A Little Light Housework

As we have been told (over and over and over by every single person who has heard we own one), wooden boats require constant upkeep.  So between all of our journeys and the big jobs like demo'ing the interior, we're trying not to let the little things slide.  Especially in a Northwest winter, keeping on top of caulking and leaks is paramount to a healthy wooden boat.

In Poulsbo on our way to Olympia we had a layover day.  We spent that day scraping the old crumbling caulk from between the hull and rubrails and replacing it.

Trying our best to keep nasty bits out of the water.

Northern in her new spot at Swantown.  Eli took our little sailboat out of its slip and used it as a workstation for stripping and caulking the water side of the boat.

Gimbal is just the right height for painting the covering board (the top plank on the hull which abuts the decking).

Some day we will take her down to bare wood and repaint; right now we are just taking off the flaking bits and touching up.  Next up is painting around those battens with anti-rust paint.

Rough spots sanded down (the pipe on the left is the downspout from the top deck above the wheelhouse...classy).

Taping off to paint.  Somehow this photo turned blue; our boat is not blue.  It's not exactly white right now either but it's definitely not sky blue.

And after a fresh coat.  Much more presentable!  Still need to touch up that rub rail.

But on the whole a little more suited for a private marina.

Brighter!

Now if only we had time to do something about this stem.

Poulsbo to Olympia

The second leg of our voyage home took us from Poulsbo (my hometown) to Olympia, where Northern would be moored at Swantown marina.  It was a gorgeous day for a trip.  We had a pretty good crew for this jaunt: Eli, his friend and fellow boat nut Ryker, myself and our two dogs Salty and Indiana.  The fur kids were of course outfitted with proper floatation devices.  I wish I had some video of the dock staff anxiously watching us depart (a perfect dismount, no property damage or injuries sustained) but we'll have to start a little later.

Pretty much immediately after we got out into Liberty Bay, we ran into a boat trying to tow this boathouse whose propeller had fouled.  They flagged us down for help but fortunately while we were trying to get our behemoth maneuvered around to toss a line, the Poulsbo PD showed up and took over for us.  Good deed for the day taken care of.

Salty in the wheelhouse.  He occupies 99% of available floor space.

Our boat is also a ropes course: swinging from the rigging to the hatch.

Ryker the monkey man.

We no longer have this anchor but that is another story for another day when I can tell it without gritting my teeth so hard I am in danger of cracking them.  Headed toward Blake Island.

South of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, looking back at a stunning day.

It's so beautiful, man!  A DOUBLE rainbow!

Looking smooth, manning the autopilot.

There is a very nice but not dog-friendly spot just above the wheelhouse.

True mariners sleep best on the water to the sound of a diesel engine apparently.  This also illustrates just how large the captain's cabin isn't.

A nice view.

The guys inspect the deck steering system.  There are so many toys on this thing it is like they have been set loose in FAO Schwarz on black Friday.

Rounding south into Budd Inlet toward the end of our trip.

Dog is our co-pilot.

And that is pretty much Indy's opinion on the matter.

We made it home safely!  More later!

Getting to a Blank Canvas

Having gotten Northern down to her home in Olympia, we set about with the fun part: demolition.  The boat was still rigged with two fish holds: the main hold, under the midships, and a large steel hold aft.  We're going to have to wait to remove the aft hold until we can rebuild the deck it's taking up, but we are planning to live in what used to be the main hold, so out it came.

Eli took all of the painted plywood shell and insulation out himself because he is a beast.

Part of the plywood has been torn out, exposing the lovely "Pink Panther" insulation

The frame pieces also came out.  The old planks forming what we landlubbers would call the wall are, paradoxically, known as ceiling planks.  That large brace piece is called a knee and is carved from a single piece of branched lumber.

All the insulation is out now; those aluminum joists are unfortunately cemented into the floor (ahem. deck.) so we had to to saw them off at the base.

This is looking forward.  That bulkhead at the front is covered in steel, under which is a double sheet of plywood, four inches of insulation and a giant 1/4" steel tank.  We need there to be stairs there instead.

Looking up at what is not the ceiling but is instead 'the overhead', you're seeing the bottom of the deck planks and the deck beams.

It took many many many many many trips up the ladder, hoisting a garbage bucket on a rope, and dock carts to get all this debris off the boat.

By the way, have I showed you this ladder before?

It is a broken neck waiting to happen.

The forward bulkhead again, with all the steel plating removed.  To the left you can see they had removed a couple ceiling planks (remember, we're talking about the wall) to assess the inside of the hull.  Those suckers are over two inches of old growth fir.

On another day, Eli and I and Eli's buddy Ryker (one of the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse) tackled the forward bulkhead.  Actually this is not entirely true.  Eli and Ryker drained the giant tank behind the bulkhead and said, "Here, Kate, you go destroy that wall!"  Two hours later I had removed approximately twelve square inches and was really irritated.  The guys gamely charged in and I think genuinely expected to have it done in 20 minutes.

Getting this bulkhead down took all three of us the better part of six hours, skillsaws, power drills, sledgehammers, crow bars and a lot (A LOT) of swearing.

But I felt better about myself.

Also it was very dusty.  Here Eli is jamming a crowbar behind the panel to start peeling it off.  After we peeled off the first layer we had to remove the 817, 435 screws they had placed into every. single. panel. to hold them on.  And then peel off that one.  Repeat, ad nauseum.

We got those two panels in the middle done!

Once they got a corner up, it was a two man effort to pry the piece forward enough to wedge another breaker bar in to pry the piece forward to wedge another breaker bar in to pry the piece forward....

One of the last to go.

We had to make ourselves steps to get out on the curve of the ceiling to remove the corners.  Ryker is taking off the starboard corner and I'm fighting with one of the inner plywood layers.

The final result.  We swear it is progress.  Also, I would have sworn I was not in this picture but thanks a lot Eli.

Two of our six industrial garbage bags of insulation and scraps, along with the five foot pile of large chunks and an entire gallon bucket (not pictured) of screws.  We are being ridiculous cheap savvy and saving all the usable hardware possible.  We paid for the stupid screws.

Right now, all of that junk is out of the hold and it's a big blank slate.  We've moved since doing this demo, and all of that rigamarole stalled out progress for about a month but we're back to it.  More to come!

Anchors Aweigh

A few weekends ago, approximately 20 minutes after receiving word that we finally owned Northern (a stressful and expensive headache that we don't want to talk about yet but may be funny in thirty years), we packed her up and headed out of Seattle to Poulsbo, en route to Olympia.  

With thanks to NWCruising.net--we started out in Ballard

These are some of the very few halibut schooners still floating and working, all in a row at Fisherman's Terminal in Seattle 

Skipper!  This was our first time taking Northern out; both of them did great (Eli is used to driving boats four times this size) 

The Chittendam Locks in Ballard, cruising in

The locks have been drained, gate is open and we are about to take off (major thank-yous to Eli's buddy who came along to help us out)

We aren't quite sure how tall Northern's masts are, but it turns out they are too tall for the Ballard railroad bridge.  Fortunately they were opening anyway for a sailboat's 75' mast

Coming out of the canal to Shilshole bay, we encountered a regatta of very slooooowly moving sailboats.  When we are on our sailboat and have right-of-way, we think this is great.  When we are on Northern and have to wait nicely for them to toddle by, we get cranky

This gorgeous old woody exerted her right of way by refusing to steer around us and very nearly steered into us instead.  There was very little breeze so they are all flying their big spinnakers and looking like giant kites

Kicking back on the foredeck...there is nowhere to sit on this boat...yet

Autopilot selfie!

Approaching Agate Pass bridge (almost as old as our boat!)

Northern, steaming along like she's done it forever

Cruising at 7.5 knots and with a very efficient hull, you don't end up with a lot of bow wave for porpoises to play in.  One came up and investigated but got bored pretty quick

Happier than a gearhead on diesel fumes (and the shades even came with the boat!)

Bainbridge on the left, Suquamish on the right (hi Nora's house!)

Agate Pass up close

Just through Keyport, heading into Liberty Bay.  Almost home!

Moored in Poulsbo for the weekend.  Northern is 72 feet; Poulsbo's guest docks have two giant end slips, both of which were reserved (and totally empty when we arrived, but whatever) so we ended up here:

On the very inside slip with six feet on either end of us.  That is what you call excellent ship handling, courtesy of Captain Stevens (who triumphantly disappointed the half dozen people on the dock with their camera phones, waiting to upload the latest YouTube boat morons hit)