Finding Treasure and the feel of greed

Its early morning with the tide out as I walk along a dark, black/grey, sandy beach. The sea is almost calm but the slight swell undulates the waters edge in a way that reminds me of the way women run their fingers through their hair, going in and then out ever so slowly. 

This vision, along with the crowing of roosters and the never ending pulsating movement of the shoreline, enhances the early morning coolness of this secret beach. You see Iam not here today to just enjoy my surroundings, Iam here to look for and collect treasure.

Lots of it.

I have been sailing the worlds oceans since I was a kid, having grown up on a sailboat from the 60s to today. During this time period of cruising about the Pacific and Atlantics waters I have had the good fortune to have had a good vessel to carry me and my crew to many great and wonderful beaches with shore lines where treasure could be found. To be a successful treasure hunter you need a good like minded crew, and a boat that can carry your loot back home.

I found my first real piece of treasure at the age of 3 in 1960 on the beach in Mission Bay in San Diego, California. It was a dead crab Skelton. Since that first find I have been an inveterent beach comber, Treasure Hunter. Growing up on a sailboat sailing off to distant islands and countrys brought me to many fantastic beaches, shorelines, hidden coves, shallow reefs with myriad pieces of beach finds to be had.

I have nurtured and refined this passion for found objects into an art form by literally turning beach finds into art that I create. Over the years my crew and I have sailed thousands of miles across oceans collecting, shorting and stowing our finds with it all eventually ending up at our home base in the Bahamas where we use it in decorating our house and property or turning it into art that we sell to finace future voyages. At least 15 tons to date have been collected from the shorelines, stowed aboard and then maybe a year or two later when we return from a sailing cruise it is unloaded to await the next leg in its life.

This morning, bent over walking along zig zagging between the low tide line and last nights upper reaches of the waters edge, finds me picking up jewels. They are everywhere. Its like Montazuma, King Soloman, and Drake used to vacation here and they just dumped their treasures on the shoreline.

I have not discovered treasure like this in a long time. My pulse is flowing as I pick up each piece that has been tossing about for untold years being polished and formed into its unique shape and color.

In no time I have collected a bucket full of centurys old sea glass that used to be glass bottles that held wine, rum, perfumes, medicine, and poison. The really black pieces are the oldest, maybe 180 plus years. The blues, ambers, light pinks, greys, greens and reds all tell a story from the past. I pour the bucket into our dinghy carefully and go back for more.

The day before found Rachel, my wife, and I along with cruising friends Tim and Gayle Evans of the ketch Wild Bird were playing with our dogs along this stretch of beach. I was collecting very old bricks that had been rolling back and forth in the surf line, slowly caressed and at times pummelled into an oval rounded smooth shape by the never ending relentless surf. These bricks find their way to the ocean by way of hurricanes, old battles and simply just being thrown into the sea. I like the human connection of the sea bricks. These I would carry back home to be used in concrete foot paths in our home base in the Bahamas. I have collected beach stones throughout the North Atlantic basin from beaches and shorelines from where all the great explorers have come and gone from as they went about their lives. On one Atlantic trip we returned to our place with over a ton of these stones we found and collected from the islands of the Azores, Madeiras, Canaries, Cape Verdes, through the West Indies and back to the Bahamas. We built our small place in the Bahamas to be our base to offload all our beach finds. A place to stow, exhibit, and use our treasures. We call our land base "Tight Spot" as it has water on three sides. The land our two houses are built on is 152 long and 31 wide. We think of it as our land Yacht with the west side, that is the Starboard side, being tied to our neighbours lands. From a life time of beach combing and collecting we can say we have a piece of most all islands in the Caribbean and Atlantic waters at our place. "yeah , St. Barts over there,  granite stones from Denmark over there" and so on.

As the four of us walked along the beach I started finding bits of sea glass, then lots of it. I had never seen so much such thick beautifully sculpted pieces. We all started picking them up off the sand. Later that evening Tim came over to our sailboat with his iPhone and Internet access to show us that the totally black pieces we had found were very rare and old. We also could see all the web sites for selling sea glass and jewelry made from and with sea glass for sale. Some raw pieces were for sale on eBay for twenty dollars. Nice jewelry was selling in the hundreds. It was getting dark. I planned on being on the beach early. That night I had visions as I dreamed of making a huge seaglass chandelier for our small house, seaglass stepping stones, jewelry, necklases, and to get as much as I could I would use a huge barge with a JCB backhoe to dig up the entire beach. Oh the treasure to be found. So much loot just lay there waiting all these years to be had. This was the first time in my life I felt greed creeping into my soul. 

Over the next several days the four of us collected seaglass. Tim and Gayle had caught the fever too.

But not like me. I kept finding myself looking down as I walked everywhere, looking for a really perfect piece. I swam with a snorkel and mask along the shoreline in the gentle surf picking the pieces out of the shifting sands, beach pebbles, and stones like brightly painted Easter eggs off the grass. It was so easy and so much fun. I could not stop. How much did I really need? I wanted it all.

I looked online  to research seaglass. So much information! What all the seaglass people were promoting was that Daimonds are made by nature and then crafted by man, but seaglass is made by man and then crafted by nature. Excellent marketing. Quickly I came to realize that to sell seaglass I would have to be a very creative  jeweler, and make some very unique pieces of art to make money. This I will do. 

I have happily gotten over my greed. But not totally. I want to go back and anchor at this beach again for a few more days collecting as you never know what might come rolling out of the surf. Plus this place is so good the four of us have taken an oath not to share its location. But if you see the Hogfish Maximuis anchored close to a beautiful beach and Iam ashore hunched over walking slowly with a bucket in my hand then go get yours and we can compare finds at dusk.

A jewel sits waiting to be found

Walking the beach looking

Treasures in between the stones

The first haul of loot

Diving up more loot

A days treasure hunting finds

All Mine!!!!

Bottle bottoms, stoppers and nice big thick seaglass

So many colours in Rachels sample

Another pile, the blue chunks turn dark green when put to the light

In seaglass lingo they call the outer worn surface " frosting"

Where do I store my treasure till I get home? In modern day sea plastic 

Found on the beach of course

Rocks drying off before storing in Madiera

A nice haul of beach finds from about the Atlantic islands

Our place "Tight Spot" today

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Of Camels Boats Dunes and Things

We all learn in school about the "ship of the desert", the much maligned camel. These animals and their owners are totally adapted to living on and cruising the undulating surface of the desert. We also know of the traditional boats of the Arab world, the dhows that are seen in both power and sail versions. These are very seaworthy boats and have done extensive voyages.

Not heard of nearly as often in that part of the world is the construction of a modern high performance yacht. Such a construction project is the Didi Mini Mk3 of Hugo Vanderschaegh, proceeding apace in Dubai. This is a Mini 650 racer that is built from plywood. Designed primarily for amateur builders, this one is being built by professionals. The photos below show the hull with all flat sheets fitted and the radius skin starting, through to hull turning.

This boat is being built from a CNC kit that was supplied by our Cape Town kit supplier, CKD Boats. They are able to supply kits for most of our radius chine plywood designs as well as the classically-styled lapstrake designs.

Didi Mini Mk3, flat panels completed and 1st layer of radius starting.

2nd layer of radius almost finished.

Didi Mini Mk3 hull skin completed.

Clean and powerful stern sections.

Completed hull ready to turn over.

They turned Hugos hull right-way-up last week and recorded it on time-lapse video. They accomplished it with plenty of helping hands and no mechanical equipment. This is a wide boat, at 3m beam, so it towers above the men providing the muscle power. It worked in their situation with lots of hands but "dont try this at home". For the average builder it is better and safer to use mechanical equipment to raise one side under control then lower it again on the other side.

You can see more of his Didi Mini Mk3 project on Hugos website and follow future progress. Also visit our website at http://dixdesign.com/ to read more about our range of designs and available kits for our plywood boats.

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40 Years of Wooden Boats

Dehlia and I are in currently soaking in the deep maritime history that is Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. We are here to exhibit our little Paper Jet skiff on the 23rd Annual Wooden Boat Show. We have been here every year since first showing her in 2007, when she won the Outstanding Innovation prize. As always, she is attracting a tremendous amount of attention and we just ride along on her coat tails, happy to meet and talk with those who stop by to admire her. She is just so different from everything else around her that she has to grab a few minutes out of the day from all who come by.

This years show is something special though. It also marks the 40th year of publication of Wooden Boat Magazine, a milestone that was celebrated at a big party at Latitude 41 restaurant last night. We were rubbing shoulders with many of the major characters in the sector of the boating industry that has anything and everything to do with boats built from wood. I say "characters" rather than "players" because most of these people are indeed larger than life characters when compared with much of todays bland, washed-out and politically correct world.

Masthead from Wooden Boat Facebook page.

My direct association with Wooden Boat does not go back anywhere near 40 years but it has been nearly 20 years and I have collected the magazine from long before that. I have visited their home in Brooklin, Maine, on a number of occasions, have met many of their staff on visits to the rambling mansion from which they produce their wonderful magazines and I have had close associations with a few of them for the past 10 years or so. We have become good friends in those years. They even flew me to Maine a few years ago to be a judge in their design competition, run in partnership with the sister magazine, Professional Boatbuilder.

I have come to see this organisation as a big, close-knit family. I did not realise how big, nor how close-knit, until last nights party. All of them were introduced to us and the function of each was described. Most have worked there for a very long time. Personally, I think it is the winter snow and ice that traps them there for part of the year and the exquisite beauty keeps them transfixed the rest of the time.

In all those years I have never known who was at the head of this place that produces such wonderful inspiration to everyone who loves wooden boats and creating beautiful craft from natures original engineering materials. It was quite funny how I found out who that person is and became lucky enough to meet him.

We were sitting at a big round table with about 8 other people, some known to me and some not. Steve White, the head of Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum, was MC and had been talking for awhile when I said to Dehlia that after all these years I still didnt know who owned Wooden Boat. Hardly a minute later Steve called on John Wilson, as owner of Wooden Boat, to come to the microphone. The man sitting just two seats away from Dehlia stood up.

John told us the fascinating story of the early years of Wooden Boat magazine. He told us of his incredible naivete, optimism and hard work that launched it. It was launched at Mystic Seaport at a boatbuilding course. On the strength of just two subscriptions sold to students at that course, he had 12,000 copies printed. The rest is history.

John told us how he could never have dreamed of how his magazine would help to revitalise such a deep interest in wooden boats as it has, how it has helped to bring back to life wooden boatbuilding and restoration country-wide. John inspired us with his passion for his company, his staff and his magazines.

Never one to stand back, when open mike time came and comments were invited, I had to say my bit. That was simply to point out to John that Wooden Boat had not only had that effect country-wide but had done so all over the world. This is a close group of people who produce magazines of the highest quality and which will forever be collectors items. Personally, I never throw away any copy of either Wooden Boat or Professional Boatbuilder. Dehlia knows better than to take her life in her hands by trying to throw out any copy that she may find lying around.

These magazines are great reading and wonderful for research. I look forward to receiving them for many years to come. Happy 40th birthday to Wooden Boat.

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Boat of the week 7

The Weymouth Ferry.

I wish I had a video of the ferryman ferrygliding this boat across the harbour. Effortless.
The design looks as if it was conceived before health and safety regulations forced the ferryman to overload the boat with life rings. Theres a very neat inner transom that snugly accommodates one ring. The others compete for space with paying passengers.

These boats earn their keep. Whilst they might just be a small extravagance (50p) for the grockles (South Coast for tourist) they also save a walk around the harbour. In the five minutes I watched £5 of trade went across the harbour. Not bad going.
There was only one running when I was there last week. I dont know if they all work in peak season.

Theyre wonderfully utilitarian. Have a look at the square section blue-painted seat posts. No fancy turned pillars here.

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Cockpits of Shame

   

 Blogs are for people like me to express their opinions, share ideas, and to give others a glimpse into their life.

Here I will start posting pictures of different sailboats from all over the world that have taken up the new trend and challenge of trying to carry everything they can with them..... But by stowing it on their decks.

As you have already read I do not like this trend for my own sailboat . Im old fashioned in I like a clear deck and view of the sails when sailing. I have broken away a bit on this cruise by carrying a SUP paddle board on the side deck. The idea was for using it for exercise and to just paddle around all the inevitable mass of yachts that are anchored here in the West Indies. So far its made a good spray shield as its on the port side and we are headed south . We will sell it when we head to Panama next winter as the sailing will be rougher and I will not want the extra wind age. It has been a lot of fun for us to paddle around amongst the yachties and shoreline so far .

I call the new design trend of massive catamarans " Room-A-Ma-Rans".

These cats barely have enough wing deck clearance to qualify as a multi hull and not be called a Hickman Sea sled or a big Boston Whaler. Then they just keep on adding stuff to them. A friend of ours sailed his new Lagoon 62 catamaran across the Atlantic last year. He said it pounded so hard and so much the first time at sea all his head liner pieces that are held in place by Velcro would all fall down at once. Trying to put them back on was like putting a pizza back together except all the slices are a different shape. So they just sailed across and figured out where they all fit when they arrived in Grenada. The boat is up for sale now.

Steel Ketch with a weeks worth of stowing away on deck just to get going.

This is an American design and owned cutter- sloop. You can tell the American boats right off the bat because of all the yellow diesel jerry cans on deck. Americans always want to have enough diesel to motor across an ocean with. There is enough diesel on deck and below to motor with what is probably a 40 hp engine over a 1,000 miles there. Coming from Florida to Antigua where this boat is now, guaranteed that that they could motor the entire trip. Most likely motor sailed 90% so far.  I cant imagine that wind wane seeing any air when going to windward. The only place left for the rubber dinghy is the fore deck. Just think of what it will be like going forward in a blow with all this stuff to hike around.

These Canadians have gone one step further and have extended the " Florida Rooms " side curtains all the way out to the sheer. We had some beers with these guys listening to them complain about their slow trip to wind ward. I wonder why? What I dont understand is that the real need for electric power is to feed the fridge and water maker. But if you are powering all the time why do you need all those solar panels ? I have yet to see a water maker that has lasted long enough to pay for itself . I will save my thousands of dollars and just get water ashore . We carry 200 gallons in two tanks that last us 30 plus days. So we have to do this around 12 times a year. No big deal. At a worst case price of $.50 cents a gallon that could come out to $1,200.00 a year but has never been more than $300.00. So try and get a water maker to match that over a ten year period. You will have to include its support team the batteries and engine too. We dont have a fridge either. Another story.

This old classic sloop has been upgraded to a two decker Bimini . Cant figure the logic on that arrangement. Kinda like the stern deck of a Chinese junk. 

I call these Davits that carry huge dinghies, solar panels , Radar,life raft, and all the other things that are sold in the Yachting Magazines " Monkey Bars". I had lots of fun on these as a kid in school.

See all the diesel cans on deck. All this plastic stuff will be useless in a couple of seasons in the tropical sun. I have all my man over board and safety gear stowed below out of the sun till I have people on board . When Im single handing whos going to throw that stuff to me. If I have to throw it to someone else I want it to be in good shape and not forgotten about in my stern deck garage going to rot in the sun.

Yep.. Another American Sparkman and Stevens designed sailing machine that is totally ruined by all this deck crap that should be stowed below or do not have it at all. These boats are all being used by middle aged to retired aged couples. They are only doing short jumps and then just sit . So why carry so much diesel in a boat that was designed to sail to weather real well? "Honey this is a great sailing boat and I want to ruin its safety and performance by carrying everything thats for sale in the sailing magazines. Trust me it will be fun trying to get around on deck and good exercise moving all this stuff just to clean up from under it."

This boat gets the prize for having it all . The builder of this cutter in addition to being a welder must have went on a hole saw drilling spree at one time. I wonder if those holes make any noise in certain wind angles. I have a couple of small holes in my old radar post that sound like Peruvian flute players when the wind is up. I cover these holes with tape once in awhile as they seem to only play one melody.

Just imagine putting all the above on this beauty. How they must have suffered all these years with out their Florida Room and garage deck space ! 

To me its like marrying a super model and then asking her to wear a fanny pack ,a back pack , three sombreros , arm bands, and carry as many jerry jugs as she can and still expect her to draw envious glances from the crowd. Poor girl, sad boat.

I have never asked this of my beautiful wife Rachel . She just sails along as designed and built with me trying to keep up with her.

The Hogfish Maximus I have loaded down on many occasions by over 8,000 lbs of house building supplies and sailed her distances of over 400 miles in this state to get to our island house building site. She is designed to do this with ease.

I do not cruise and live aboard in this state though.

Here I am, in my orange FLORIDA ROOM, in a tropical rain shower sailing in the lee of Guadeloupe. Wild Bird is catching us . We always leave first as they are so much faster than us.

This is the Hogfish Maximus out sailing the first time with our camouflage primer coat on. The boom is orange- red because its from a broken mast that I salvaged. The kids are on deck sitting in their kayak. The colors have changed, the kids have grown up, but the deck is still pretty much a clear space. We have just logged the 26,000 mile mark on Hoggy and Im still as opinionated as I started out.

Boats rigged like the above photos do cross oceans but mostly by the easy down wind routes. Traveling to the Caribbean from North America they motor sail a lot staying in the comfort of their Florida Rooms burning fuel, making RO water thats only moisture ( you cant grow a plant with RO water) and having sun downer drinks with ice.( I have to wait for my sun downer ice when I get to port and have one with the locals.) They are seen motor sailing most of the time , and are the slowest boats around when sailing.

 I will be posting more of these boats along with another category which I call the "stern deck extension."I believe this was started in Europe by an Italian that had run out of deck space so he just built on a stern deck. I have seen them sticking out over 8 off the stern with barbecue pits and couches on them .  

Wait, youll see. A whole new way to improve your yacht.

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By Their Ropes Ye Shall Know the Measure of the Sailor

As an on-going project here on DoryMan, Ive tried to mitigate some of the confusion about nautical terms with the glossary found at the top of the sidebar to your right - spent much of today filling in new entries. In fact, until Im dazed and confused myself. If you find any mistakes, let me know.

How often have I seen that glazed look on the face of a passenger or crew, the blank stare of one who hasnt understood a single word uttered? In mutual desperation, I have even found myself lately referring to the right or left side of the boat and "that green rope near your right hand". (incidentally, Belle Starr has color-coordinated lines to facilitate communication. Im trying, really am.)

Like I said, this is a project with no end. Every new entry begs another. Not one definition is self-explanatory. A lexicographer must be a very special species indeed. Please, if you have something youd like to contribute, dont hesitate. For now well stick to English, though nautical language the world over is a beautiful flower, music of the sea.

Your friend, Michael
mbogoger (at) gmail

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Design 2571 Preliminary Design of a Hinckley 54 Sloop

I dont recall the logic in designating this boat a 54er, which is her length on deck, versus her overall length of 57 but there must have been some marketing guru involved. This preliminary design was prepared for the Hinckley Company of Maine but never came to fruition. The year was 1990.

Here is the general arrangement plan.

Principal Dimensions
LOA 57-3"
LWL 42-9"
Beam 15-6"
Draft 5-11" (board up) 11-2" (board down)
Displacement 44,966 lbs
Ballast 17,000 lbs
Sail Area 1,544 sq ft

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The Rewards of Small Boats

My good friend Larry Cheek has written an excellent lead piece entitled "The Rewards of Small Boats" published on Opening Day of the Boating season, in the Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine. Larry, as you may know, is the author of "The Year of the Boat", which is one of my favorite books (especially chapter 14) <grin>

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Lots of lofting

The despised kneepads are gone. The lovely new, gel-filled, velcro-on kneepads are staying. I had help with the lofting: Dad popped down for the day. He wore the old ones for five minutes and threw in the towel. I threw them in the bin.
With his help and a looming deadline Im making very good progress. The body plan went in very quickly, the half-breadths went down fair and the only points we could find that didnt look right were my plotting mistakes, not from the table of offsets. This photograph makes me very happy: a fair diagonal with no need to adjust any points.

This means that all the lines in the body plan will work.

Ive adjusted the colours in the photo to emphasise the red. Often builders will set out the diagonals in a different area of the lofting board from the half-breadths to avoid confusion. A different colour also sets them apart.

Its a testament to Paul Gartsides design and drafting that this all worked so well. Ive read detailed explanations about how to adjust points in each of the different views of the lines constantly chasing ones tail around the lofting board until all lines are fair. We didnt have to do any of that. The lines as drawn in the body plan are fair in the profile view, the half-breadths and the diagonals. Time will tell if the boat looks right.

I spent a devil of a lot of time on my hands and knees peering at increasingly faint pencil lines. I wont miss this and am looking forward to working upright for a while.

The last job left before I take up the boards is to develop the stem sections. The inner and outer faces of the transom are developed and looking good, the sections for the keel are drawn and I have finished the bevel board which means I could actually lay down the keel!

In the photo to the right you can see the keel sections. Kopanycia recommends drawing these on the body plan but says that because of the number of lines on top each other it will become "confused". My solution was to lay tracing paper over the body plan and then draw them in. Its not the drawings I want, so much as the measurements, so I can happily bin them but some how I cant bring myself to so inevitably theyll kick around the study until long after the boat is built.

A couple of things have vexed me.

Yesterday I set out to draw in the crown of the transom and discovered that my trammel beam was an inch short. At least thats how it appeared. I brought a piece a couple of feet longer from home but it was still too short! I taped the two beams together and that extra inch actually needed about three feet. In fact the end of the trammel had to be off the board to get the proper sweep from the crown to the edge of the transom.

What is the poor book Ive chosen to impale with trammel point? It was the first thing that came to hand at the right height. Stabbing compass holes in classical texts takes me back to my own childhood. I like to think Odysseus would be happy that its been scarred in an effort to bring a boat to life. Im not sure the Gartside #127 would have got him back to Ithica but it might have helped him escape from Calypso.

Im following Kopanycias instructions closely but sometimes he leaves me wondering. When drawing out the keel sections Ive been recording the measurements specified in the bevel board. Most of these measurements are taken from the outside of the keel, the bottom of the hog or apron or the top of the keel. However measurement A, which tells me where the ghostline/apex line/call-it-what-you-will is measured from the centreline, not the outside of the keel. This seems daft to me. Why not measure it from the outside of the keel which is surely going to be the surface Ill want to register my marking gauge or square from?

Its a small point but seems to ignore the purpose of lofting: to build a boat.

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Finishing Wild Birds Deck The remaking of a Trintella 44s deck

 Six days ago a cold front passed through Antigua on its way south with us going from summer to fall in a matter of a light rain squall. 

Gone is the record breaking heat of summer here. Along with the sun overhead cooking away with very little wind it almost feels like there could be frost on deck.

In reality its a few degrees cooler with not as much humidity and best of all the wind is back.

My summer job of redoing Wild Birds deck is over. All the hardware is back in its place sitting on top of a new deck surface.

Tim and Gayle arrive next week to re step the mast and put her back in the water for a winters sailing about the Caribbean waters.

Heres what the past months have looked like in this project.

After the deck was faired off I primed all the deck edges with a short nappy roller using Awlgrip 545 white primer. I did three coats going around and around all at once. Took most of a day.

Lots of edges plus the cabin sides, mast support and around the hatches and gutters.

We put in these little water ways to break up the expanse of the non skid. 

 Here I faired in the fuel fill so it would not be such a toe grabber.

Stern area now with nothing on it. With WBs draft its about 14 off the ground. Most people would not climb up the ladder to say hi. To scared. Dont blame them.

Rolling.... Rolling...

Every morning we get these flying termites if a rain squall passes over. They are all over the deck. What a pain in the....

Heres the deck after I have applied the sand on top of the epoxy resin that I rolled out. All the deck edges had to be carefully masked off as Tim And Gayle wanted a two tone colored deck. When applying the epoxy resin it was about 100 degrees in the shade with the deck so hot I could not go barefoot. I can walk on asphalt barefoot but man was it hot. I did not have time to get pictures of this process.

With the heat and the on going threat of a rain squall I had to get the deck done all at one time. If it rained then it would take days to get things dry again. Every time it did rain when I was masking the masking tape would have to be dried off and in places redone. I dont have to worry about this kind of stuff on Hogfish Maximus because we are not Yachty.

Heres Rachel scooping up the used sand to reuse on our next project next year rebuilding our racing trimaran that I salvaged. I am always thinking ahead for future projects.

When rolling on the epoxy the one thing that I did not think of was that when the epoxy hit that clear grounded fiberglass deck all would be clear. I could not see or tell how thick the resin was. So what happened was I got small imperfections in the sand as ridges and small rises. This is the deck all swept off now. The little white rectangle is a spot I missed and could not see. 

Now I have rolled on one coat of Awlgrip Cream paint. It took 3/4 gallon to do a coat. I rolled on three coats over several days when it was not raining.

One coat looking aft.

Now all three coats on with no hardware on yet. We still had this cover up because it was so calm. Once the deck was painted off it came as when it blows here it shakes that cover and my nerves to hell. Glad its over. This deck tough feels great when wet or dry.

Drilling out for the Genoa sheet track. All those holes going into a perfectly sealed deck. Oh well.

Amazing how many things you have to take off to do a job like this.

I used butel tape to seal off the steering pedestal. This was a lot cleaner than regular caulking.

The cockpit was so nice this summer without this pedestal.

New hatch liner in the head where a deck prisim used to be.

Yea thats as far as I could get this liner down to get at the Genoa track bolts. My left arm is hurting from twisting to get in there. Rachel was on deck to help so we just yelled back and forth at each other.

I see you way back in there.

Not so bad in the aft head.

Tims installing a second roller furler behind the bow Genoa. I installed this bulkhead to secure it to the bow. I ground away all the old paint and when done I tilted the grinder on its side and ground many little grooves in the hull side. I did this so when the epoxy resin and cloth go over all this they will act like treads to stop the upward movement. Also the turnbuckle has no slack so the whole deck would have to come loose to move this.

Before picture with lots of needless deck hardware.

Today..... Nice and clean

The old bow.

New bow with a totally rebuilt under the winch deck and pad.

Old deck

New deck with head hatch. European boats dont have enough hatches for ventilation in the tropics.

Because they dont need them over there!!!

I took a total of 640 hours to do this job.

Next job is to fix this hole. Its in a Mumm 36 that was dropped by a crane when moving. Its a reasonably clean hole to fix. I will post its rehabilitation after Iam done in a few weeks.

This will take about a week or so. Then I will be racing the whole winter on TAZ  as crew.

TAZ is a Riechel Pugh 37 all carbon sloop. The owner Bernie Evan Wong is a very dedicated local racing sailor. Last week we raced locally and came in 2nd after corrected time in 6 first place finishes.

We are to race the Grenada regatta, the Caribbean 600 then over to St. Martin for the Heineken regatta, then back over for Antigua sailing week plus all the little ones in between. I will also do the Antigua Classic regatta and if we can with Wild Bird the Beqia Easter regatta. I think I will log about 3,000 plus miles here this winter sailing to and fro. My kind of winter. Great sailing, people,weather, seas and of course the Partys!!!!!

As Iam soon to be unemployed for the winter I will have more time to blog and get some more skiff and sailboat designs out there.

Talk soon

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