, we will have a new boat. Or we won’t. I  guarantee that one of those two things will happen. I guess it’s all part of the process.

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The Monkey's Fist

A Cunning Plan, Perhaps Not So Little

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Stunned and amazed. Like a deer in headlights. When you take a left turn from the domain of logic and reason and engage with heart and soul, the experience can leave you almost breathless. These experiences come out of the blue and strike like lightning; fast and sharp, a bolt through the heart from the gods beyond the clouds. And when you just go with it and don’t resist, that’s when the magic happens. At least that’s our working hypothesis.

It began when we got a call on Thursday from our Yacht broker, Lee Youngblood, of Gig Harbor Yacht Sales. Lee’s been working with us for about a year and knows us pretty well by now, even though we continue to surprise him. His tone on my voice mail sounded emotional and I could tell he was trying to contain himself. “The owner of Flying Gull is getting ready to trade that boat in on an RV!  If you are even thinking of making an offer, now is the time. The other broker has people who might be interested and he’s calling them, too, to see if they might be serious.  I know you need to sell Moonrise, but maybe we can make a deal if you are serious about this boat. Call me!”

The boat in question

The boat in question

I reacted in my usual calm, self assured and reasonable way. I went and bought a pair of shoes so I could think about it. It’s spring and I had no flats to wear for work.

That night Mike and I had a little meeting of the minds about this thing over dinner. And we decided that we really do both love that boat, in spite of the fact that it is too big. Neither of us felt much concern about it being made of wood. We’re familiar with wood, love wood, know how to work on wood.  How can you beat a Sparkman and Stephens design for sheer beauty and sailing characteristics? It was built by the Henry C. Grebe boatyard, a yard famous for its quality. The provenance of this boat cannot be beat. And where could we ever find another boat with the kind of fascinating history this one has; one that appears to be in such good condition, with this amount of work having already been completed? For the right price, we could be ahead of the game with this boat, if the survey checked out. But the listing price was out of our ballpark. There is love, and then there is crazy love. We are not crazy, in spite of what some people say.

The wheelhouse that started it all.

The wheelhouse that started it all.

We called Lee and told him we were serious but we wanted to talk to the owner. We had a LOT of questions and were unimpressed by the amount of information we had so far. This was us being reasonable and thinking with our heads. And it was a bit of an effort, I can tell you, because I felt like the boat had already chosen us as the next caretakers, so it was going to take a lot to keep it from happening. But I’m known to think that way.

Lee promptly responded with the guy’s phone number, contacted the owner and got permission for us to call. The next day, yesterday, Mike and the owner had their own little meeting of the minds over the phone. The owner has circumnavigated twice, and sailed around the horn. This person knows sailing and sailboats. He told us how the fiberglass skin had been attached to the hull: the right way apparently, and it has held up beautifully since it was done in the early 1990’s. He told us many other things about it such as that the engine had been completely rebuilt and had less than 700 hours on it. The sails were new in 2004. The masts were completely serviced in 2008, reset, sealed with spartite. The beautiful military grade windlass works great. So great you have to be careful with it.  Mike said we’d be in touch. Then we got busy crunching some numbers.

Yesterday we went to the broker’s office and made two different offers, one with a low cash price and us bearing the risk of continuing to try to sell Moonrise. The other with an even lower cash price, but he could have our boat and sell it, eventually making more on his boat. Honestly, we could live with it either way because we offered a price we knew we could afford right now, even if we had to wait a few months for our boat to sell.  It was a little financially risky, but not so much that it would keep us up at night. Frankly, we were sorry this owner might have to sell this boat for so little, considering the amount he’s put into it. But financial statements don’t lie, and we can’t afford to get in over our heads at this point in the game. We might be in love, but we still have to be careful.  If he wanted us as the next caretakers of Flying Gull, this was as good as we could give. And we were willing to walk away. We truly were. This owner accepted our cash price offer within the hour.  And we couldn’t believe it. That was when the stunned amazement began.

Serious hail and sleet.

Serious hail and sleet.

We drove down to visit Flying Gull and look at a couple of small things we couldn’t remember seeing. Our daughter, who is considering living aboard her for awhile, came with us. While we were there the heavens opened, the thunder and lightning came, and we were deluged with hail. This was no small spring squall. This went on for an extraordinarily long time and if you live in Seattle and are reading this, you know what I’m talking about! The hail just kept coming, building up on the docks, covering the boats with several inches of ice.  The noise was deafening, but we had our first ‘heavy weather’ bonding experience with her as we tunneled around like moles underneath the boat cover pushing it up to keep the weight of the ice from bringing it down or putting undue stress on the stanchions. Thank goodness we were there because it would have been a bad situation considering the sheer amount of ice that fell from the sky. Claire said it was our ‘congratulations’ from the weather gods; their version of throwing confetti.20130413_87

So our cunning little plan is beginning in earnest right now. If this works out (survey, sea trial still to come) we’ll have a boat that can literally take us anywhere in comfort. It has a most versatile sail plan, enough room for everyone in our family, and the ability to keep us sheltered from weather of all kinds while under sail if we so choose. In addition, we’ve already begun meeting people who know a great deal about wooden boats and have been incredibly encouraging, including the owner of sister ship ‘Awab’, currently moored on the east coast.

If in reading this you think I make it sound as though this is a done deal, don’t be fooled because in all honesty, that changes moment by moment. Our mood shifts rapidly from excitement to sheer, unadulterated terror. Five hundred gallons of fuel? Dear God! We know in choosing this boat we are walking away from smaller, easier, cheaper-to-operate boats with simpler systems, boats like Moonrise that we can take out on a whim and just have fun.  We know this is counter to the common wisdom out there. In our more lucid periods, we don’t know if that’s really what we want. That’s why the emotional roller coaster has such profound highs and lows.

20130413_81

Claire, watching the confetti fall from the sky.

What we do know is that in order to really engage with a boat enough to get the feel of the thing, you have to make an offer. You have to be willing to gamble the price of a survey. Without an offer, there will be no sea trial, no survey, no chance to see if the boat is a good fit. And when the gods practically drop it into your lap, it seems a little ungrateful not to at least give it a try. That’s the issue with gifts from the heavens. You don’t know at first if they are meant to be kept, or whether they’ve shown up simply to make your choices that much more clear. It’s like the gods sit back and say, ‘You can have this, and everything that comes with it, if you want it. Or you can take the other road.’ Gods are tricky. How do we know they don’t consider us part of some divine comedy?

 This deal is far from done in our book. We are still willing to walk away if it looks like that’s the best thing to do. Three days ago we were happily contemplating our next boat after Moonrise sells, even looking forward to the shopping process. We were settled in our logical, plodding progress toward the final goal. We were planning trips to unknown destinations, just to view boats. Now we are just steps away from owning another boat. It’s happening very fast. We’re just trying to hang on for the ride.

In spite of all of this, Flying Gull speaks to us well below the threshold of logic, whispering to our hearts in a way only we can hear. I know she is trying to hold us steady during this most tumultuous time. And I appreciate the effort.

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The Monkey's Fist

 

 

 

Winchers: Good Stuff for Good Old Boats

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Note: Last week we published a review of an incredible 1940 Wooden Ketch named Flying Gull. Due to some over exuberant button pushing, the first link sent out for the post was password protected. This may have thwarted your blog reading experience and for that, we do apologize. We hope you will take another look at the post and enjoy this Sparkman and Stephens masterpiece as much as we did.

Now, back to our current post, already in progress.

The weather in the Pacific Northwest has become eerily pleasant. The big yellow warm thing has been out more than twice in a single month and if I were a superstitious man, I would worry that the gods want to fry us up with a little butter and garlic.

But I am not a superstitious man, and so I have gone sailing not once, but twice in the month of March. This is quite a feat since Moonrise has been denuded of every trace of our existence as a part of our effort to sell her. Presently, Moonrise is a blank canvas onto which her new owners can project their own happy, future selves. We are happy to do this but it does present a problem. We have nice weather and we want to go sailing while we still own the old girl.

Our solution was to create a tactical sailing container which we call the Mopey Sailor Runaway Kit. The kit consists of the bare necessities for getting out on the water: bibs, boots, PFDs, binoculars, and a few other useful items to have when we are out.

Mopey Sailor Runaway Kit

Mopey Sailor Runaway Kit

So, with our runaway kit, Melissa and I have enjoyed two pleasant afternoons sailing about Commencement Bay.

But I digress. As usual.

What I really wanted to show you are the little blue [amazon_link id=”B00AMNOL96″ target=”_blank” ]Winchers[/amazon_link] that we use on our old Barient 21 winches. Being humble, non self-tailing winches, the Barients were a bit of sore spot when we bought Moonrise. We would love to have self-tailing winches but the prices are just laughable.

So, shortly after we bought Moonrise, I picked up a pair of Winchers and we have been most impressed with their usefulness.

Winhers on a Barient 21

Winchers on a homely but entirely serviceable and reliable  Barient 21

We find that we do have to hand tail the sheet if the line is not fully up against the bottom of the Wincher but the main advantage is that we can easily cleat off the line with a simple wrap around the top portion of the rubber as shown in the photo above. In a fresh breeze we always take the sheet to a proper cleat, but in the majority of sailing conditions, we can safely leave the line as shown.

We have had these Winchers on Moonrise for almost five years now and they are still perfectly serviceable. Sunlight will be their biggest enemy, so a proper winch cover when not in use is advised.

Top of Wincher

Top of Wincher

At about $60 a pair, Winchers aren’t exactly cheap but for those applications where you need a quick way to secure a line we have found them to be a real value.