Lots of Details, Lots of Sailing

I'm happy to report that since the boat was launched, a lot of projects have actually been completed, but I have discovered that it is much harder to accomplish many projects when just sailing is an option. The week after the boat was launched, I was successful in my attempt to get the engine running, which was a relief. For a while I was content with just sailing the boat, but recently I have really gotten a lot of major projects done which has left the boat looking better than ever.

One of the first projects was to prime the interior of the boat, and while doing this in the water wasn't ideal, the primer seemed to go well, and the boat started looking better immediately.

I also spent a lot of time sailing, and now have played with a lot of the different headsails that came with the boat. It's pretty nice to break up projects with sailing...

Here's the genoa:

And a light air drifter, which looks pretty bad, but really is in decent shape.

...and then this jib, which is in pretty good shape

More recently, I was asked to show the boat in a "Classic Boat Night," which really gave me some motivation to wrap up a lot of the nagging projects I had. On a nice day, I finally painted the mast step, along with a narrow strip on the transom (where the waterways and hull meet) and gave the interior a final coat of paint.

Mast step finally not looking rusty:

And that strip (where I had masking tape separating the red and white paints when I painted the boat): The interior:

Pretty minor details, but they really made a huge difference. I also finally re-bedded the fixed ports (for the second time) and this time they are really watertight. That led to me really finishing a bunch of other interior projects. After some bargain hunting, I finally found a brass galled faucet that fit the narrow galley counter top, and was able to hook up the fresh water for the first time in a while. I also put the ice-box lid together, and replaced the hinge on the counter top over the head. So with fresh paint, and nicely cleaned and oiled woodwork, the interior is really looking good. New cushions really weren't in the budget this year, so I'm stuck with yellow vinyl for a little longer, but its not the end of the world.

All in all, my to-do list is getting pretty short. Still need to get the name on the boat (which hopefully will get done this week), and the brightwork needs many more coats (but that won't happen with 90 degree, humid days).

So as the summer starts winding down, I am really just looking forward to enjoying the boat before the fall, and the boat is finally at a point where I really can just enjoy it rather then letting nagging projects get the best of me.

In the Water

Its been a very busy two weeks, but thankfully the boat is in the water now, and the sun even came out for a few brief moments in the last week. Before that could happen, however, there were a whole host of small projects that had to get done before I could even consider launching the boat.

I took advantage of the one sunny day in the last half of June to get a second coat of varnish on the toerails and coamings, and more importantly, finally paint the cove stripe. It was definitely a rushed job, but you can only tell that it was really rushed if you are inches away from the covestripe. Applying 3 coats of paint in one day was not the intended plan, but when there is only one day of sun, that's the way it has to go.
Midway through the painting/varnishing escapade...

Despite how nervous I was about the way the paint was applied, when I pulled the tape it actually looked really good. There are a couple spots where the paint bled under the tape, but I will scrape those off later, and the boat now looked much more complete.

On Monday, I decided the boat would go into the water on Friday the Third, and scheduled the launching. This step is typically what dooms me, but it really motivated me to take advantage of every break in the weather to get projects done. That afternoon I was able to get the companionway reinstalled (after seven coats of varnish at home) which made the cabin more or less watertight (the dealights still leak a little).

The next day, I painted the bottom in the morning and then before a host of other errands, picked up a bunch of new parts for the boat - most importantly new halyards and a new tiller.

On Wednesday, I decided that it was time to reassemble all the pieces of the mast, carefully installing the sail tracks, masthead and shroud fittings and assorted other parts. With new halyards, cleaned up hardware and fresh varnish, the mast was really looking good.

The tiller also required pretty significant attention as well. I began by shaping the butt in a similar fashion as the old one, and then brought it to the boat for a test fit to check the desired angle. With that confirmed, I took it home and began to fit it to the original bronze rudderhead fitting.

The original fitting, which I neglected to get a picture of, is an unusual size so that I couldn't buy a stock tiller in the exact width. As a result, I centered the tiller in the fitting, created a mold with the fitting and then used epoxy to fill in the gap. After letting it cure, I removed the fitting, and cleaned it up. Now the tiller snugly fits in the fitting and the whole assembly looks pretty smooth too.

Thursday was one of the busier days of late, as I worked to put all the pieces together and get everything cleaned up too. I had left the tape on the areas to be varnished hoping to get at least another coat on before launching, but the coat never happened, and the tape was nearly impossible to remove. My mistake, but frustrating nonetheless. I also needed to get the engine on the boat, bring the mast back to the boat, get it secured on the boat, reinstall all the standing rigging, check the seacocks, and give everything a quick rinse since I hadn't done that yet this year. By the time I was finished it was well past sunset and, no surprise, raining again.

I woke up early the next morning, to drop the sails and boom off at the boat, get gas for the engine, and some other last minute parts and by the time that was wrapped up, the Marblehead Trading Company was there picking the boat up.

Here are some pictures I snapped before they arrived - definitely an major improvement over last year...

Here she is getting picked up -

...And then driving through town. Although it was nice to be there this year, it also was a little more nerve wracking having to follow the boat through town. It wasn't until they had pulled the boat out of the yard that I noticed how out of alignment the legs of that sawhorse were, which made me nervous for the whole trip. Thankfully, the boat made it in one piece.

I was really looking forward to watching it splash this year, but I ran to my car to grab something, and by the time I turned around, I had missed the moment - so it goes. She was floating very nicely, and the seacocks were not leaking, so that was a good sign. I watched, nervously, while they stepped my freshly varnished mast, and in short time, everything was set.

Then came the real moment of truth - the one thing I really hadn't checked, the engine. I have had this engine for 9 years now, first using it on my inflatable, and now Adagio and it has never given me a problem. Unfortunately, that streak ended, as none of my tricks could get it to start. Probably would have made sense to check this ahead of time, but I was much more interested in getting the other aspects of the SAILboat ready, so I just assumed. My mistake, again, but thankfully, there was a gentle breeze, so I bent the main on and hoisted it. Needless to say, all the workers in the yard were surprised/nervous, but it felt pretty good to just push off and sail to the mooring under my own power.

And we're off-

So I made it to the mooring and got everything tidied up. I spent Friday afternoon racing on the Charles in Boston, and then raced on a freind's boat for the Fourth in Marblehead - pretty hard to complain about that. On Sunday I spent the day cleaning up down below (which received almost ZERO attention so far this year) and capped the day off with a little harbor cruise. As my 92 year-old grandmother pointed out in a brief moment of clarity, "there are few things in life better than owning your own sailboat." Couldn't agree more - tomorrow I will try to fix the engine, and then hopefully get some sailing in. And someday, when there is some sustained sun in the forecast, finish varnishing. But until then, I hope to just keep enjoying the boat as much as possible.

Can the sun come out soon?

The terrible weather has continued here in New England, so I have been cooped up in the workshop trying to get as much done as possible. I think I might be starting to have cabin fever from working down there so much, but the bits of the boat that are in there are starting to look really good.

Right now the mast, boom, spreaders and flagstaff are all hanging from the rafters for varnish, the companionway boards, handrails and tracks for the main hatch are on the table being varnished, while the two hatches are having paint work on their undersides while one also has some varnish work done. The mast and boom are up to six coats of varnish, while the other pieces are still at 5. The ice box lid is getting painted, as is the counter from the head, while the electrical panel continues to get worked on too. I feel like I spend half of everyday just trying to move stuff around so that it all fits into my garage - I think that what I am looking forward to most of getting the boat in the water is just getting everything out of my garage...

An overview of everything:

The mast:

Main hatch:

I'm hoping that when the weather clears up later this week I can start working at the boatyard again. On the boat, I still need to varnish the toerails and cockpit coamings, paint the covestripe, apply bottom paint and if time permits, adjust the boottop. Also, I would like to get the name on the transom, but that is not exactly a high priority item at the moment. There is also a bevy of smaller interior projects, but they also aren't anything that will stop me from having the boat launched.

P.S. Sorry about the picture quality - I'm missing the cord for my regular camera, so I'm just using my phone's camera - which doesn't take quite as good close up pictures.

Sprucing Things Up

I took advantage of the two sunny days we had this week to get a lot of sanding done on the boat. The toerails and cockpit coamings were completed, as was the mast. While this took much longer than I had anticipated, I was pleased to have it done, even if the wood still didn't look as good as I would like. After being neglected for so long, the coamings will probably never look perfect again, but I figured that making them smooth and then glossy will help hide how degraded the wood had become. The toerails were replaced at some point, but the bit at the bow was not, resulting in the color difference noted below - not a huge deal, and hopefully it will be less apparent when it is all varnished.
The cockpit looks good, but the wood is substantially darker than I would prefer. Thankfully the paint still looks good, which should help brighten the area up a bit.

After spending two days sanding, I was happy to get 1 coat of varnish on before we get rain for another week. This coat was heavily thinned and should do a good job of sealing the wood - as I applied it, the wood was really soaking it up, which also made it look darker and uneven.

The mast also received significant attention. Early on Wednesday morning I applied the first coat of varnish, thinned 50%, and let it dry while I attended to the toerails and coamings. Later in the day, I applied a second coat, this time thinned 25%. Both of these went on very smoothly, and the wood was really soaking it up.

The mast was already looking much better, and I was pleased that all the preparation was paying off. But, as I mentioned earlier, the forecast for the next ten days includes 9 days of rain. If I waited for the sun to come back out, the boat would never really be ready for the water, so I knew that I had to find somewhere indoors to varnish over the next week...

While the mast would fit in the living room, that idea was quickly denied. So I had to get pretty creative with fitting the mast in the house. I have a great workshop and garage under our house, but its only 20 feet long, and the mast is 26 feet. It also needed to be accessible so that I could varnish it, and I need to varnish a lot of other boat pieces so it couldn't block off the shop.

Ultimately, I ended up clearing out the crawl space at the garage, and building a track that runs up under the house. There's only about 2 feet of headroom in this area, but by allowing the mast to slide out, I can apply varnish to the top 6 feet (while the bottom 6 feet of the mast sticks out into the street) and then roll it back in and deal with the rest of the mast. Not the best scenario, but I applied the 3rd coat of varnish this afternoon, and it worked really well. The point where I stopped momentarily to move the mast wasn't visible, and if it becomes a problem down the road, this will be 20' above deck and I doubt it will be too noticeable.

Here is the top of the mast out...

While the bottom of the mast sticks out the garage and rests on my car...

And then after rolling the mast back into the crawlspace...

Given that the house was built in 1780 on top of ledge, building the track was one of the more uncomfortable and dirty experiences of late, but I think its pretty cool and I was really excited when it actually worked. It was also pretty cool to see the structure of the house up close - the original floor joists are massive, and a couple of them still had bark on the underside - definitely not the type of stuff you find in new houses.

Hopefully, this whole set up will let me get a coat of varnish on everyday for the next week, which will help keep the whole project on schedule.