Opening Day Parade

Saturday last, the Port Townsend Yacht Club, in Port Townsend, Washington celebrated the beginning of spring sailing season with a sail-by of the downtown area.

Doryman took the opportunity to hitch a ride with Captn Kirk Gresham in his Crotch Island Pinky, Tradition. Here we see Kirk rigging his sprit ketch with fellow crew member Lynn Watson standing by.

Most of the boats present were plastic power driven craft. Seemed to have missed those in the photos, which can be found in Dorymans Flickr sets.

The Port Townsend Pocket Yachters turned out in force, though catching them in the act was harder than it might seem. This was suppose to be a parade...

Bad Doryman! He was playing hooky from work. But happily he can say, the Stone Horse, Belle Starr is very close to being ready to launch, none-the-less. Plans to put her in the water have been, of necessity, postponed until August. Its going to be difficult to wait that long.




The name graphic on her stern is a stencil, ordered on-line. The letters are black and outlined with a thin burgundy stripe. The name is printed in an arc to match the transom.
Looks pretty good, wouldnt you say?

Please note the small door down below, on the forward bulkhead. See the dolphin? This is a very cool boat.

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First Build Day Building Form

After months of hemming and hawing over plans and possibilities and uncertainties and even driving to the Middle of Nowhere to get a trailer, finally we start building the boat.  Or at least we build something that is essential for building the boat.

The Glen-L plans call for making a building form upon which to build the boat.  With the building form you get the boat at a height you can work on it, as well as have a level, plum, and square form upon which to assemble the individual pieces.

From these photos you also get an idea of just how beautiful a location we have to build the Shantyboat  Thanks to Lawrence and his family for their generosity, and perhaps their healthy curiosity as they watch the project slowly come together from a pile of lumber to a boat.

I actually found an error on Glen-Ls otherwise flawless building plans.  The plans called for the cross spalls to be 97", which is one inch over 8 (a frustrating waste of conventional length lumber).  Another measurement in an end view gave half the measurement of the cross spall as 3-11 1/2", or 95 inches. As usual after a little back and forth clarification, I got a message from Gayle:

Wes,

I had Glen take a look at the plans and heres his
response:

Seems to be an error. The cross palls should
extend 3 11-1/2" each side of CL or 95" long. You
have thickness of side planking, plus FG plus rub
rail to obtain beam of 8 2". This will make an 8
width on the bottom to match the two 4 wide PW
panels. 

Gayle Brantuk

This building form was mostly made of scrap lumber.  The stringers (the frames of the boat that run longitudinally) will sit on top of and perpendicular to these cross spalls on top of the building form. 

I actually built the form wrong, at least according to the plans (the side pieces are reversed inside out).  And though it didnt hurt anything, it set me off on a cascade of self-recrimination at my carelessness.  If I assembled the boat with as little attention to detail, I would be wasting material, causing undue frustration, and making an ugly boat.

This made me rethink ways I could balance my eagerness with my sense of precision.  The next week I switched gears from my cavalier construction of the building form to a slower more careful approach.

Jen and Kai both helped me make the building form.  And after Kai and I had a pretty pointless conflict, I realized one very important boatbuilding need that I hadnt taken into account for people working hard in the hot sun all day:  Snacks!

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Eastern Washington Moveable Messabout Day 2

Sept 10.  EWMM day 2.  We crawled out of our respective tents into the crisp morning air. There wasnt much time to spare before our 8am breakfast and crew meeting in Priest River Idaho.  Just enough time for a quick shower (who knows when the next opportunity will be?), to break camp and hit the road.

We crossed the border into Idaho and arrived at AJs Cafe in Priest River, ID about 15 minutes later.

Now, for the moment of truth.  As is the case with many Messabouts, you never know for sure whos going to actually show up until the day of the event.  Our group consisted entirely of a group of hardy sailors.  When Dan first organized the event, he envisioned families, wives, maybe children, many in campers, coming and going for parts of the messabout.  Such was not the case.

Attending the event was (clockwise from the bottom) Dan Rogers from Diamond Lake WA, Mike Cox from Everett, WA, Kim Apel from San Clemente, CA, Dennis McFadden from Burnaby, BC Canada, Steve Lansdowne from Austin, TX, Tom Gale from Port Townsend WA, Joel Bergen (me) from Mukilteo, WA, and Thom Vetromile from Sagle, ID.

 

After breakfast, the caravan hit the road to our first destination, Blue Diamond Marina and Resort on Priest Lake, ID.

Launching the boats took several hours. Each boat had to be backed down a narrow dirt road, rigged, and launched one-by-one.

There was very little wind, but Dan cautioned us that the wind was forecast to blow later in the afternoon. Dan suggested that we should all sail to Indian Creek campground instead of Bartoo Island, for safety sake, to avoid getting trapped on a lee shore. Steve and I ghosted along in the warm, gentle breeze while the last few boats finished launching.  Sailing was rather dull, the skies were clear, and I scoffed at Dans weather report.

With all boats launched, we set forth as a group towards Indian Creek.  Sailing was pleasant at first, but ahead, in the distance, I thought I saw whitecaps.  A few minutes later, the whitecaps appeared to be headed our way.  Fearing Dan might be right after all, I began to tie in a reef.  Halfway through tying in the reef, WHAM it hit us.

The lake churned like a washing machine.  It was so rough I couldnt finish tying in the reef.  I had a double reef on the forward end and a single at the back.  The sail was flogging. One of my battens flew out of the sail and sank to the bottom of the lake.  We got the boat under control and pressed on.  Steve, and my camera lens did a good job of blocking much of the spray, but Steves foul weather gear was on one of the other boats.  He was wet and starting to shiver.  I looked behind us and saw that all the other boats had turned around and were headed back to the launch.

Steve and I abandoned our attempt, turned around and rejoined the group at the launch.  We waited for a while to see if the wind would die down, debating if we should try again or pull the boats and go somewhere else.  After an hour or so, conditions seemed to improve.  We decided to make a dash to Indian Creek campground, under motor, as quickly as possible.

We beached our boats on a beautiful sandy beach and set up camp.  The water looked tranquil in the little bay.  A while later, another sailor in a Lightning sailed into the bay.  He was headed to the North end of the lake but couldnt make it.  He said the conditions were too rough.

We named this windstorm "Hurricane Dan".

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