Tag Archives: Sailing community

S/V Elsa, 1974 Ingrid 38

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Let’s all get real clear about one thing: It is Mike who is building the refrigerator system on Galapagos.  In his post on Reefer Madness Mike consistently used the prounoun ‘we’ to refer to all the work being done on our boat. In Mike’s case, he doesn’t generally refer to himself in the plural form as though he were royalty. Mike is not known to say things like ‘Take us to the royal bed as we are tired.’, or ‘We disagree with the lowering of taxes on the masses as we love our money.’.  No, he may speak the ‘Queen’s English’ as a rule, but he doesn’t generally speak as though he WERE the Queen.  Or King. Or whatever.

Mike aboard S/V Elsa took this shot of us as we passed each other out on the bay.

Mike aboard S/V Elsa took this shot of us as we passed each other out on the bay.

So I can only assume that his use of the collective term is meant to somehow imbue me with a sense of having participated more than I actually have. Or perhaps he is using the term the same way people do when the woman has given birth. You know, as in ‘WE had a baby’. Well, NO, ‘WE’ did not. The woman had the baby and you, pathetic man, stood by and watched with helpless awe and wonder. You got to be there for the fun part before, and the fun part after, but the actual growing and birthing of the child? Not so much. And don’t you forget it!

So let’s get real clear about the fact that it is Mike’s job to build this baby. My job is to stand by and watch with pathetic awe and wonder, my jaw usually on the floor. My how our roles have reversed in the last 30 years.

I got this photo of S/V Elsa on a beautiful winter sailing day in February. Could there BE a more perfect name for this boat?

Mike is burning the candle at both ends lately and I am waiting for the crash and burn. He hasn’t set a pace for himself like this since 1992 when we tore the roof off our second house to add another floor on the same day I went into labor with Andrew. If it were not for me, he would be working himself into a lather, and not the good kind. When he started becoming sleepless due to constant perseverating over the fridge project,  I knew I had to intervene and I would need some new blood in order to get his attention. I decided ‘we’ would take a break and have dinner with some new friends of ours and then go and view their beautiful boat, an Ingrid 38 named Elsa. There is nothing like new friends and their boat to get a guy’s attention, especially when the two guys have so much in common, not the least of which is their mutual first name. (Hint: MacGyver.)

If blogs are good for anything it is meeting other like-minded people. We have met a number of great folks through our blog, most of whom live nowhere near us. S/V Elsa’s people, Michael and Kristin, live in Kirkland and keep their boat in Tacoma at Hylebos Marina, where we used to haul out Moonrise, our old Cal 34. Kristin contacted us through our blog late last year and we arranged dinner together. It was great to see them again this year, hear about their new precious grand baby, and finally swap boat viewings.

Bronze samson posts. 100% saucy.

Elsa is a 1974 Ingrid 38 and Michael and Kristin are the third owners. They bought her from someone who had loved her well, started a lot of projects, then had to sell before seeing them completed. Fortunately for them, he left the boat full of brand new parts and pieces of beautiful wood to finish the old girl.  Michael and Kristin, like all old-boat owners who love their vessels, have found a project to fill their hearts and their days as they finish what the previous owner started. Michael’s goal with Elsa is to have a vessel with simple systems that sails beautifully, staying as true to the classic ways of this lovely boat as possible. Apparently owning a boat like Elsa has been a lifelong dream of Michael’s. He’s living the dream!

The previous owner made this block himself. He left a box of them on the boat.

Stepping aboard Elsa you can feel her solid structure under your feet. She rides in the slip gracefully, no jerky movements to put you off balance and plenty of room to move around. In fact, the Ingrid 38 is designed to be sea-kindly and to sail well in rough seas. Originally designed to be a wooden boat, she has the salty look of a much older sailing vessel.  It’s really so lovely to just be able to ‘step’ aboard a boat rather than climb aboard as you have to do with Galapagos. Different boats, different compromises. At 38 feet, Elsa is just right for a couple who wants to do coastal cruising in this area and she is built for off-shore sailing in mind so they have the perfect ‘go anywhere’ boat for two.

All new opening ports, added by the previous owner. Wow!

Like all ‘new’ boat owners, Michael and Kristin have a number of little projects and plans for their girl, but they are also dedicated to sailing her as much as possible. Between sailings there are plans to paint the deck a different color of tan, change the boot stripe color to a pale grey, and they receive their mainsail with new strong track attached this week. We are envious of that little addition to their sailing system and will be keeping a gimlet eye or two on how that performs for them. I get the impression that it is sailing first, boat work second.

MacGyver at his best.

In the photo above, note how Michael solved the problem of adding winches to his mast without drilling extra holes in the hollow wooden spar. Since the spar is painted, he cannot tell for sure what’s underneath the paint except to know that it is a hollow wooden box, many feet tall. He wanted winches, but not holes. So he had these steel brackets fabricated and mounted the winches onto wood boards. These can be easily removed to make sure moisture is not causing trouble underneath the wood. He also had that bar for the staysail fabricated to allow it to move freely as needed. Sweet.

Elsa’s heart.

Elsa’s Volvo engine is accessed through this hobbit door behind the entry steps. For a 38 foot boat, the engine space is generous and I enjoyed Michael’s description of how he would lay down a tarp and ‘swan dive’ into this space, being careful of the crunchy bits against soft flesh. I believe he may have shed a tear or two when beholding Mike’s engine room aboard Galapagos, but hey, you buy a 47 foot boat and you, too, can have an engine room. We all have our trade offs.

Here’s what made me shed a tear or two myself:

Two guesses what this is.

You’ll never guess what Elsa has on board due to the previous owner’s creatively devious mind. This, my boaty friends, is what amounts to a Japanese sitting tub. Yes, that is not me making this up just to make Mike feel guilty. This is an actual fact. Aboard this Ingrid 38 there is a sitting tub in the head. It’s also a great storage space for life jackets but the point is that if they WANTed to sit in a tub of warm water after a rough sail, they could. And I am dead jealous of that. My tub will be sorely missed when we move aboard Galapagos. I see those little tubs in boats like Spencers and Maple Leafs and it makes me swoon just a little. As I fall to the ground on my knees with desire, I have visions of how I could get me one of those aboard Galapagos. I see this one is built in place rather than fabricated and then installed. Hmmmm. The little grey cells begin computing…

V berth on the Ingrid 38.

While Mike and Michael compared notes on things like electrical systems and such, Kristin and I viewed the V berth with a critical eye. Kristin and I share in common a love of a good comfortable sleeping space on a boat. By ‘comfortable’ I mean one that has headroom, light, and that doesn’t require a herculean effort crawling over a sleeping spouse in the middle of the night when nature calls, as it so inevitably does. (And with more frequency, I might add, as one gets closer to that certain age, whatever that is.)

Kristin and Michael are planning to remodel this area. We will be watching closely. Photo credit to their blog.

So she is looking at a remodel of the salon to make cuddling up easier, and create a space for them to sleep more comfortably. I understand her pain. It seems we both have a certain type of space in mind, and while we agree that we understand sailing and safety systems come first, our desires will not be thwarted forever. Stay tuned for updates to all of that on our mutual blogs.

New sinks, countertops, and faucet.

Their galley is adorable and functional. The previous owner put in a new sink and faucet, lined the icebox with nice formica, and resurfaced the countertops. These are all projects that will be happening aboard our boat, too, so I was extra curious about this area. It’s really a lovely space. He maintained the feel of the interior and kept the surfaces easy to clean. Notice the sink is not yet plumbed, but all the stuff is there waiting to be put in place. Here are a couple more shots.

Really nicely done ice box.

Love that easy-clean area on the bulkhead behind the stove.

Notice in the photo above you can see that the previous owner added insulation to the boat, at least above the waterline. Ok, I am dead jealous of that.

For extra coziness on those wet winter days.

Kristin and Michael have a blog you can follow to watch Elsa’s progress as they complete the myriad projects they have in the works. She is already a beautiful vessel and has obviously been well-loved. By the time they are ‘finished’ (HA HA HA) with her, she will be the Queen of Commencement Bay. ‘We’ will be pleased for them.

 

Make New Friends, and Set Your Brain on Fire

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This weekend we did the unthinkable: we went to Friday Harbor and back in one day. A trip that takes us three days on Moonrise took us 3 hours or so on the Victoria Clipper, a boat that is the marine equivalent of a South African taxi. It’s really fast,  not particularly comfortable and lots of people are crammed onto it, but it gets you where you are going and the scenery can be pretty. Plus, in the case of the Clipper, there is unlimited free coffee and tea, and the coffee is actually not bad. Bring your own food. Just saying.

Bye bye, Seattle.

We went to Friday Harbor to meet up with Steven Roberts of Nomadness fame. Steven, who refers to himself as a ‘technomad’, is the inventor of the Microship and has spent his life inventing geeky things and playing with interesting integrated systems of all kinds. He owns an Amazon 44, a steel sailboat which is a pretty dreamy boat. I’ll be writing a review of the boat for Three Sheets Northwest and he is considering putting his boat up for sale. For now, just know that this boat could take someone literally anywhere they wanted to sail in safety and in style.

I’ve been a fan of Steven’s website for a couple of years now. He has many cool ‘boat hacking’ kinds of ideas that he shares with people, such as holding curtains to your boat ports with earth magnets for a clean and easy look, and a portable boat seat that attaches to the steps of the companionway. I’m saving those posts for later because, hey, the rain is here which means that boat season is pretty much over and I’m going to be scrounging for copy.

S/V Nomadness at her great dock location in Friday Harbor.

But I know that you are dying to find out how our brains got set on fire; why we could literally feel the heat as our neurons made new connections in uncharted territory. It all happened because of our new friend Steven’s forward rowing system on his sailing dinghy. You know how it’s impossible to see where you are going when you row a little boat the normal way? I hate that and many is the time that I turn around and row backwards, bow first, which is not a particularly efficient way to row. (Plus, people look at you like you don’t know what you are doing, and certain types of men try to correct you.)

I managed to NOT hit the pilings behind me. This was encouraging.

So Steven just couldn’t let us get away without letting us try rowing his sailing dinghy with the special forward rowing system. We’re game to be laughed at, so we both said , ‘Sure! We will set our brains on fire for other people’s amusement! No problem!’. And so it came to pass. I went first, managing to get the boat out from the dock, row around, and come back without actually crashing into anything. Oh, the hilarity! Then it was Mike’s turn. He is left handed in a big way. I don’t know if that matters, but perhaps it does. All I know is that if you think it is easy, you try it.  He may have taken photos of me, but I VIDEO taped him! Enjoy! (And just ignore that conversation Steven and I are having. I don’t know how to remove it.)

[vsw id=”IFRqAlhvkic&feature” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

After a great visit with Steven and Nomadness, we had a couple of hours to ‘do’ Friday Harbor. What we ‘did’ was eat lunch at Pablito’s Taqueria: Mexican food meets Pacific Northwest.  I’m not particularly a ‘foodie’, but the Coffee Braised Pork Taco made a party in my mouth. Yum and Yum! I would take the Clipper back to Friday Harbor just so I could order those tacos again. Forget the rice and beans and whatever else was on my plate.  Give me the taco and a good beer and I’ll be happy. If you go to Friday Harbor, go get some of these pork tacos. You won’t be disappointed.

I care nothing about any of these other foods. I am all over those coffee braised pork tacos.

 

Gearing Up!

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June 23 is fast approaching. In case you are wondering why that day is important, aside from it being Mike’s birthday,  it’s the day by which if Moonrise doesn’t sell we will be sailing her back to her home port in Tacoma and getting her outfitted for an actual adventure. I’m holding my breath. In a recent post I threw down the proverbial gauntlet and challenged the Universe. Either sell our boat, or give us a good vacation this year. It’s just entirely possible we will get our vacation. So it’s hard to be sorry that the boat hasn’t sold yet. The vacation cannot come fast enough for me.

I want this. I want it now.

I want this. I want it now.

I remember the last time we headed up to Barkley Sound and how much planning we did for the trip. We bought a Spot Locator so family could keep track of us, only to realize when we failed to push the magic locator button at the end of the day, they got worried. Oy. That was a mistake. We dithered and bought things and laid on supplies like we were going to the far reaches of civilization. Imagine our dismay when we realized just how many boats there were up there in the wilds of Vancouver Island. And they actually have grocery stores there, too! Imagine that!

This time we are preparing in a different way. With all of our ‘stuff’ off of the boat, we have the opportunity to be choosy about what goes back onto her for the trip. Only things we know we will use will find their places below. Of course, that includes my hammock. I will need that desperately. And reading material of all kinds. I like to have a small library to choose from as the spirit moves me. Mike has bought another anchor off Craigslist to replace the one we lost last year in the ‘sailboat hard on the rocks‘ debacle, so that will go on the boat. This year we both have new cameras, one of them waterproof. And I have a fancy new Asus notebook computer with some fabulous navigation software that we’ll be reviewing. We can’t wait to try it out.

But that’s not the only new toy we’ll be having on this trip.

Looks like Mike had an early birthday this year! Is that a halo?

It may seem counter intuitive to some, but we bought an auto pilot for the boat. Yes, the boat will be for sale again when we get back, unless we find a buyer while we’re up there. But the way we look at it, if the boat doesn’t sell and we keep it awhile longer, we’ll enjoy having one. Going to Barkley Sound without one would still be fun, but it would mean taking turns being wheel slaves constantly as it’s likely there will be a lot of motoring time unless we get lucky. This will be a long trip and if we did something else for a vacation, that money would be spent anyhow. So we’ll get to use it for the trip, and as long as we have the boat. And it will make Moonrise that much more desirable to someone else in the future. See how happy Mike looks? That’s because we are going to learn so much about installing this thing and making it work and all that learning will benefit us the second time around.

While we’re waiting for next weekend, we’re busy reading some classic sailing books by Tristan Jones. I’ll be taking some of his books aboard for the trip. I’d never heard of him before, but noticed an entire shelf devoted to his considerable works at my local used book store. He tells a good yarn and did things most sane people wouldn’t even consider, such as taking his trimaran, S/V Outward Leg, across the rivers of Europe during the height of the cold war. Oh, and when he did this, he had only one leg, the other one being a wooden model allegedly carved for him by none other than Larry Pardey. I have not checked this out with Mr. Pardey, so I’ll just take Tristan’s word for it. His books are page turners and we found we couldn’t wait to see what kind of wild thing he did next. He must have been some kind of character. Pick up one of his books and see if you can read just one. By the time we come back, maybe I will have read them all.