Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Striking a Balance


Sailing by cargo ships in Baltimore's Inner Harbor

All work and no play makes for a very dull day. That's why its important for us to keep a good balance between working on the boats and having fun on boats. I think this Memorial Day weekend was a great example of just that.  We worked removing the rot from the bow section of the hull on Lucy Maru, as well as primered and faired the new deck and widow section on the port side.

Travis inspecting and removing rotten planks

Digging rot out of some planks in the bow
 
Then we went sailing, twice! Once on T's racing boats the E33's which you would have gotten to know in the previous blog, and then on Russels's boat Lady Bug. 

Check out Chopper, he is loving it!

Russel fighting the wheel, Travis woo- whoooing, Baltimore skyline in background

sailing and smiling go hand in hand

Baltimore Inner Harbor 

Sailing is so much fun, I love it! I can't wait to get better at it, as I get all messed up in steering with the tiller. Everything is backwards when steering with a tiller, so if you want to go right you move the tiller to the left, and so on. Then of course there's keeping to a course, and knowing where you are, and knowing where other boats are, that add to my confusion. So I can't say that I'm a natural sailor, but I really want to learn all there is to know about it. And it looks like, living in the marina, we will get plenty of opportunity to do just that.
                                                  
 Us fishing off our back deck during a work break


Sunday, May 24, 2009

Sailing the e33

Travis:

I haven't had a chance to write a blog in quite a while, being extremely busy building boats and of course working on our boats. Fortunately Maggie has kept it up to date. I have been working with e yacht builders building the e33, a super fast 33 foot daysailer, which we are nearly finished with. We were able to finally go sailing this Memorial day week-end. We couldn't have had better wind and the boat performed better than anyone expected. I want one!



Maggie at the tiller

Maggie jibes toward the inner harbor

Glen with refreshing beverage. Beating into the wind with me at the tiller


Hard aground




The builders sailing fast









Friday, May 22, 2009

Why It's All Worth It

We got an unpleasant surprise while sanding the hull, more rot. Looks like some planks and ribs up at the bow are in dire need of replacing. That means our haulout  has to be moved back, which of course moves our return to Me Voy even further back. Big bummer there.  

But rather then dwelling on this unfortunate turn of events I decided to remind myself why this madness called working on boats is all worth it. 

First, living on the water we can easily slip into our canoe and kayak
 and take a little paddle whenever we want. We have already been out four times, which is three times more then last year.
Travis and Chopper enjoy a morning paddle

Another bonus to living on the water is all the wildlife around us.  Now that its getting warmer we have seen baby geese and ducks, water snakes, turtles, and all kinds of birds. This provides simple and fulfilling entertainment for both us and Billy and Chopper.  In fact I'm not sure what's more fun, watching the ducks or watching Billy and Chopper watching the ducks.
              Billy and Chopper watch the ducks 

Another plus to this boating life style is the marina. Not only are the "neighbors" really cool, but the simple pleasure of  coming home to the gently splashing water against the dock is awesome.  
         Billy enjoys the sunset on his perch

The last thing I will mention here is the light. Light everywhere! Coming from the warehouse, , where you couldn't tell if it was morning or evening outside, versus living on the boat  where we are surrounded by windows, is spectacular! We can grow plants, and see what we look like in the daylight!
           This is what I look like in the light
 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Are You Gonna Fiberglass That?

Its been nothing but work work work, both in the boats and in the job. I'm glad to be working now as to afford all the upcoming big expenditures. Someone once said that BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand. That's about right. Check out the beautiful mohagany wood that goes into the planks.

and white oak for the new frames. 

and marine plywood for the new deck.

I told you we've been busy. We have in fact replaced all rotten wood on the port side, from the fore deck to the aft deck. And that includes removing the nasty carpet that made up what we call the fiberglass sandwich. More about that shortly.

We went back to Me Voy on Easter, and it was a happy reunion, both with the her, and with our boatyard friend, Richard. Or, should I say with the great Captain Richard Griffiths, who had Soundings magazine just write up a story about him and Rosylin, his vessel, a turn of the century British fishing boat, converted into a yacht that Richard has lived on for the past 50 years.
Anyway, during our stay in Me Voy, we spent one evening telling Richard our wooden boat woes. He listened with beaming amusement, and only after Travis ended the tirade by saying "I'd like to kick that guy in the nuts!" (the guy who fiberglassed the entire deck of the boat), did Richard get real serious, and said "Well, well...you can't be too mad at him because at one point in time everyone thought that fiberglass was the solution to all wooden boat problems, and went around asking ,"Are you going to fiberlgass that?"Well turns out its not a good solution at all. This is what you find 10 years later under the laid glass. Ugh.

The wood anfd fiberglass removal went relatively quickly, as the fiberglass peeled off in large sheets. That's me removing the fiberglass, what a nasty job that was!

and once again Chopper was caught sleeping on the job.

So our repairs to Lucy Maru are going well. Our haulout is scheduled for May 28, which means we will be motoring to another marina, get put on a rail, get hauled out, and spend three days replacing screws, bungs, sanding, caulking and painting the bottom of our huge wooden boat. Is that really gonna happen?