Slowly getting to spring

I was stomping around the yard with Ellen this afternoon and we saw these lovely early signs of spring. For the past two years I’ve been nurturing an apple tree volunteer in the hopes I can get a graft to take. Last year’s failed but I gave it another shot today. We will see if the Golden Crisp scion will survive. (I’m so dedicated to you, dear Reader, that I went out into the cold and dark to take a picture of the wee apple sapling.)

In other news, I was at WalMart and picked up a five gallon pail of oil for the engine and generator. That’s the largest quantity of oil I’ve ever purchased in one go. And I’m thinking a second bucket wouldn't be a bad idea. We need to trim the boat with more weight on the port side, and oil is great for the role of ballast since it doesn’t rust or clank around.

Also got the backup propane cylinder filled. It got used up boiling maple sap this year.

Look at these three fuel sources: propane, electricity, and gasoline. Curiously, none of these containers will be taken aboard Cyclops.

Ship of Theseus

When we purchased Cyclops, she came with an RIB dinghy we named Giggle Monster after an elementary school classmate of Ellen’s. The kid’s first name was Cindy, and her teacher called her Giggle Monster. (Ellen can’t remember her last name, so if you know…)

Anyway, that’s what we named the dinghy. At that point, she had a 2005 AB fiberglass hull RIB with a 2005 Mercury 15 hp outboard. We swapped the Mercury for the Yamaha and ran her like that for the past three years.

I patched the holes in her transom, painted the transom, repaired the oar-holders, and used 5200 to adhere tie down brackets for the fuel tank. In this configuration she was reliable and sturdy, but heavy.

This is me in Giggle Monster in NY just after Matt and I resolved the water-in-the-fuel problem and I went for a test drive.

This winter we replaced the AB hull with a 2021 aluminum hull Highfield and I’ve been getting her just right. New fuel filter/water separator installed. And the Highfield comes with really smart velcro to hold the fuel line off the floor and out of the way. There’s also a nice gas tank platform in the bow where we can strap the tank. This configuration is probably around 20 lbs lighter than before.

I hoisted the full rig (loaded with lead shot in the bow to simulate a full tank of gas and the dinghy anchor/rode) to make sure our hoisting harness lifted her evenly. She’s perfectly level…ready for the start of the season. (The season, incidentally, feels very far off today because even though it is late March, in Maine March is just another month of February.)

It’s a little tough to see the harness in these pictures, but Iast year I spliced up a Dyneema harness and used a beefy clew ring from a big-boat genoa as the lifting ring. The block and tackle I used to raise Giggle Monster in the air is the old preventer from Cupcake.

Maintenance update

Turns out, today I’m inspired to get caught up. Plus I figured out how to do the slideshow trick with photos and that is fun for me. So here are some somewhat maintenance-oriented photos. In preparation for new radar, GPS, and other electronica, I removed the radar mast, modified it so I can fly flags from it, and had it powdercoated. Looks super back on the boat. I also templated a new dashboard for the new chart plotter. Practiced on cheap plywood before cutting into the expensive teak I bought. Turned out great. I installed some fresh-water flush valves for the generator and the AC (yes, the boat has AC, and heat. Three zones!) I still need to plumb a freshwater flush valve for the main engine. I sanded and varnished the wheel. Oooh! I’ve got the chain and rode for the backup anchor all squared away. (We also got a new primary anchor…a 55 lb. Vulcan with 200’ of chain and another 90’ of line…yowza! And there’s Cyclops, hibernating for another month. Then the wrapping comes off and the season begins!

Catching up

Well, where to begin…Lots has happened around here since I last posted in 2022. But what you’re here to see is boat content, so let’s get to it.

Our girl Cupcake was sold back in 2021, as far as we know she is adventuring with her new owner in Virginia. We sold the Mako in 2023 and got ourselves the next cruising boat, a 2005 Nordic Tug 37.

That boat was purchased in the winter of 2022, sat at her marina in Virginia until April 2023 when Ellen, Moss, and I moved her up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore during April vacation. Then in late May a rotating crew of stalwart sailors helped me move her up to Maine. We’ve named the boat Cyclops for her prominent single porthole facing forward.

The past several summers have been great fun as we’ve gotten to know the boat, gotten used to trawler life, and prepared for retirement. Retirement happens this year: Moss graduates in June, Ellen is done teaching in June, and I’ve been winding down my law practice with an expectation that all my cases will be resolved by December. By June most major cases will be done and I’ll just have to wrap things up over the coming months. Starting in September, we will be living aboard full time. So I will deal with court by Zoom.

We plan on selling our house at the end of August, after Moss goes off to college. Then Ellen, Friday, and I move aboard and start our life of adventure.

That’s enough catching up. How about some pictures?

There she is: Cyclops.

Friday, a well-ballasted cat, watches the world go by.

Here we go: Maine is beautiful, we have stained glass on our pantry cabinet doors, schooners are beautiful, backgammon and raspberries on a boat is heaven, the Ford and I are the same age, we eat well on board, visitors are fun, Maine has beautiful beaches, Maine has yurts, Friday enjoys boat life, we now have decent kayaks and love then, Brooklin Maine is one of the loveliest spots on the coast, we finally got to the Penobscot Bay Narrows Bridge. You’re caught up. The next batch of posts are likely to be about maintenance. Stay tuned!

Isn't she lovely?

Our neighbor got a new digital camera and took some great pictures of Cupcake playing in the bay last week. Here’s another one.

There’s been lots of discussion lately about retirement and the next cruising vessel. Our buddies from Piper were camping at Wolfes Neck Farm Campground last weekend so we got a big dose of cruiser time with them. Went out on the Mako for picnic and swimming. Met up with Jim, Sherry, and Eliot at Little French Island.

The talk has revolved around finding a TRAWLER for live aboard/snowbird action. ICW=>Florida Keys=>Cuba=>Turks&Caicos=>Bahamas=>New England. Doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend the winter, does it?

Summer check-in

Back in May we found the newest Cupcake: a Doughdish. Doughdish is a Herreshoff 12 1/2 with a fiberglass hull and deck instead of wood.

The boat is incredibly engaging to sail. She is safe, stable, entertaining. And as you can see, absolutely gorgeous.

Niece Zoë and cousin Rebecca are visiting for a few days. Yesterday we went for a marvelous sail on the bay.

Art gallery

Today I thought it would be nice to take a break from catching up with the Mako refresh and instead check out the shop. More specifically, a look at the artwork out here. During lockdown in the early days of the pandemic Simon was living at home. He had planned to spend at least a semester in Maine while working on Sara Gideon’s senate campaign. But shortly after he got home the pandemic hit and he ended up staying for all of 2020.

One of the ways we passed the time was to go out to the barn in the evening and work on restoring his Dyer dinghy. As events transpired, the division of labor soon evolved so that I focused on the restoration with periodic help from Simon while he was consumed with drawing on every surface of the barn.

We created a loose narrative about two civilizations on opposite walls of the barn. They had not yet made contact with each other but were deep into the exploratory phase by mid-summer.

Now every time Simon returns home to visit he comes out to the barn to add to the artwork. Sometimes I take his fabulous work for granted, but more often I look up from whatever I am doing on whatever boat is in the spa and I realize how fortunate I am to be surrounded by such excellent artwork.

So today’s posting is a sampling of the magic that goes on in that most happy of my happy places.

We’ve got LEGO heroes watching over us.

We’ve got LEGO bug-men climbing electrical conduit.

Plenty of transportation images.

Raccoon? Fox? Wolverine? Who knows.

Giant squid attacking a mahogany-shell sailboat. Oh boy.

This is Ellen’s work and it used to be the figurehead on a backyard play structure/pirateship we built when Simon was just a wee salt.

In addition to hosting a study of teapots, the door sports a reminder to cover one eye before leaving the barn on dark evenings. It’s a trick we learned from pirate lore: the purpose of the eyepatch pirates wore was so they could flip it up and have low-light vision in that eye when they dashed belowdecks during a battle. We try to remember to cover an eye during clean up at the end of the night so the perilous walk back to the house is easier with some night vision.

This image recalls the riddle of the person who needed to move a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain across a river. The person only has a boat big enough to carry himself and one other item (fox, chicken, grain). If the grain is left with the chicken, the chicken will eat it. If the chicken is left with the fox, the fox will eat it. How does the person get across with all three without anything getting eaten?

Painting!

After finishing the console I set to work cleaning up the interior…what a mess things were under that console!) The month of November was spent sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, sanding, sanding,

Finally I got the inside of the hull to a condition where I felt it was good enough. I need to remember that this boat is not a showpiece, it is a pickup truck for the water. In fact, earlier this week I recognized the fundamental tension and conflict I feel with boats and boat care. I love them so very much, but treat them so very poorly. Even a coddled boat is left marinating in saltwater all summer, exposed to sun and rain and bird poop. Of course, if the boat is going to be used, it is going to get some abuse. Perhaps the only good thing about winter is the time it affords me to remedy the indignities the boats endure during the rest of the year.

Anyway, the painting went well and looked great until it didn’t. I’ve got roller marks, bubbles, drips, orange peel (which is when the paint texture looks like…orange peel). But if I turn off half the lights in the barn it looks fantastic. Even in full sun it will look significantly better than it did last season. One of my big goals was to remove all the old hooks and hardware so the boat is simple and has fewer things on it to break or catch lines.

Like the console, this job involved filling over 100 screw holes in the boat. in the 30+ years this boat has been used, it’s had a lot of different seats, covers, snaps, and equipment installed. My friend Matthew always opines that “sailors sure do like drilling holes in their boats.” I’ve also heard some old salts claim one should only have an odd number of holes in the hull of the boat. This statement makes no sense to me, but in any event the Mako has zero holes in its hull.

It may be dull, but I’ve included a series showing the progression of the repair to the stern. The area had been smashed somehow by the previous owner and the fiberglas was delaminating. I cut it all open (that was scary stuff) and built it back up with a core of hardwood and then lots of fiberglas cloth and fairing compound. I think it came out pretty well.

Console work

If it seems like there’s a flurry of activity –you know, two posts in two days–it’s only because I’m getting caught up with the work I did over the winter.

Anyway, after filling and fairing and sanding the little screw holes and the larger cutouts on the console it was finally ready for primer and paint.

The patching was a satisfying first step in moving the project forward. In the moment I naively thought all I would be addressing this winter was the console. There was a little bit of mission creep.

As is often the case, the closer you get to the paint job, the worse it looks. So keep back!

I couldn’t help myself so I installed the GPS about as soon as I could. In retrospect I should have waited. I also should have filled the entire steering wheel hole and the throttle hole and started fresh. Perhaps I will learn these lessons for the next boat.

The next new thing

This weekend we all went to visit my parents to celebrate Mom’s 80th birthday. All the grandchildren (and a host of other luminaries) were there. A great time was had by all. But this blog is not about birthday brunches, no matter how delicious the food. (Special shout-out to Zachary for cooking up the most delicious egg sandwich I have ever eaten.)

The Mako, which Moss christened Gnat, is settled into her winter quarters.

No, this blog is about boats. So why mention the birthday party? Because my wonderful Aunt Flora reminded me that she and her Nyack Knitters are the biggest fans of this website and have missed the scintillating content of years past.

Fret not Knitters, there’s another boat in town! Cupcake left our fleet last year when we sold her to a woman who sailed off to Virginia where she is living aboard. So we filled that hole in our hearts with a 17’ Mako center console motorboat. The boat was in good enough shape to use last summer, but definitely needed some sprucing up over the winter. And spruce her up I did.

Starboard side. You can see the icky goo that held the swim ladder on the starboard rear quarter. You can also see the trusty shop vac that went to the great sawdust pile in the sky this winter after more than a decade of use and abuse.

So this part of the blog will focus on the excitement involved in taking a rough around the edges motorboat and making it into something we are proud to be seen in.

The outboard is a Mercury 115 two-stroke. Two-stroke engines require the addition of oil (you can see the green tank). With the dinghy outboards we mixed oil with the gas, with this big guy we add oil to a separate tank. Some day I would love to convert the boat to electric but that’s years in the future.

Fortunately for everyone, the Mako and trailer fit into the barn perfectly. When Ellen found out I backed the boat/trailer in on my own she told me she was more proud of me than she has ever been. She is tough to impress, and to be perfectly frank, it was a pretty tricky bit of driving.

The first thing I did when the boat was in the barn was to strip off all her old, busted, sun-damaged equipment. The philosophy behind this refresh of the boat is that she will have everything she needs and nothing she doesn’t. We decided there was no need for a VHF radio and antenna since we have perfectly good handheld radios, no need for fishing rod holders since we don’t fish. We moved some cleats to better locations, fussed with the anchor setup (of course), and generally tidied the boat right up.

The guy we bought the boat from in Boothbay Harbor told me the boat had been rewired by “the best electrician in Boothbay.” I worry about the electrical safety of BBH residents because the boat was an electrical nightmare. Switches didn’t work, bilge pump was incorrectly wired and wouldn’t turn on, navigation lights wouldn’t turn off, so they drained the battery. Generally a mess.

This is all the junk I removed from the boat…flag pole holder, trolling motor mount, broken speakers, compass, rod holders, broken radio, etc.

That’s enough typing for now. I’ll upload some pictures to whet your appetite.

This is the bare console. You can see the spaghetti-mess of old wiring inside, and all the hacked up holes the previous owners added to the mix.

The starboard rear corner was smashed, this is the start of my repair.

I got the console off the boat and started filling the holes. This piece alone had about 100 screw holes to be filled.

Progress.