To Desolation and Back

Two months ago, the Doryman voyage ethereal could be found in Olympia, WA setting forth on a trip to be remembered. The Stone Horse, Belle Starr, launched, rigged and headed north for her first real sea trial under her new skipper. At the time, preparations seemed daunting, even overwhelming. Belle Starr needed to be in Port Townsend, WA before the Bristol Channel Cutter, Baggywrinkle set out from Newport Oregon. The two boats were to join in a voyage north to Desolation Sound, Salish Sea, in early June. Doryman was to crew on the latter, then skipper the former.

The trip from Newport, Oregon to Port Townsend, Washington in the classic cutter, Baggywrinkle, took five grueling days. Skipper Chuck Gottfried, navigator Jamie Orr and myself endured all that might be expected and then some, on a northerly voyage "uphill" against ocean current and weather, along the northwest coast of the US. It was too wet and wild for any photos, and I suspect very little could be gleaned from them at any rate. Suffice to say, it is very impressive to sail off the top of a wave crest into a trough twenty feet below, for hours, and days, on end. The intrepid mariners arrived in Point Hudson Marina, all ahoo.


 


 Experienced mariners will tell you, any successful passage has had a good bit of luck. Luck was with us as we rounded Cape Flattery and into Neah Bay. Two days later we sailed into Port Townsend to rendezvous with Belle Starr and crew members Suzy Jo and Heather. I vowed at the time this was my last boat delivery northbound along this coast, but already the pain has subsided and the memory become heroic.

After a couple days of provisioning, the two cutter-rigged boats left for an overnight stop at Spencer Spit, Lopez Island, on the way to join with Paul Miller and his Friendship Sloop, Friendship. The voyage to Desolation Sound had begun.

One more night and we were in Bedwell Harbour, Pender Island, checking in with Canadian customs.

The twentieth of June found us visiting Paul and his wife, Elinor, who treated us like royalty, with a fine dinner, showers and their wonderful view of Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, BC.. The next morning three wooden sailboats left the North American home of the Cittaslow movement, on a voyage of discovery.

How fitting is that?

An overnight stop in Telegraph Harbour on Penelakut Island, brought us, on June twenty second, to Silva Bay, Gabriola Island and the remaining member of our flotilla, Jamie Orr, in his Phil Bolger Chebacco, Wayward Lass. Jamie is our piper and ships his bagpipes everywhere the Lass sails.

Gives us courage, he does.


In our next installment; crossing the legendary Strait of Georgia.






 Though Belle Starr is a cutter, she performs best in winds less than twenty five knots, rigged as a sloop. Her new tanbark genoa drives well in light air and is the only foresail we used the entire trip. There were times when less sail might have been prudent, but changing head-sails underway is quite a task. Fortunately Belle Starr is a well founded boat and performed exceptionally under a press of sail, earning her the moniker, The Red Rocket. We found the hard-chined, plywood Stone Horse to be a fine combination of performance, comfort and stability.

Our experience in the Salish Sea this summer is documented photographically on Dorymans Flickr site. The photos are not in any particular order and were submitted by all participants. In time, I may be able to add descriptions, but for now, Im sure you will enjoy the exquisite beauty of the area regardless.



This voyage ended with the annual gathering of gunkholers at the Sucia Island Rendezvous. Some of the photos toward the end of this album are from that event.

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And now back to the trailer

Remember the trailer? This one, the one that almost killed us?

We left the shantyboat hull pretty complete. Now that the boat is ready to be flipped, we turn our attention back to the trailer.

It is really a rusty, janky old thing. Ive owned it for fifteen years or so, or sorta owned it since I bought it with Sean for our Burning Man theme camp, the Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet. Its been stolen and recovered, broken and repaired on the road. We used to haul that thing back and forth loaded to the gills over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, taking our lives into our own hands. Then we realized that if we stored it in the desert, we could save wear and tear on our mortality. So there it stayed for about ten years.

When the camp realized it could buy a shipping container and have it dropped off at their campsite every year without the hassle of dealing with That Trailer, the poor thing got abandoned for a few years out in the Nevada wilds. You remember that I drove out to the desert with Alex to rescue our friend the trailer, a trip with nearly fatal results.

So here it is, a 20 foot flatbed, maybe suited to my shantyboat, maybe not, needing suspension work, a coat of paint, deck repair, and maybe some repair welds.

The first thing I did was fire up my cutting torch and cut off the weird distinctive triangle things, and ground down the cuts. I always assumed they were there as a token gesture to structural reinforcement.

I replaced all the deck bolts that had rusted through, grinding off and replacing any that had loosened. The deck needed about 50 new bolts. This alone made the deck much more stable.

I gave all the metal on the entire trailer, top and bottom, a new coat of Rust-Oleum. I had to get suited up to prevent myself from being painted too thoroughly, climbing under the trailer and applying paint overhead.

It looked pretty good when I was done. Though crawling around under the trailer, I saw several places where the metal was cracked, principally around the lateral beam that joined the two pairs of leaf springs on either side.

For a while, Id been sweating how to make the skids that would hold up the boat. I considered using recycled railroad ties since I could get them for free at the local trainyard, but their height and condition were too inconsistent. Eventually I got a ridiculous deal from a friend at the local lumberyard who found me some 6x6 treated lumber seconds that had a barely perceptible twist or were split a bit at one end.

I positioned the skids so one set would lie just inside of the skegs, and the other set so they lay at the outside edge of the trailer, as far out as could be secured. I figured this would support the boat along the stringers as well as give it side-to-side stability, something I thought would be extra important as we were trucking down the highway.

I drilled bolt holes through the skids and into the support brackets under the trailer.

I put big long 8 inch carriage bolts through the skids. For extra measure, I painted the bottom and tops of the carriage bolts. Lawrence joined me for a bit and serenaded me with excellent banjo tunes.

To prevent the skids from damaging the surface of the hull, I chamfered the sharp edges of the skids with my skill saw.

I cut the ends of each skid at an angle to guide the skegs while the boat was being trailered. Though honestly, I dont think the skegs at the back of the boat will be anywhere near the skids, since that end of the trailer will be deep under water and the back of the boat high above it during a boat launch or trailering. But it seemed like a good idea.

Then I covered the skids with indoor/outdoor low-pile carpet, stapling and using roofing nails at the edges.

The result was surprisingly legit looking.

Then Jen and I sat on the trailer and had a beer.  Something about this trailer makes you want to sit on it and have a drink.  Whats that about?

Next, the superhero of heavy duty welding flies the trailer high into the sky and melts it with his heat ray vision!

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Back to work on the boat

Its been a while since Ive made a post but Im happy to say that Im back to working on the boat. Life seems to get in the way of things we want to do, and Ive recently had a run in with just such an episode. Getting the house ready for winter, a short lived uptick in my business ( business is still way down and dropping), pulling the Caver boat out of the water and winterizing, cutting firewood for the shop and house, blah, blah, blah. I"ll quit bitching now, but Im sure all who might read this will be able to relate.

The next job at hand on Conalls big boat build is to finish getting ready for the insulator to do his thing. I need to finish painting the engine room witch is turning into quite a bit of unfinished business. My list of what needs to be done in the engine room is as follows:

- Install the generator and weld in all the fittings for the water lift exhaust system.
- Weld close the generator access hole.
- Install ac and dc electric conduits and various junction boxes and fixture boxes.
- Install the center baffle on the exhaust/intake trunk
- Re-prime the engine room with etching primer, then top coat with Alkyd Enamel
- Install all the wood firing.

This is the abbreviated version of my list as I still have ac and dc conduit work to do in the master stateroom, forward cabin, and head. All in all I would have to guess that Ill have a solid month worth of work to get her to the point of being ready to insulate.

I"ll start to post some pictures as I move forward. Ive found that this boat building thing seems to go a little easier if I break the "big boat build" down into about 80,000 smaller jobs that make up the "big boat build". I might continue this post and add to it as I mover forward, or Ill post a separate entry for each of the micro jobs I get finished.

Conall

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