Month: May 2016

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A Happy Boatyard

A decorative feature on a yard truck
A decorative feature on a yard truck

There are happy yards and sad yards and the Port of Port Townsend’s Boatyard is one of the happy ones.

Oh, I don’t mean everyone is thrilled to be here. There are wrecks and disasters, people recovering from sinking and other myriad catastrophes, mired in insurance claims and backbreaking bills. But that may simply be a constant in the boating community in general.

No, I mean it’s the sort of place where folks nod to one another as they pass, strike up conversations when tools go down at lunch time, lend a hand when hands are too few to get that rudder lifted in place and hold it while it is secured.

The yard staff are quick with jokes and invariably helpful despite the blistering pace of work during the spring season… 16 to 18 boats in and out of the Travelift each day, on average, two 75-ton lifts shuttling back and forth between yard and water almost continuously, while the big, ponderous 300-ton monster trundles out from time to time for the really big hauls. You often hear “Shave and a Haircut” blipped out on the Travelift horns. These guys enjoy their jobs.

They remember the boats from season to season and their rigging is careful and conscientious despite their light-hearted manner. I’ve been here before but my boat hasn’t; the lift operator remarked that he didn’t think he’d seen her before but that she had lovely lines and he’d remember her the next time.

We chatted about strap placement and agreed on adjustments for the future… poorly-located transducers make Zia difficult to lift properly. CSR crushed the knotmeter paddlewheel at the survey haul-out. The Port Townsend guys noted with glee that they had just missed it.

“You guys are the best,” I tell them. “That’s what I always say.”

Blisters have all been opened to cook dry
Blisters have all been opened to cook dry

And it is what I always say.

Despite being busy, they gave me my choice of spots in the yard. I told them to surprise me, and they tucked me away into a nice, protected corner, convenient to hardware stores and bars, a rather empty precinct that nonetheless feels quite comfortable.

Port Townsend is a popular do-it-yourself hard so although people are busy, they’re not on the clock. Everyone is happy to put down their tools for a while to chat. It’s a great place to learn about boats and boat maintenance.

I feel judged when they come through and stare silently at my blotchy hull
I feel judged when they come through and stare silently at my blotchy hull

It’s good blister-drying weather. Sunshine and a brisk northwesterly, every afternoon, day after day… not Port Townsend in spring, surely. But here it is. Deer wander quietly through the forest of vessels as the morning sun casts long shadows off the masts.

Blisters are just one of many, many, many projects on my agenda. The mast comes out early on—the rigging needs replaced. All of it. And probably re-engineered, although it quickly becomes obvious that despite having more than a month out of the water, I won’t have nearly time enough to get to everything that needs to happen. Rigging can happen in the water… much of it probably will.

In the meantime, I get up, work, take a shower, go to bed.

In the shower, which takes only quarters, someone has left a penny on the floor, perhaps for luck.

I can use the luck, but also wouldn’t mind tidier facilities. The Boat Haven restrooms and showers, ostensibly coded, are in practice open almost all the time and serve as a sort of hygiene station for the many in Port Townsend who have living situations other than homes. This creates a rather funky air and despite the best efforts of the Port’s valiant cleaning staff, it’s more common than not to find the place in moderately foul condition. If possible, wheedling a code to the Point Hudson facilities and trekking to the other end of town to use those immaculate, spacious, classically tiled accommodations can provide a luxurious alternative every few days or so.

It’s also an excuse to stop work for a bit and enjoy Port Townsend itself. You run into friends on the street and they always offer to give you a lift, though the town is tiny and eminently walkable. Or they might show up at sunset to bang on your hull and ask for your help shifting a dinghy in exchange for a coconut-rootbeer float.

It’s a good deal and I took it.

The weather can’t last but, hopefully, neither can the blisters.

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Ballard Living in Style

I haven't been in Ballard for a while, but some of the neighbors are familiar.
I haven’t been in Ballard for a while, but some of the neighbors are familiar.
Ballard living is a whole different experience when you’re not parked out near the dead-end of Seaview Avenue Northwest.
Some friends who have a slip at Ballard Mill Marina are hauled out at CSR for a month getting some work done. They kindly offered me their spot while it’s empty. It’s a much easier place to get boat work done than out on the hook—water, electricity, stability, and hardware stores inside walking distance.
It’s also nice to have grocery stores and showers to hand, since I don’t have either refrigeration or pressure water installed yet. And work-work, the kind that brings money in the door, is easier with regular high-speed Internet service… although I have been pleasantly surprised at the speed and capacity of my T-mobile plan when I have needed it. Five gigabytes of high-speed data, with tethering allowed, on their lowest tiered pricing… not bad at all. Considering all the hoops I had to jump through to get a tethered connection for sipping 3G speeds a couple years ago, I am finding the LTE world pretty impressive. And it is so easy. I worry about getting a signal in more distant anchorages, though; coverage is T-mobile’s Achilles heel.
It’s a whole different world from living out at Shilshole Bay Marina, which is my only other Ballard Living experience.
It’s refreshing to get up in the morning and wander a couple of blocks to decent coffee shops, along broad, bricked streets that are empty of pedestrians and commerce save the few industrial concerns gearing up for long days at the beginning of boating season.
Old Ballard is mostly too pricey for me, but it’s nice to look at. And the library is nearby, and good grocery stores, and any sort of marine hardware or expertise you could possibly need.
I need a lot.
IMG_0106 1
Zia, the boat, is a 1978 C&C 38, and she’s feeling all her long years. Decks and canvas were a Northwest winter green when I got her, rope rotting in her rig, her paint faded and chipping away with the relentless onslaught of the seasons.
As is often the case with old boats on the market, her owner got to an age where he simply couldn’t keep her up anymore. A retired Boeing engineer, he’d clearly maintained her with love and expertise for as long as he was able. But the past few years hadn’t been kind. And the updates, the sort of common and ordinary improvements that cruisers tend to make over time, seemed to have stopped sometime in the late eighties. A litany of ancient electrical systems, antique instruments, and dated cordage fill my list of to-dos.
First up has to be the rigging. Like most C&Cs, she came with rod-rigging and has it still… all original, 40 years on, slack and in dire need of inspection. And, most likely, replacement—not even rod lasts forever. Water intrusion around the starboard chainplates makes some crevice corrosion more likely than not, and corrosion around the mast at the step all point to a desperate need to get the stick pulled before putting a load on it.
Of course, the running rigging would almost certainly fail first, bare and shredded in those rare places the lines are even visible beneath their coating of slime.
Then there is the bottom; blisters need repaired, keel bolts tightened and the hull/keel join filled and faired. A wobbly prop needs pulled and rebuilt or replaced. And…
I don't think it's possible to use a greater variety of screw heads than this guy did.
I don’t think it’s possible to use a greater variety of screw heads than this guy did.
And, and, and. Any time I pull the lid off, It’s all too easy to diverge into long lists of deficiencies and projects, years worth, tens of thousands of dollars worth. It’s overwhelming.
So mostly I try to focus on priorities and take one project at a time. Cleaning is the easy default. There’s always more to clean. And in a quest for easier living, a bump in the electrical system and addition of a solar panel are necessary precursors to the installation of refrigeration and a pressure water system. I’ve been muddling through such things, in between Ballard outings, waiting for my date with the Travellift in Port Townsend.