Off Duty

I am finally done. As done as I'm going to be for now, i should say. There is always more to do, and every time i visit my little yellow friend, i see wood i missed, and spots of boat sauce where they don't belong. But, alas, I really and truly don't give a rat's tail. I am pleased with the outcome and now I'm ready to enjoy it!

ONE HUNDRED percent LEGAL. First time EVER.

Engine maintenance went well. I changed the oil, air filter, raw water intake impeller, water separator filter, and fuel filter. I even figured out how to bleed the fuel system. Basically, you turn a screw, push a lever, and spray diesel fuel all over the boat, and in your face. Keep doing that until its a straight stream of fuel and no air. Then tighten the screw. Simple.

Note fantastically painted swanky

 matching dinghy in background

I think I'm gonna sail to Rock Hall across the bay on Monday and stay all night. I hear from a fellow dirt bag that you can tie up at the marina for free if you eat in the restaurant. How much can a Caesar salad and water cost?

Good point. Maybe I'll just anchor out for FREE.

Post Boat School School

I have been enrolled in a month long continuing Ed program in Tennessee and Baltimore. Fortunately the tuition was free as was room and board, but the class supplies cost about 2000K. I just spent the last 4ish weeks working on my boat in preparation for my Eastern Shore liveaboard situation. I coerced my entire family into assisting me in this endeavor, and i can't thank them enough for their help.

sanding bottom paint SUCKS

bottom paint done

Quite an endeavor it was. Momster and I drove across the country, bought boat parts in Baltimore, carried some to Erwin, mailed some to Erwin, bought the wrong parts, bought more parts online and had them mailed to Erwin (2nd day for only $20!!!) picked up others in Knoxville, and somehow managed to get the right ones installed in 10 days while the boat was still on the hard in TN.

Momster painting "Eel"

sailmaking in the Clinchfield Avenue Sail Loft

Oh, and the Momster and i cut a sail for the dinghy that she sanded every inch of and painted for me. And my brother added bling to the aforementioned awesome woodstove. And my pal Brenden and my dad helped me wire the mast. Dad also fabricated a fitting for the gin pole that lowers and raises the mast. Oh, and he kind of pulled the Boat to Baltimore for me as well. The list goes on. I really can't believe how much we got done, and how little they got paid for their help. Nan even watched Commander Wiggleberry during the day so i could focus on tasks at hand.

curing the stove "black"

After returning to Balty, we splashed the boat at Tidewater marina, and held our breath hoping she wouldn't leak. All dry, and the engine even ran! I drove the garbage scow (as she had now lovingly been named) around Fort McHenry and tucked her into our new slip in Fell's point. She floated and ran, and that was about it. She absolutely looked like crap. Filthy hull, dingy boot printed decks, chipped topside paint, peeling varnish: a catastrophe. My slip neighbor Captain Tom said,"When you brought that thing up here...I'm not gonna lie...I said to myself--what the hell is thiiiis?"

You're gonna live in THERE?

I took half a day off and napped with Sarah and the dogs, and then phase 2 began. Sarah and i scrubbed the crap out of everything, i wired the mast and installed the VHF radio,(thanks to my brother's patient friend Mike who gave me a 12v 101 class in TN,) installed locks on the hatches, installed the stove (minus the flue,)scraped ALL of the varnish off and applied boat sauce, and sanded, painted, and caulked the topsides. Wait. That only took 5 seconds to write, and 10 or so days to do.

gin pole mast raising dress rehearsal

Phase 3 starts on Friday. I bought all of the standard yearly maintenance items for the engine. Fuel filters, air filter, fungicide treatment, and impeller kit. I also inquired as to whether or not Tidewater makes inner harbor house calls. They do. At 105 bucks an hour. Lets hope bleeding the fuel system is as easy as the book makes it sound. We'll see.

off to the Bay

All in all, the whole endeavor, complicated as it was, went incredibly smoothly. We pulled it off and I'm only a few days away from plying the waters of the Chesapeake Bay in my brand new looking 30 year old boat. I realized the other day when i took half a day off to go sailing that the bay is BIG. I saw 4 foot waves before i even got to the Key Bridge. I actually have to re-learn how to navigate--cause there are lots of things--like container ships--to hit. I also have to get her across the bay to my new job. At least now I'm sure she's up to it.

We'll see if i am!

Departure

Much has happened in the last few weeks, and much more is soon to come. I graduated, went aloft on a tall ship, made love to a hanging knee, met a dude who rides a horse to his neighbor's house 5 miles away to check his email, and got my first professional shipwright's job painting a boat down in the boatyard.

Graduation was a very formal event, which started with Christine playing "Pomp and Circumstance" on the "trench mortar". We had no idea she had been conscripted, so it was a pleasant surprise.  

It was so formal, in fact, that Ben actually put on a clean shirt and hat. Im fairly sure these were standard issue carharts, however. A potluck ensued after the awarding of diplomas. Liz and i hung out long enough to scarf down some food, make protracted goodbyes, and then we hopped in the 'bru and made for Aberdeen. She was to begin her shipwright's job aboard the Lady Washington, and i was there to volunteer for a few days before returning to wrap life up in Port Hadlock.

When we showed up, the topmasts and yards had already been removed, and there was limited need to go up the stick to take things down; however, Liz did have to climb the "spaghetti monster" to free a line. She basically climbed shrouds that were very loosely attached and wiggled all over with each step. Looked pretty crazy from where i was standing. Then it was my turn to go up on the Hawaiian Chieftain. This ship works in tandem with the Lady Washington for historical education programming. Liz certified me to go up the rig, and helped me over the dreaded "futtock" or platform. 

So, the deal is, you climb the shrouds just like a ladder, and then you clip the lanyard on your harness on the curvy line you see coming down from the platform. No problem so far. Now, you climb up the "ladder" that is leaning back into you at a 45 degree angle, and up onto the platform. "What the hell???" you ask. Yeah, that's what i said when Liz told me what to do. Then i said a few other choice things, then i wet myself, then i started climbing. And then, after i made it up, i took a deep breath and tried to stop shaking. I started shaking again when i realized i had to do it all in reverse. You know the feeling of being on the roof and waving your foot round looking for the top rung of the ladder? Like that but 50' up on a ladder made of noodles. I made it, and then we walked out onto a yard arm. It was nothing compared to the dreaded futtock, but i was still standing on a wiggly footrope leaning forward over a big stick. Between zip lines and rappelling in Mexico, and going aloft in Aberdeen, i think i have mostly conquered my fear of heights.

After this crazy day, i chose the "saltiest" berth i could on the boat. This enormous chunk of wood is called a "hanging knee" and is only one of many that help hold the deck structure up. I cuddled with it all night, and only hit my head about 19 times in the wee hours of the morning while adjusting my fuzzy sleeping bag. YES. I said fuzzy, because June is called June-uary here. I have had on either the clean or filthy black sweater every single day for 10 months. I kid you not. I told this to Dad on Father's day, and he said, "That's fixin' to change. Its about 90 here." Im ok with that. (For a day or two.)

Monday morning the shipwrights showed up, and we started digging into the planking on the boat to cut out any rot that may have found its way into the frames. I couldn't believe how big the timbers were. 8" of wood and then 8" of air. 8" frames 16" on center. Built like a tank. Unless it rots. Hence the tearing out.

This is the guy who rides a horse to his neighbor's.(Yes, he's wearing period correct slops). He also is the traditional blacksmith who made all of the edge weapons for all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Turns out, he's the nicest, most interesting dude on the planet. I had a blast getting to know him. He's hanging out with "Tiller" the ship's dog.

I got home Monday afternoon, took a nap, and settled into 2 days of drawing wrap up for the house i've been working on. Now i have to go down to the boat yard to paint tomorrow morning. Secret Ninja Ray recommended me to a woman in the port, and i couldn't say no to a paying gig. I probably should have cause i'm plumb tuckered out. I gave myself a few days to pack, which may allow a bit of time to ride around and see all of my old haunts one last time. Like the QFC parking lot and the marina. Ok. That took 5 minutes. I guess i'll take a break on Sunday before the big shove off Monday morning.

Its been quite a treat here in my salty fairy land. I feel like the luckiest dude on earth to get to have such an amazing midlife crisis, and would sincerely like to thank all of the folks who have supported my harebrained schemes and silly-ass dreams. Thanks--you know who you are.

Signing off, probably until the momster and i hit a hotel room in the desert. Needles California, here we come!

Winter in a SMALLER hobbit hole

As of October, I will officially be a Shipwright's Apprentice at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michael's, MD. For all of you who thought i had officially gone to the dogs and decided to just quit working forever, fear not. Its a (nominally) paid position with responsibilities including, but not limited to: cleaning and painting bilges, walking Rosie the shop dog, maintaining and restoring the floating fleet of historical vessels large and small, as well as interacting with the public in an educational way. The boat shop is a working exhibit, so when a 10 year old kid asks "what's that funny looking chisel?" i tell him its a corking iron and that I'm using it to drive cotton into the seams of some beautiful, rotten, leaky old hulk that we're trying to keep off the bottom.

"Nominally paid" means i can either buy housing or food, but not both, so i have opted to stay on my 23' sailboat at anchor through a Baltimore winter. I'll be across the bay during the week and home on the weekends, so I'll at least be able to shower, warm up, and do some laundry. During the week, I'll be colder than shit. And this time, i won't be able to stand up straight unless i go outside.

That's why i contracted my brother at "K-novel Inc." to build me a bad ass wood stove out of $20 worth of scrap steel. Feast your eyes upon this beauty. Design inspiration by some old English dude with a fish boat on YouTube.

It mounts to the mast step on the inside, and the flue goes through the deck, as per usual in a marine stove application. Not particularly looking forward to cutting a 5" hole in the lid of my boat, but its gotta be done. My brother stayed awake at night ensuring that i would have a smoke free environment, and swore if this boat ever sank, somebody was diving after this thing. So far, the tally is about $20 for steel and $400 for beer.

I have been assured that one load of wood will burn for about 2 hours, and its so hot, I'll probably burst into flames (especially if i have been using Bondo in the shop). I nearly choked to death the other day trying to light a "proper" vintage marine stove on a friend's boat, so I'm pretty excited about the smokeless K-novel model. Check out the prices on the competitor's website:
http://www.marinestove.com/sardineinfo.htm
ONLY a thousand bucks. Hell, I'll take two.

Taking orders now. K-novel Marine has a blue light special on wood stoves...Aisle 4.

If i had a quarter....

...for every time i had to make something because i couldn't find what i needed in the shop, i'd be rich.

Today we committed a felony in the shop and used a quarter for a washer because our ribband wouldn't lay down, and we couldn't find one even close to the right size to fit our needs. George was happy to help.

This is a carvel planked Davis Boat. Its a 13 foot motor launch...well, actually, its 12 feet. Because it accidentally got lofted 12 inches too short. We thought "Gandalf Sasoon" (a dude with stylish, well coiffed wizard hair) might blow a gasket when we had to tell him he and his cohort had made a simple, yet colossal error. This was discovered AFTER the keel was made--about a 3 week process. Anyhow, in carvel construction, you make molds the same as with lapstrake, but you use long skinny battens called "ribbands" to support the frames when you bend them in. Then, when you plank, the boards fit tight (hopefully) together instead of lapping over each other. Later, you remove the ribbands and molds, and are left with a swanky new boat hull.

Here are some pictures from a recent small craft gathering at the Maritime Center: the Pocket Yacht Palooza. OK. I didn't name it. I just hung out and took some pictures. There were many great boats, and a talk by a wingnut who rounded CAPE HORN in a sailing CANOE. Long, crazy story. 95 not winds, 10 days in a tent going bonkers, etc. Really nice, humble guy. He has recently been working with the government of Micronesia to develop the world's first "world park" to protect millions of acres of ocean from overfishing by...you guessed it, China.

We ended the day with a little sail on a 25' Atkin Cutter. The office manager at school needed crew, and we were happy to oblige. It was built by the school, and was the perfect example of all the boat details we have been seeing on the chalkboard every morning for 8 months. It was pretty great to actually understand how to make all those pieces.

Oh. I failed to mention that I'm headed home at the end of June. I am going to volunteer at the maritime museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in order to get repair and restoration experience. Its pretty much a rotten old historic wooden boat playground for dirtbags like me and my friends. Hopefully, if funding is in order, i will then become a paid Shipwright's Apprentice.
Either way, i'd rather work for free than pay $80 a day to scrape and poke some other dude's shitty old boat. the $4k  i won't be paying for my last quarter will buy a sweet bandsaw and lots of blades for my micro shop i'm planning to put together in a storage unit in balty.

However--don't be alarmed. I may keep writing about my boat related exploits after i leave school. I still have to fix my boat in my brother's yard, live on it during a Baltimore winter, and take Wiggleberry across the bay in a gale, to see if he really is a Salty Sea Dog. I also have to convince Sarah of the necessity of our new Sid skiff, (plans by Secret Ninja Ray Speck,)lofting and construction provided in part by my pal, Eric, east coast storage unit style.

I'm sure there will be much to write about.

Landfall

Today the Widowmaker made her first proper landfall since her Resurrection: Waterfront Pizza, Port Townsend, Washington. 

Christine, Eric, Greg and I set out at an insanely low tide, certain that we would do more punting than sailing, at least until we got around Skunk Island and into Hadlock Harbor proper. It was like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom in the resulting tide pool. There were sea stars (the artists previously known as starfish), anemones, crabs, and lots of little fishes. The starfish looked like day glow orange hubcaps. They were freakin' huge.

We poked our way out, set sail, and crabbed our way against the rising tide, and directly into the eye of the wind. Fortunately, Capn. Jacobsen (Christine) is a "wind whisperer". She can find the eye of the wind (the only direction you can't sail in) and point our nose right into it every time. Uncanny. At about 3 knots of wind the Widowmaker will barely sail forward; she goes about 3 feet forward and 2 feet sideways, with almost no steerage way. The "F$%#-off" jib pulls the bow around so far you have to spill its wind to stay headed in the right direction. A "F%$#-off" sail is one so gigantic it tells all the other sails to F-off. This is apparently standard Tall ship parlance. Christine has worked on various tall ships for several years, and is in charge of salty lingo and steering us away from snowball hitches, and directly into the wind.

Pretty quickly, we realized forward with oars was better than sideways with sails.

That's Port Townsend in the background. Its about 6 miles away from Port Hadlock Marina, our home port. This was taken about 30 minutes before we had to row for our lives to not be run down by a ferry. Tide and wind was against us, and we had to pass in front of the ferry terminal. But the boat seemed sooooo far away. It was haulin ass at about 20 knots, and we were draggin ass at about 1 knot. It was not too close, but close enough. I know the driver hates people like us.

Landfall! We strolled up and ordered a few pizzas, (Eric's nickname used to be TC--for Trash Can--he'll eat anything and lots of it). While we were gone, our rudder escaped and nearly floated away. Ahh. that's why there was a pin to attach it to the boat...

I got tired of getting up to keep the boat from floating away with the rising tide, so i tied it to my leg. Worked like a charm. See the mast slinking out of view, pull on the rope. Take a bite. What, me worry?

We tanked up, got sleepy, and headed home. It was a rocky start with some fouled lines in raising sail, as well as another boat bearing down on us, but we got underway and had a lovely run home in 3 knots of wind.

Greg did a fine job of running us wing on wing much of the way back. We almost made it back without jibing. When we got home, it was high tide, and it had raised 11 feet. It was nuts. No more pretty sea stars, but no more getting the dagger board stuck in the mud either.

We tucked the widowmaker in for the night, and planned for fabulous voyages ahead. Next time: Elevated Ice Cream.

Spring Fever

Its been a busy month. Spring has sprung here in the Pacific Northwest! Its all the way up to 44 degrees, and raining. Maybe I got spoiled during my fabulous spring break visit to Erwin, Tn, and Baltimore, Md. Flowers in full bloom, sunny and 75 degrees. It was an excellent trip. 

Ok, I can't really complain: it was sunny and 65 all weekend as i frantically rigged, rerigged, derigged and re-rerigged the Widowmaker. These things take time, apparently. You may be thinking: "I've heard about all this rigging  before...". Turns out, a gaff rigged mainsail has extra lines I'm not used to, and a pesky 6 foot bowsprit adds an extra line to every jib, therefore, I had to add extra cleats and route all this line somewhere sensible. I mean, are YOU going to climb out to the end of a whacking great long bouncy stick to untie a knot so you can pull a piece of canvas the size of a barn door back into the boat? Me neither. This means you have to tie a line to the tip of the sail to fish it back in. I did, however, during one of our test runs shimmy out to the tip of the boat to untie the "hankie" (a handkerchief sized jib producing little speed, but much stability). Of course, we were headed right for the bank, and Wayne-o had to tack the boat. I had to slide between the jib and the main. It was graceless and tangled, riddled with spitting and cursing, but finally effective.

Pictures? What pictures. I have no photos of all this nonsense, as i left my camera on the beach while we were launching this boat on Friday.

 Its a Whitehall rowing skiff. It was the "water taxi" of the 19'th century. I was responsible for painting it. Again and again and again. We painted it three times as various critics didn't like the color, or the gloss, or the semigloss, or the matte...you name it. Then we scored the perfect coat, and dropped it in the gravel. Best day EVER. After sanding and filling for 3 more days, we got a final paint job that looked great. We stuck it in the water while trying not to drag it on the beach, and then abut 34 people rowed it around and pulled it back up to the dock. Miraculously, not a scratch.
I was very pleased.

Getting our bearings. Turns out, you actually have to move the silly long sticks in UNISON. Who knew?

I got to sit in back and scream "row!" at Jack and Greg. Ok. Not really. I just went for the ride. Turns out, some very kind person put my camera on a t-shirt my pal left on the beach, and he brought my camera back to me. Hence the uploading of these pics.

Monday, we had a whiskey plank party. Yes. We do that a whole bunch.

This is the Grandy skiff. Its the rowing version, while the other shop is making the sailing version. I built the keel assembly, transom, and installed a few planks. My pal Eric made the stem assembly and installed some planks. We figure if we work on frames and furniture inside, we can claim about 75 percent of a boat. Pretty good experience, given class size and number of ongoing projects.

This is my current project. A mast for a Sid Skiff. The Sid Skiff is a boat that ninja Ray drew plans for. Its a beautiful boat, and Commander Wiggleberry and i may build one one day when we actually have a steady job. Hmm. I'm a dirtbag, and likely to remain one for some time to come. So much for a Sid skiff.

Also, in case you want to make a round tapered stick really round, you'll need one of these. It would also be good to have a bottle of ibuprofen, preferably the maximum strength kind, and maybe strong masochistic tendencies. If not, at least a good dose of self-loathing.

Yep. That's a plywood handle screwed to a belt sander belt. Oh yeah. I love sanding by hand. Maybe sometime next spring it will be round. Still beats working for a living! Wait...I'm paying to do this...