Being summertime here, I’m pining for the Fiords . Oops, not quite. Monty Python has a lot to
answer for. Really though I’m wanting to
go sailing, cruising in a boat that has enough space in its cabin to be halfway
comfortable, in a boat capable enough to do some exploring, and which pleases
me to own.
I bought the little gaff sloop “May” some years ago, sailed
her quite a lot for a while before moving aboard my ship. Life got busy so May went under a cover, and
stayed there until a few months ago, but the need to go sailing got to me and I
hauled the covers off her to find, as expected, several years of deferred
maintenance awaiting me.
At the same time, I wasn't that enamoured of her name. I had to remove the old name from her transom to get the old brightwork off, so this was the opportunity. She's synonymous with small, adventurous mischief, tough like a little terrier dog, and can ghost along when the smoke from a fire on the beach is rising straight up. So she's got a new name, she's "Spook" of Stillwater. The new name has been affixed to her transom so its official.
I’ve said it before, and will say it again, “this is the
summer of the paintbrush”, and so it is.
I’ve been stripping old, peeling varnish, I suspect that its 2 part
polyurethane as it is a stinker to sand, so it’s a scraper job rather than
sanding. I’ve been able to scrape and sand out some of the water stains in the
Eucalyptus wood trim, have gone through three rolls of Bear brand exterior 14
day masking tape, half a litre of Goldspar marine varnish, touched up some of
the white paint, painted and varnished the mast, boom and yard, scrubbed the
sails and taken every bit of rigging and cordage off her.
I’ve also stripped the interior, taken the ground tackle
off, all the cruising gear, charts, stove and all the containers for the galley
stores are out.
She’s only 18 ft on deck, but gosh, there was a lot of stuff
inside her, Its all spread out on the garage floor right now and I’m wondering
what magical spell allowed me to put all of it away inside that small space.
But I’m almost done, there are some mods needed to get that
trailer right, the boat tends not to
come up the middle of the rollers so I’m having to carry a trolley jack to move
her over before I tie her down to tow the rig away, so that’s needing
attention. There is more,. Way back
Howard Rice and I worked out a reboarding system we called the “sling” for
getting back aboard a SCAMP. I’d had a
pair of short strops with a foot loop in the end, secured on the stern mooring
cleats and accessible through the fairlead openings. I could get back aboard,
but it was a struggle, so I’m putting a “sling” on each side. In this case the freeboard is only very
slightly more than the SCAMP and I’m sure it will work.
I’ve still got lots of little tasks to do, I’ve sponged out
the interior, aired the cushions, replaced the valves in the big bilge pump,
scrubbed the sails and replaced the mast lashings. Another job will be to
replace the fire extinguisher which is still ok for pressure but the handle is
very rusted. I’m planning to take that to Daughters house and start a fire (
outside, I said OUTSIDE!) then get the granddaughters together and give a
lesson on how to use one. Hopefully
they’ll never need to use that lesson.
The boat will get a new one.
I’m also planning to put a simple electrical system in, a
small solar panel, a car battery, a couple of LED cabin lights and an anchor
light. The rules say that for a vessel
under 7 m long, not under power, when under way at night, a big torch is legal. I’ve three ready to go on board. A big spotlight flashing in someones face
gets their attention much more quickly than a couple of tiny, dim navigation
lights.
The electrical system will include USB points to recharge
phone, vhf, laptop and camera. We’ve become very “connected” these days and its
hard to do without.
I’m building a new lightboard too, that hooks up to the tow
vehicle and mimics the tail and signal lights of the tow wagon. The old one was perfectly satisfactory but it
had been sitting out in the weather for so long its rotted away, and the lenses
on the lights crazed and cracked.
I just wanted to go sailing, so far its been five days of
solid work, I’m expecting to be close to ready in a couple more days and hope
to give her a shakedown daysail about Friday 11th.
There is a small group planning a cruise in the Bay of
Islands mid February, and I’m hoping to be there.
I’d better get that paintbrush working again.
You cant really see it, but there is a great deal of masking tape on there, darker blue than the topside cove stripe paint. She's only little but there is a lot of varnished trim on her. It does look nice but its a lot of work to keep up.
