Chapter 2
In our last post we were on our way home with our new-to-us
Albin 25 micro trawler in tow. After visiting friends in Wenatchee and picking
up some fruit to eat and can we arrived home in Lacey on September 8th
just before our 45th wedding anniversary on September 11th. The boat fit snuggly into her new spot next
to Salish Airstream and we were off to the races to get her ready for her
maiden voyage with us at the helm.
Finally on Monday October 18th we put her in the water for
the first time and after a delightful ride most of the way to our goal of
Jarrell Cove State Park our engine quit 16 nautical miles from where we started
and we had to get towed home.
Our first challenge caught us by surprise. We had been careful to make sure that the boat was insured shortly after the purchase and had no problem getting Progressive to bind a policy. Apparently binding a policy is only binding if you are the purchaser and on arrival back home we got a letter indicating that they had changed their mind and were cancelling the policy without cause. I will just say we were more than a little unhappy but have since found a company to carry the insurance. Apparently the age of the boat is a concern to insurance underwriters.
Another “must do” job in my mind was to get the boat named
both so we could apply for things like a radio license and MMSI (essentially a
phone number for the boat) and start referring to her as something besides “the
boat”. Since Salish Aire was kept (with
our permission) as the name of our last boat we wanted something unique and
Clarice felt a small boat should have a small name. We’ve never named a boat after a person
before but having a new granddaughter at hand who has a very unique name we thought
it was about time to go that direction.
Our granddaughter is Hyacinth named after the bulb plant with the
wonderful smell that we grow in our flower gardens but there is also a Water
Hyacinth. So (with our son and his
wife’s permission) the boat has been christened [Water] Hyacinth.
We were a bit concerned with saying Hyacinth over the radio
and having the name understood but the Coast Guard seemed to have no trouble
with it on our first day out. Ummm – nice to test it out but just a bit
embarrassing to have to call them.
Clarice made a comment today about “needing” to clean
something. I looked at her and said that
most people would have said they “want” to clean something but in her case
cleaning is a need. Thus it was with
Hyacinth and she had already started by the time we got back to Lacey having
de-mildewed the inside and gone over everything with at least one scrub down
with Simple Green. The process continues
and will until the boat is gone or Clarice is too frail (if she gets dementia
she will be the lady with the washcloth wiping down the nurses’ station in The
Home).
So when we got home we started by hauling all of the extra
parts that had come with the boat and anything not screwed down into the garage
for sorting and review. The process for
prioritization was “what do we need to do to get the boat ready for camping on
overnight in the Pacific Northwest (PNW)” where rain and fog are rule fall
weather.
Here is a list of what we have done so far:
·
Albin 25’s were built with an open top over the
pilot house covered in cloth something like the very early Volkswagen
Bugs. We felt that a PNW boat needed a
hard top so we did our first major fiberglass job of our lives and are pretty
pleased with how it turned out. My
original plan was to get a piece of thick acrylic plastic and bend it over the
hole as it is a material I am somewhat familiar with. The issue was that it would need to be arced
(preferably in an oven) and a 3 ft by 5 ft piece came to about $750 for the raw
material. This was a bit steep when we
recognized our chances of failure were fairly high. That led us to move to fiberglass. Step one was to cut a piece of Coosa Board –
a commercially available light fiberglass based material that looks like grey
plywood but is much lighter and much more expensive that fit the hole and to
glue and screw it into place. Before
that could be done we realized that over 45 years the aft edge of the pilot
house roof had drooped (the sides had spread outward and the arch
lowered). This created a compound curve
to the hole we needed to fill and it seemed to be good practice to lift it back
to its original shape anyway. I did this
by cutting an oak truss to the original arch shape then pulling the sides back together
with a ratchet strap – once the arch fit the truss the two were tied together
with screws and currently we are planning to leave the new wood in place as a
permanent fixture. So the roof was lifted and the arch back in shape with the
Coosa board in place and we were ready for the top layers of fiberglass. After several YouTube videos and a trip to
TAP Plastics in Seattle we were off and running. With both of us working in concert we applied
3 total layers of fabric with resin and the result was darn good! The final step (other than painting) was to
add 3 more layers of fabric and resin to the ceiling on the underside of the
Coosa Board. Based on adapting a YouTube video to our situation we brushed a
layer of resin on the ceiling and then headed to the driveway where on a
plastic sheet we pre-laid the 3 layers of fabric and resin before rolling them
on a cardboard tube. The result was a
heavy and slimy roll of stuff that would turn to a solid before long so we
headed straight to the boat. We had
covered everything from the windows down with a painter’s tarp and had
disposable coverings on our heads. We
set an extra can of mixed resin and hardener close at hand in case it was
needed and went to work. Clarice
unrolled the slimy fabric/resin while I tried to make it stay in place with a
special metal fiberglass roller. It was
tough work with one section trying to fall loose while I madly rolled another
section. Finally it looked like it was
all going to stay in place then the whole thing fell at once right on our
heads. About then the painter’s tarp
fell off the things it was supposed to cover and I managed to kick over the
extra mixed resin. It was a low point. We rolled the fabric/slimy resin back onto
the cardboard tube and rested an few minutes during which the resin on the
ceiling started to “kick” a bit which is what we should have waited for in the
first place. Our second attempt at
sticking the fabric sandwich to the ceiling was successful and in the end it
was good.
·
Hyacinth came to us with just vinyl side windows
to be snapped in place. Again we felt
this was not up to our needs in the PNW.
Among the extra parts was a brand new roll of rubber window molding so
someone had likely planned the same improvement in the past but never moved on
to the next step. We understand that to
get shatterproof glass the shape we needed was an expensive proposition so
instead we went with darkened acrylic which I could shape in my woodshop. The windows are now installed and look very
professional.
·
When we got the boat a previous owner had
replaced the flooring with Corian brand countertop material (real stuff –
labelled as such – not an off brand!). It was heavy, slick, and brittle and we
knew it needed to go. We headed straight
to the lumber store after a careful look at our retirement funds knowing that
the ongoing pandemic has led to a massive increase in the costs of lumber
(mills shut down but home projects went up so it is a scarcity market
situation). A single sheet of ¾ marine
grade plywood came to about $150 – ouch.
We took the Corian pieces and laid them on cardboard and turned a number
of small pieces into 4 major templates which eventually (after a number of
coats of protective paint) became our flooring.
·
The battery storage area was completely reworked
with a new floor, new battery box and a brand new, never previously installed
water heater that came with the boat installed in it.
·
A Wallas brand diesel heater/cooktop was
purchased and installed. Clarice was
pretty adamant that she wanted to stick to only one fuel onboard (a propane
stove would have required a proper locker which is a big deal in the marine
world for safety). A new in the box
diesel furnace also came with the boat but for a number of reasons we opted to
leave it out and get the Wallas with the blower (heater) option. A fan and ducting to the aft cabin have also
been installed so we hope to move enough heat from the front to the back to
keep it at least minimally comfortable back there if someone chooses to sleep
in that area.
·
Clarice’s composting toilet has been installed
(and the very nice brand new marine toilet that came with the boat sold off).
·
New LED lighting has been installed throughout
the boat.
·
We now have 3 commercial grade bilge pumps (I
still can’t figure out why we need 3 but it was easier to buy a 3rd
one to replace a crappy non-functioning original one than to pull out all of
the original hoses and switches – or at least I keep telling myself that.)
·
We have installed a heater that heats using
engine heat while underway in the forward cabin (after much gnashing of teeth I
think I finally have the non-standard pipe threads sealed). It was nice on our
maiden voyage as when we leave the cabin door open it puts out enough heat to
warm the pilot house a bit.
·
I have reworked and reconfigured a lot of
electrical wiring.
·
The chartplotter that came with the boat is
installed and functioning as are the autopilot, a new VHF radio, radar, and an
AIS transceiver.
·
Many many screw and retired other holes through
the fiberglass have been filled (with many to be filled).
·
And that is only the main list (and of course
Clarice continues to clean and buff and organize). Perhaps some real
recognition is due here as Clarice really has been the main patcher, painter,
sewer (seemstresser??) of organizers, and creator of shelves and other woodwork
that has really turned a “dreary fiberglass interior” into something usable.
So after about a thousand trips up and down the ladder to
get on and off of the boat while it was on the trailer in the side yard we
finally felt ready to test her in Puget Sound.
The plan was to get to the ramp by 08:30 as the tide would
be going out but we felt it would still be high enough at that point to make
our first launching less stressful. The
morning started out with an inauspicious moment when the fancy tire pressure
monitor on the truck suggested a slow leak in our front tire. Believing it to be a slow leak I pumped up
the tire and hooked up the trailer and we were off to the ramp. On arrival the tire pressure had dropped
enough to be of concern so while we prepped the trailer I used a little air
compressor we carry to refill the tire.
The launching went well and was done with great care. Clarice and a friend who lives on their boat
very near the ramp checked everywhere there might be a leak before we released
from the trailer. They announced that
there was seepage we would rather not see and that the shaft seal was dripping
a bit fast but that it was all acceptable for launching. We then slipped the boat off the trailer and
roped it over to the finger pier where we started the engine and for the first
time since we have owned the boat confirmed it would go into forward and
reverse gears. Once that was established
we drove the boat to the guest dock and tied it up while Clarice and our friends
(both with years of boating experience) double checked everything. I walked back up to park the truck only to
find that the front tire was flat as a pancake so I spent the next bit of time
changing to the spare tire. As
previously planned I pulled the trailer to a local powder coating company
(dropping the tire off on the way for repair) so they could see the trailer
empty and begin an estimate of what it would cost to sandblast the paint away
and powdercoat it as it is expected to spend the next part of its life doing
salt water launches.
On arrival back at the marina Clarice was comfortable with
that the boat was ready for her shakedown cruise. Our goal if all went well was to motor to
Jarrell Cove State Park and stay on the dock for the night. All was going very well and I decided to see
how the boat handled at higher engine RPMs when the engine quit. It just coughed and quit. Classic behavior of a diesel with a fuel issue.
We drained some the of liquid from the bottom of the fuel filter and it was
clearly more water than diesel and we didn’t have any clean filters
on-board. That and recognition that as
much water as was present likely meant that the whole fuel system was likely
contaminated and needed to be cleaned or damage to the engine might result led
to a call to the Coast Guard asking for a “marine assistance request call” (a
request for another boater to help us out as a kind gesture) . They called but
their simply weren’t any other boats in the area so we ended up requesting they
contact a commercial tow company. After
drifting at one knot with the tide for some time (in the right direction and
under a bridge without hitting it) our tow arrived which was a 1927 wooden
mini-tugboat. Since his homeport was
easy to get to by road from Olympia where our friends were based who were
already heading to our garage to gather filters and other supplies we just had
him pull us back to Boston Harbor East of Olympia.
We consulted a diesel mechanic friend by phone and she
confirmed that my cleaning plan was sound and added the idea that we use a
temporary source of diesel to get home so we didn’t pull any more water into
the system. Stephanie arrived with
filters and a 5 gallon jerry can of fresh fuel.
We set it all aside and ate dinner and went to bed knowing that we were
too tired to do a good job at that point.
Morning arrived and we drained every hose and changed every
filter then putting the supply and return fuel lines in a tank of fresh fuel we
cranked the engine. It was a bit grouchy
about starting but once it tasted fresh diesel it smoothed out and we were able
to head home under our own power. We arrived back at the ramp in Olympia just
at low tide so we had a picnic lunch, did some adjustments on the trailer and
then once the water had risen a bit loaded the boat back on for its ride back
to Lacey. All in all it qualified as a
very successful shakedown run with a number of problems discovered that need to
be addressed but the overall health of the boat was confirmed and we are
looking forward to our next outing (after we clean the fuel tank!).
We believe that our efforts to check for contaminated fuel
by running the engine for some time while it was on the trailer in our yard
were thwarted by the angle of the boat on the trailer vs its natural angle on
the water. Once it was launched the
water hiding at the front of the fuel tank moved to the aft end of the tank
where it was picked up and sent into the system serving the engine.
We also had a bit of a house project going on to give us an occasional
break from the boat (but not from climbing ladders). When we purchased the house it had an
original wood burning zero clearance fireplace that had been “upgraded” with a
gas fire log set. We quickly learned
that the gas log installation led to soot on the wall above the fireplace and
not a lot of heat output. We decided
that we really wanted a functional gas fireplace so we planned to replace it
before fall. Also, I decided I had done
enough house construction projects and would pay someone to do the swap out. Going to a couple of fireplace shops locally
we learned that lead time from order to installation could be expected to be
quite long again relating to the pandemic caused supply chain issues. We did pay someone to come and give us a
formal detailed estimate and my resolve to have someone else do the work
quickly faded when I looked at the labor costs in it. Needless to say we turned to the internet
where we found a company who would deliver everything we would need to our
house and they even had fireplaces in stock.
We went ahead and ordered a unit before we headed off to Michigan to get
the boat with the agreement it would be shipped for arrival after our return.
The fireplace arrived and we quickly noted that it had freight
damage. I sent a photo to the vendor and
within hours they had a new unit on its way to us and told us they didn’t want
the original unit back. On the arrival
of the second new fireplace we got a friend to help us pull the old one out of
its alcove in the wall and the original chimney out through the roof hole. The next steps involved rebuilding the false
chimney so it was sealed from the weather and reframing the hole so the new
fireplace could be installed. Which brings us to one of our “This Old House”
mysteries.
After we moved into the house we noted a number of very
poorly done sheetrock patch jobs on the walls.
I finally put the pieces together and correctly guessed that the house
had been originally heated with baseboard heat (it has a central gas furnace
now) and that the patches were from where the heater supply wires were pushed
back into the walls. The first patches we broke open were on both sides of the
fireplace opening and sure enough the wires are there (but I never have found
the other end of them). What was really
interesting was that the wall patches had been made by stuffing a backing of
Asian (Korean??) language newspapers into the wall and then covering them with
plaster. In our sleuthing we also found
several electrical boxes with live wires that had been plastered over (a
situation now brought up to code with blank access covers) including one that
was apparently designed for a switch for a fireplace fan that was never
installed (which was handy as we needed power and a switch for the new
fireplace in that location).
The second new fireplace was installed with little problem
and then the sheetrock around it was repaired.
The final installation step was trying to match the wall texture to make
our patches disappear. After several
YouTube videos and some practice runs, Clarice did a pretty masterful job so
the fireplace looks like it has been there since the house was built.
The final cleanup step was to pass the first new fireplace
to someone who could/would do the very minimal repair it needed from the
shipping damage and use it so a perfectly fine appliance wouldn’t end up in a
landfill. Clarice let the word out on a
neighborhood free gift group and within an hour we had several inquiries. It ended up being gifted to a woman (likely a
single mom) who had taken out a wood burning fireplace 6 months prior and then
ordered the wrong replacement only to learn the correct replacement was outside
of her budget. Her young daughter was
very excited that their hole in the wall would finally be filled.
As to how our family is: We are both exhausted with the work
we have been doing around here. I’m
really feeling nerve pain in my legs likely going back to a tumor in my spine
many years ago which seems to be especially set off by climbing ladders and
working in convoluted positions. I feel
guilty that this means Clarice has to do her part and then some but it’s hard
for her to stop when she sees unfinished projects and cleaning yet to be done.
Jarvis’ diabetes induced cataracts are continuing to worsen as is his overall
endurance so it is good that he has a place where he knows the yard and house
in detail. He sleeps a lot but only
after asking if we will take him for a walk on his leash. The engine in the boat is the same model that
we had as our emergency engine in Salish Aire and he is just as unhappy when it
runs as he was with that one. We assume
it is a vibration that they have that he doesn’t like. He does seem to get used
to it with time and cuddling.
We are also getting more involved with our new community and
church as well as keeping up with our boating community. The cul-de-sac we are in was built with
starter homes but they are now turning into ender homes as the last family with
children moved out recently. Our
Hispanic neighbors really keep a close eye on the house when we are gone and
make sure we have good Mexican food periodically.
Norman’s mother continues to carry on and is now back among
the hearing with new hearing aids that seem to work much better. It is good that we are now within a ½ hour
drive of her apartment so that we can see her pretty often and she can visit us
without an overly exhausting ride in the car.
We had a great bit of fun last Saturday when we babysat
Hyacinth the granddaughter for a day.
She was quite intrigued with everything about our house especially
Jarvis and the Tupperware cupboard. She
is cute as a bug and rapidly developing language skills enough so she can
understand and make herself understood.
Final photos:
