We return!

Well hello, dear reader.  

We left off in November, when we had just launched Rabannah into the Great Salt Lake.   I think we launched her on the last truly warm day of the year.   Progress was slow on the boat over the long winter months.  For obvious reasons...  

Rabannah the white.  

 You can see the pancake ice floating on the water- a phenomenon we learned about while listening to "Endurance," the account of Shackleton's legendary expedition to the Anarctic.  Pancake ice occurs when a body of salt water gets cold enough that the snow or other precipitation falling onto it freezes, creating slushy, flat, little icebergs.  Anyway.  No reason to be out attempting to sand the decks or step the mast in those conditions!  

We did go out to the marina, at least once a week, to check on the boat, and to knock ice out of the scuppers.  She held up beautifully in these extreme conditions, which was comforting to see. 

Once the snow melted,  Cody began to head out there more and more frequently, attacking the long list of small, odd jobs that still remained. 

He devised a way to mount our outboard engine without marring the beauty of the transom.

You can see it above, removed completely. (Which is how we hope it will be most of the time...)

Here it is, in the "up" position...

..and in the "down" position, ready for action.  

Our engine is a 1964 British Seagull- a true classic.  The design has been unchanged since the '40s, and they have a reputation for being extremely reliable.  I think it's so cute! 

Cody also worked on the mast earlier this spring.  After finishing construction in JW's backyard, we ended up hiring a semi-truck to drive it out to the marina.  It looked slightly ridiculous; this long, skinny stick on the bed of a semi-truck, but it cost just about the same as renting a long trailer to haul it ourselves, and it was certainly easier!  The driver helped us load it and secure it, did all the driving, and helped us unload it.  

The next steps were to mount the spreaders, sail track, masthead fitting, gooseneck fitting, and so on.  Once that was all in place, we sculled the boat over to the dock where the crane is. Then we  rolled the mast across the parking lot and down the ramp.  The crane was a very simple machine- all hand operated.   It was a chain hoist on a long, pivoting arm, with some serious purchase.   The install went really smoothly, with the help of our friends Paho and Gary, who happened to be around at the time.   

Ready to go!  

The mast was held up with temporary stays- thin cables with cable clamped ends, which we could manipulate fairly easily.  Once we had it just the way we wanted, we could measure those cables to get precise measurements for our permanent stays.  

There aren't many sail riggers in Salt Lake City, but there is one- who happened to be on the crew who rigged the boat that Team Oracle sailed to victory in the America's Cup race.  

So I guess he has some experience...   

We checked his references and ended up having him install the fittings for the stays- the wires that support the mast.  

Now, we've tried on our sails, and are working on installing cleats and winches.  We're buying lots of line- for halyards, sheets, the boom vang, etc.etc.  We applied a fresh coat of varnish last night, in anticipation for the festivities today- it's the opening day for the Yacht Club racing season.  Unfortunately, Cody ate something weird yesterday, and was up most of the night with an upset stomach.  He spent most of today sleeping it off, while I worked and I updated the blog.  Not exactly what we planned on doing, but productive.  Cody needed the rest, and the blog needed attention.  

Stay tuned!  Hopefully the next time you see us, we'll be SAILING!  

PS...  

This happened the very next day!  

(I think Cody's feeling a little better...)

It was perfect. 

Stay tuned for more photos, and a post about the maiden voyage!  

The Launch

Better settle in and get comfortable!  This one's kind of long....   

Here's the story of the days leading up to and including the Launch of our new sailboat! 

Sunday, October 27th:

Cody and I spent the morning building our mast.  We had glued together the planks a few days before, and were assembling the box that day.  It was quite a process- we had put together about 35 simple clamps, and built long blocks that support the hollow form at crucial points- where the spreaders attach, where the boom attaches, and at the base and the top.  So we got everything lined up, rolled on the epoxy, and then battled the breeze as it blew hundreds of leaves onto the sticky mast.  I felt like there was something wrong with cursing the wind while we were building the mast- which will depend entirely on a good breeze to function in the future, so I tried to stay as calm as possible, and pick out the little leaves as best I could.  

We were building in our friend JW's backyard.  Thanks, JW!! 

The dry fit.

  It was sunny but chilly that morning.  I wished I had brought my swimsuit so we could warm up in JW's hot tub when we were done!  

One of the support blocks.  

Cody cut "fingers" into the blocks to distribute the load evenly, and not create a "hard spot" in the mast.  If the block just ended abruptly, the mast would want to bend at that spot, not evenly throughout the length of the mast.  

We had asked a group of friends to help us roll the boat out of the shop, and had planned to meet them  at 3.  We finished glueing and clamping the mast at about 2:30,  Cody left JW's at about 2:45, and I stayed to clean up and wrap the mast in plastic sheeting (there was rain in the forecast) before leaving at about 3:15.  

This roll-out went about as smoothly as the last one.  There were some minor hiccups along the way, but nothing went terribly wrong.  With the boat supported only on a super strong axle in the middle and a some training wheels in the back it was surprisingly stable.  No one was hurt, and the boat was unscathed and in position for the crane.  

A HUGE thanks to our wonderful friends-  Mitch and Katie Dumke, PJ and Sarah Mannion, and Maddie and Tyler McQueen!  Thanks for the photos and videos, for your muscle and grit, the moral support,  and the psych you brought to the job!  We can't wait to take you all out sailing!  

L-R:  Beth, Maddie, Katie, and Sarah

The lovely ladies, checking out the interior.  

Beautiful Rabannah, ready for the crane.  

So psyched!  

The boat from the roof of the shop.  

We went home exhausted that night.  

Monday, October 28th:

We arrived at the shop early, and set to work.  We began clearing out the shop, taking apart the cradle, and cleaning the boat.  

Rabannah at Sunrise....   

Cody left to pick up the truck we were borrowing around 9am, and headed to the Salt Lake Marina, to pick up the trailer were were also borrowing.  

He arrived back at the shop around 12, and I was just heading out to pick up some lunch, when I saw the crane turning into the shop parking lot.  I whipped around and the action began!  

The crane operator began his set up, and Cody backed the trailer into position.  I was a nervous nelly- running around, trying to help.  I don't know how effective I really was, so I sat out for a while and took some video.    

Once the boat was heading onto the trailer, they needed more hands, so I helped adjust the blocking under the keel and tighten the pads against the boat.  She settled happily onto the trailer, we paid the friendly crane operator and helped him pack up his straps.  Then we moved the boat so it was right in front of the shop, and headed out to get a late lunch.  

After lunch, we headed back to the shop, and worked on finishing up odds and ends.

The 29th and 30th were fairly uneventful- lots more work on the boat and cleaning of the shop.  Cody's friend Andy came down to take advantage of the newly spacious shop to build some "volumes" for his new climbing gym in Park City.  I  think they look pretty rad!   

Thursday, October 31st: 

Crunch time begins in earnest.  We're cleaning out the shop, organizing tools, finishing the volumes, working on the last few odds and ends for the boat... We practically fill the dumpster by ourselves.  We're brainstorming how to get the mast up on the boat, how to strap it down...  

It's a full and busy day.  We took an hour or so in the evening to visit PJ and Sarah for our traditional Halloween goulash.  We picked up John Little's truck, and headed back down to the shop.  There was still more cleaning to be done, not to mention hooking up the truck, loading the mast, and more.  

We arrive back to the shop and hook up the truck to find that the trailer lights don't work.  Cody went to work trying to fix the lights which were in total disarray. After an hour and half of frustration he gave  up and settled for having just one light working.  We noticed that the lights were pretty dim on the truck we had borrowed and when we went to start it, it wouldn't.  We figured it had just gone flat while testing the trailer lights so many times. 

At this point we are both very tired and still don't want to risk driving at night to get the mast with the trailer lights the way they are.  So we decide to call it quits for the night and try and get a few hours of sleep.  We start to drive home in the truck and it dies almost immediately.  It is about 1:00am at this point and we realize that we now don't have a working truck to get our boat to the water with.  Its too late to fix it and we really don't have another option for borrowing a truck.  So we jump the truck again and get it back to the shop, then take our car home.  

We sleep for a few hours and then get up with a plan that just might work. There was another party of boaters that will be putting a boat onto the trailer right after we hopefully get ours off.  The plan is to call this guy Mike and see if he could tow our boat out to the marina, as he will be driving a truck out anyway.  We try to get ahold of him, and keep trying, but for nothing.  Eventually we decided that we were just going to go for it.  

The problem with the truck, as Cody determined, was the alternator was dead.  Which means that no power is going to the batteries, but if we were to charge the batteries for long enough we could maybe have enough juice to get to the marina.  We didn't have much time to spare on charging at this point, so we charged for 30 minutes ffffusing jumper cables and the Jetta. 

As soon as the cables came off the clock started counting down. We rush the truck to the trailer and hook it up. Cody timidly starts to pull away and the trailer jumps off the hitch!!  Oh my god! What else can possibly go wrong?!  We hook it back up and without a moment to waste, go for it.  Cody was too afraid to use the lights for fear that they would wear out the batteries, so in the early dawn we drove to the marina, with me following in the Jetta.  We had hoped to miss traffic, but with the later start than expected we hit it at full force.  Every second was agony, just waiting for the truck to die.  We just kept hoping, at least make it to I-80.  Then we made it to I-80, and started hoping to just make it to the marina exit, and we made that too.  We even made it to the marina and when Dave, the harbor master told us to "park over there"  we started to pull forward and the batteries ran out, just as we coasted into position. 

There were lots of eyes on the boat, and Cody and I answered lots of questions.  We were slated to be the third boat in the line up, and had a bit of time to prepare our dock lines and fenders.  PJ and Sarah came out with their girls to help and watch the launch- and they even brought us bagels.  Bless their hearts.  

PJ made a little video for us that afternoon- check it out here: 

Lift Off!!

It was a pretty incredible sight- the boat went so high up in the air- over a fence, down a steep hill and into the water.  Sarah was pointing to the boat and saying to Fisher- "Look!  It's like the pirate ship in Peter Pan!" and it was.  She sailed through the air gracefully, and settled down right where we had hoped she would- a little nose heavy, and above her waterline.  The Great Salt Lake is much saltier than the ocean, so everything floats higher in the water.  Also, Rabannah was unloaded, and there's more storage space in the stern area, so that weight will eventually even her out.    

We breathed a HUGE sigh of relief as the crane straps came off, and Sarah and I fought back tears.

  It was a beautiful sight.  We hopped aboard and began checking through-hulls to check for leaks, but they were all bone dry.  

There were 12 boats going in or out of the water that day, and we hung around and watched and waited for the activity to die down.  As we don't have an engine ready to move us, we just stayed in a temporary slip until the crane was done with it's lifting.  Then Cody hopped in the dinghy and rowed us to our official slip.  The boat moved easily through the water, and it was a real treat for both of us.  I got to stand at the helm, steering Rabbanah home, and Cody got to watch her slipping gracefully through the lake.  

We tied off to the dock, and met our neighbors, who advised us on which way the wind comes into the marina most often, and how best to tie up.  It was afternoon at this point, and we still had to charge the truck to get back to town, and we were getting hungry.  We reluctantly left Rabannah, bobbing gently and glinting in the sun.  

We dropped the truck off, and let John know about the alternator.  He apologized unnecessarily, and we thanked him for letting us use his truck, and offered to work on it to get it up and running again.  

We headed to the Blue Plate diner nearby, and had a big lunch- we were really starving!  I had a great eggs benedict with smoked salmon and homefries, Cody got the buffalo burger.  We topped it off with a truly amazing oreo milkshake.  It was probably the best milkshake I've ever had.  

Then, it was back to the shop- for the last time.  We talked to our landlord to let him know we were a little behind in the move-out process, and he said that it was fine.  We had just a little more cleaning out to do- and more dumpster filling.  We took apart the tablesaw, swept the floors, and said farewell to Shop 61.  We didn't get to see it completely empty- the new tenant showed up as we were finishing, and started bringing in his tools.  He seemed just as excited to start his auto-body business as we were to start building our boat.  

Life goes on, I guess.  

February, 2012

November, 2013

All told, it took us 1 year and 9 months.  We've invested approximately $30,000 into the project.  We're not quite done yet- we've still got to finish the mast and install it, install the rig, and buy some sails.  There's lots of hardware that needs to be installed on the deck.  We need to install a few more instruments- a depth sounder, maybe a speedometer.   But we've completed a big phase of the project, which feels really good.  

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement and help!  

Putting the Shine on!

As Cody continues his metal work, I've been polishing up the pieces he creates.  

These are collars for the stanchions- they slide around the stanchion post and will be screwed into the toe-rails to strengthen the stanchions.    The one on the left is rough still, and the one on the right has been polished.  

Polishing is a process of sanding the metal.  We started with 80 grit, and progressed to 220, to 400, to 600, 1000, 1200, and 1500.  It's pretty fun to see these pieces clean up!  

The hinge I'm holding connects the rudder to the transom, and you can see our samson post in the background.  

We've also primed the bottomsides, and got our first coat of bottom paint on last night.  

My favorite project lately has been painting the name and port of call on the transom.  

I transferred the lettering simply by printing it backwards, wetting it and burnishing the paper-  it worked kind of like a temporary tattoo.  

Then I painted the outlines of the letters with the same paint we used on the sheer stripe and boot top.  

My favorite part was filling the letters with gold paint.  We used a product called "liquid leaf" and it looks great.  It even looks good in the dusty fluorescent light of the shop- our sample piece looked even better out in the sunlight!  

Our launch date approaches! 

The Battle of the Bolt

Oh yeah!  I almost forgot.  The blog.....  Sorry for our long absence!  

What have we done since August?

Well...  We bolted the keel on! Like most everything else in this crazy project, it was a challenge and full of lessons, mistakes, and finally, success.   

   

Here's one of the smaller bolts, happily in place.  All the bolts were counter sunk into the floor, and once they were tight, we filled the holes with epoxy, so the floor is fair and level again.  

We salvaged what we thought was a one-inch diameter bronze bolt from an old boat.  It was the largest bolt we had, to complement the six 3/4 inch diameter bronze bolts we made.   We threaded the ends of the bolts, bought round bronze washers and nuts, made square bronze washers.  It was an expensive endeavor- silicon bronze ain't cheap.  For the washers and nuts alone we spent $120-  so you can imagine how happy we were to have that 1 inch diameter, three foot length of bronze to use for our leading bolt. 

 We rolled the keel beneath the boat, (with the help of Dylan- Cody's brother, who is becoming a leading expert in working with our large chunk of lead), lined it all up, and knocked the bolts into place.  We managed to get the proper torque on all the small bolts (80 foot/pounds), but when we went to torque the big bolt, something was wrong.  We needed to get a LOT of torque on this one- 200 foot/pounds.  Somewhere in the process, the bronze nut fused to the bolt, and we couldn't get it to turn without turning the whole bolt.  Cody thought if he could weld the nut to the bolt, we could torque it from the bottom.  The welding didn't go well.  And it didn't go well because the bolt isn't bronze.  It's brass.  And brass isn't nearly as hard or strong as bronze- and we couldn't rely on it to support the weight of our keel.

So, the next day, I was at the shop by myself.  Cody had tried to knock out the brass bolt the night before, and it wasn't budging.  I thought I'd give it a shot- who knows?  Maybe the bedding compound needed some time to set up, or loosen up, or cool down...  The length of the bolt was buried in the deadwood, with the rest in the lead, so why it was stuck was a mystery.  

The carnage.  You can see the burn marks from the welding attempt. 

 I pounded on it with our mini sledge, and screamed at it and pleaded with it.   One of my blows broke it loose,  surprising me.   I could only get out about 6 inches at a time, because it would hit the floor.   Once I had that, I would go down below and cut off the bolt from the bottom.   I repeated this process several times, until I had most of it out.  Then it got stuck again, somewhere around the keel.  Cody managed to get it all out later.   

Victory!  The offending brass bolt on it's way out.  

Replacing the brass bolt with the bronze one went pretty easily.  It knocked in smoothly, and torqued well.   Whew!  Today, the keel is in place, firmly attached, and  mostly faired and primed.  

What else have we accomplished this month?

I’ve painted the sheer stripe, and embellished a bit. 

It's a dark navy, the same color as the boottop.  

The boomkin bracket. 

Cody’s been doing a lot of metal work.  He’s made the bracket that holds together the boomkin- (which will attach to the backstay),  the gudgeons and pintles that attach the rudder, the plates that connect the tiller to the rudder.  Metal work is not his favorite.  It’s stinky and hot and difficult to get just right.   Today he’s working on the stanchion brackets, and the outboard mounting plate. 

Grinding...

Welding...

The (mostly) finished products!  The rudder hinges, and the boomkin bracket! 

Cody has laminated up the tiller- a beautiful combination of Douglas fir and Mahogany.

Smile, Cody! 

All shined up!  

I’ve given the decks a good sanding and removed the epoxy drips, the excess caulking,  and a few saw burns.  I’ll probably sand them once more once we’re really and truly done, but they’re looking good! 

I’ve painted the floors, and will lay the nonskid strips today.  At first we went with a copper color- trying to somewhat emulate the wood, accentuate the copper countertops, but it just looked too orange.  So we instead went with a brick red, which I really like.  It makes the wood stand out, and it’s much darker than the orange was, so it should be easier to keep it looking clean. 

It's not quite as dark as it looks here- it's so hard to get the light right down at the shop!  

We’re planning to give our notice to our landlords at the shop on the first, which means we’ll be out of the shop on November first.  We’re really hoping to get the boat out a week or so before that, so we can have some room in the shop to finish some more wood work, (like the bowsprit, maybe the boom…) and to be able to clean it up and sell some of our tools.  Anyone looking to buy an old drill press?  

Don't get too excited- once the boat is out of the shop, we still have some work to do.  The mast, and the bowsprit, and all the rigging need to be figured out and assembled!  But then, maybe, just maybe, we'll get to go sailing. 

There's a hole in the boat, dear Cody, dear Cody.....

In the past few weeks we've tackled another big job on the boat.  Beth and I drilled out the deadwood and the lead keel for the keel bolts that will hold the 4000 lbs of ballast to the bottom of our mighty craft.  I will say that Beth and I both underestimated the amount of hassle this would be.  We started off by drilling through the 2 foot thick deadwood.  To do this we used a 16" auger bit, then switched to a regular paddle bit with two 12" extensions.  As you can imagine it is hard to start drilling a hole on one side and have it come out at the right spot on the other...

Double extensions, and it still barely made it.

So...the second hole we drilled went by really fast, in fact we only used the auger bit, mostly because we missed the deadwood and drilled out the side of the boat! 

It sounds worse than it is, Beth had it patched up a few days later.

I am to blame for the hole in the hull.  I for some reason thought that the centerline of the boat was not where it actually was and when I marked out where it was both holes were shifted to one side.  The first one ended up closer to center than we wanted and one of course came out the side.

We also managed to get the boottop stripe on before we left for a short trip to Bainbridge Island.

After running the entire way from the train station to the ferry we ended up being the last people on the boat.  Pretty lucky!

Beth's sister Amy plays "ULTIMATE! Frisbee" and we went to Seattle to watch her team play in a tournament. 

Beth says:

Most of the players from Amy's team came over for a barbecue after the tournament.  We had some great food, and a fun party, complete with crashers.  They brought pie, at least.  

We took a family hike out on the Olympic Peninsula.  It was a beautiful day.  

Grace was PSYCHED. 

We hiked out to a clearing with a small shelter, and had a picnic on the sunny river bank.  

We were on the east side of the Olympics, in the rain shadow.  It's really open beneath the canopy, with very little undergrowth.  The moss was beautiful, and a perfect spot for a break.  

It was nice to get away from the project for a bit, and good to see family.  

We did manage to visit a couple boat consignment shops, and found some good deals, and parts that are hard to find in Utah.  

When we headed home, we were refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Just a couple days ago I drilled out the holes in the lead keel.  Something I forgot to mention is how we are going to get the holes in the deadwood and the holes in the lead to line up.  What we did was to have the lead keel under the deadwood when we drilled it out so when we pushed through the wood the drill bit lightly drilled into the lead marking exactly where the hole should go.  

Looking at the bottom of the keel, you can see the hole is drilled through the 11" of lead and then countersunk so that when we put a nut and washer on they will be flush with the bottom.  The drilling was done with the auger bit and very powerful drill, it went though it almost as easily as the wood.

The keel upside down in the shop, I used a floor jack to roll it over, and you can see the drill with the 2 foot long pipe handle I used for the holes.

I've been hard at work on upholstering the boat recently.  I should be done by the end of the week!  

We're looking forward to the launch party...  It feels like it's coming up!  We'll be sure to let you all know the details as soon as we do.