September 15, 2015 - Lighten Up

Sometimes a great idea turns out to be one minor tweak away from actually being great. Selecting the non-skid coating, Deck Restore, from Home Depot was a potentially risky gambit. But I liked the product's ease of use, ease of alteration, and ease of maintenance. Though it was not specifically created for wooden boat decks, it was created for a virtually identical application, docks and weather exposed land based decks. It also is permanently flexible, allowing it to move with the wood of the boat as it expands and contracts with heat and humidity. It turned out to be one of my happiest outcomes as the product has exceeded my hopes in every respect. But the color I chose, well, that was a bit of a flub. Too dark. Footsies get too toasty in the summer. At the time I first applied the product, there were fewer color choices, but now, three years after the original application, There were many more colors to choose from. The beauty of the product is that all I had to to was tape the borders and reapply right over the original coating. Could hardly be easier. One day's worth of work, and the foredeck and cabin roof were completely redone. (color variation in the photo is due to it still drying when the photo was taken.)
September 2, 2015 - Hanging Around

My yacht has, for a loooong time now, substituted as a floating storage bin. Projects grouped and stored in almost every corner, hanging around for whenever I have the time and/or money to get them going. The Compass Rose's teak handrails were among many such projects begging for my attention. The benefit of tackling such a project is two fold:
a. It finally gets done and can serve its purpose of keeping people from falling over the side of the vessel (a good benefit in and of itself)
b. it clears some more space for me to live in rather than contort my existence around such piles.
As it happened, I finally came across enough money to buy the varnish and brushes necessary to put the 8 coats of varnish needed to turn a pile of dingy grey teak back into gleaming handrails. But, how to get them all in one shot so I used fewer brushes and had less waste? Doing one side first and then flipping them over also involved much more work. IDEA! Cut some short strands of electric wire, put one screw in to each rail segment and hand them from the wheelhouse roof. Worked like a charm. One continuous coat without breaks. Now, getting through the area without getting smeared by a virtual floating sticky chandelier, well, that took a bit of acquired skill.
a. It finally gets done and can serve its purpose of keeping people from falling over the side of the vessel (a good benefit in and of itself)
b. it clears some more space for me to live in rather than contort my existence around such piles.
As it happened, I finally came across enough money to buy the varnish and brushes necessary to put the 8 coats of varnish needed to turn a pile of dingy grey teak back into gleaming handrails. But, how to get them all in one shot so I used fewer brushes and had less waste? Doing one side first and then flipping them over also involved much more work. IDEA! Cut some short strands of electric wire, put one screw in to each rail segment and hand them from the wheelhouse roof. Worked like a charm. One continuous coat without breaks. Now, getting through the area without getting smeared by a virtual floating sticky chandelier, well, that took a bit of acquired skill.

August 15, 2015 - A Roof Over my Head
When I first purchased the Compass Rose, one area that I knew was going to need attention was the wheel house roof. The wheel house, just as it sounds, houses the vessel's steering wheel (helm). On my first inspection of the yacht, I saw that the front corners showed signs of wood rot eating at the edges (very common on older woodies), and worse, at the back corner a sizable area had a botched repair done to it. Two years ago, I had repaired those areas, but without taking it the full distance, the repairs I did, were in danger of being reversed by the elements. As with several projects, I had put this one off for lack of resources. I also was a bit intimidated by the size of the area that needed to be done, and whether I could still muster the physical ability to do it in spite of the arthritis. Jobs of this magnitude have taken on a torture like aura, as my muscles press my weakened joints and connective tissue. The more force I exert, the more pain. But with a potentially record breaking El Nino approaching, there was no choice anymore. As with the sun deck, I needed to laminate new plywood over the old weather weakened plywood, and then shape the new surfaces to match the original contours. In most respects, the work mirrors what an auto body repair specialist would do, but on a larger scale and accounting for a more harsh environment. Chris Craft's designers had begun using fiberglass in the making for the Compass Rose, and it enabled some beautiful lines and shapes. Those shapes were now entrusted to my hands to sculpt and recapture. In the end, I have to say, I am very happy with what emerged.
When I first purchased the Compass Rose, one area that I knew was going to need attention was the wheel house roof. The wheel house, just as it sounds, houses the vessel's steering wheel (helm). On my first inspection of the yacht, I saw that the front corners showed signs of wood rot eating at the edges (very common on older woodies), and worse, at the back corner a sizable area had a botched repair done to it. Two years ago, I had repaired those areas, but without taking it the full distance, the repairs I did, were in danger of being reversed by the elements. As with several projects, I had put this one off for lack of resources. I also was a bit intimidated by the size of the area that needed to be done, and whether I could still muster the physical ability to do it in spite of the arthritis. Jobs of this magnitude have taken on a torture like aura, as my muscles press my weakened joints and connective tissue. The more force I exert, the more pain. But with a potentially record breaking El Nino approaching, there was no choice anymore. As with the sun deck, I needed to laminate new plywood over the old weather weakened plywood, and then shape the new surfaces to match the original contours. In most respects, the work mirrors what an auto body repair specialist would do, but on a larger scale and accounting for a more harsh environment. Chris Craft's designers had begun using fiberglass in the making for the Compass Rose, and it enabled some beautiful lines and shapes. Those shapes were now entrusted to my hands to sculpt and recapture. In the end, I have to say, I am very happy with what emerged.

June 21, 2015 - Painted Lady
I will always remember this day as the first day I got to see the vision I had for the Compass Rose finally manifested dockside. And it was better than I could have hoped for. As the wooden boat festival commenced at Koehler Kraft, visitors strode down the docks, to look at all the beautiful boats exhibiting this year. Some of the finest examples of nautical architecture (mostly sail boats) were on display. Last year, the Compass Rose required a lot more imagination to see where she was heading, and I was distinctly conscious of that. Many people might not have exhibited a boat that still had such an air of "project" about it. But I decided to embrace my yacht's state, and be the example that showed how a vintage wooden boat becomes a yacht again. I took out all the different materials and components that I was working on, and displayed them for people to see as they walked by. When someone asked about a project, I could show them the process and techniques, and that brought to the journey to life. This year though, I could leave all the resins, wood flour and chrome hardware in the cabinets, and let the boat shine. And shine she did. I decided to take out the dress flags that someone donated to me last year. Before the age of radio communications, vessels used visual communication aids - signal lights, or flags with standard designs that made use of the brightest colors. Those flags are mostly ceremonial now, strong together and hung bow to stern and up to the tallest mast on the vessel. Typically, you can see these displays on opening day of the yachting season, or special occasions. This was special enough for me, so I strung them up, and the Rose never looked prouder. Those flags were up a full month before I finally took them down. Sadly, they were not the best quality, so they are somewhat faded now, But I got to see a sight that I hope becomes quite common on the Compass Rose in the future.
A real painted lady, she was.
I will always remember this day as the first day I got to see the vision I had for the Compass Rose finally manifested dockside. And it was better than I could have hoped for. As the wooden boat festival commenced at Koehler Kraft, visitors strode down the docks, to look at all the beautiful boats exhibiting this year. Some of the finest examples of nautical architecture (mostly sail boats) were on display. Last year, the Compass Rose required a lot more imagination to see where she was heading, and I was distinctly conscious of that. Many people might not have exhibited a boat that still had such an air of "project" about it. But I decided to embrace my yacht's state, and be the example that showed how a vintage wooden boat becomes a yacht again. I took out all the different materials and components that I was working on, and displayed them for people to see as they walked by. When someone asked about a project, I could show them the process and techniques, and that brought to the journey to life. This year though, I could leave all the resins, wood flour and chrome hardware in the cabinets, and let the boat shine. And shine she did. I decided to take out the dress flags that someone donated to me last year. Before the age of radio communications, vessels used visual communication aids - signal lights, or flags with standard designs that made use of the brightest colors. Those flags are mostly ceremonial now, strong together and hung bow to stern and up to the tallest mast on the vessel. Typically, you can see these displays on opening day of the yachting season, or special occasions. This was special enough for me, so I strung them up, and the Rose never looked prouder. Those flags were up a full month before I finally took them down. Sadly, they were not the best quality, so they are somewhat faded now, But I got to see a sight that I hope becomes quite common on the Compass Rose in the future.
A real painted lady, she was.
June 10, 2015 - Three Scoops Please

Very little has been accomplished in this restoration in a linear fashion, beginning to end, without months intervening between steps. So it was with the ventilation scoops for the engine compartment. They were among the nicer pieces of exterior trim, but were lost in the dark blue band that ran from stem to stern. I painted that band a platinum grey precisely so these scoops could stand out, and now it was time to finally put them in their rightful places. Years ago, I had sent them to M2 Collision auto body shop in Mission Valley for refinishing. When I got them back, I was so pleased with them, that I decided to send any additional refinishing their way when I need it. For two years, the scoops hibernated in the master stateroom, and I was convinced that they would get scratched before I could put them in. But, they managed to stay out of harms way, and, after a quick bath, they were ready to install. But, as with many restoration projects, once you restore something, you have to adjust all the parts in order to marry them all back together. A little shave here, a little tuck there. The work requires patience in the extreme. If you go to far, there is no way to fix that without major work. It took about four days to get all the pieces reacquainted, but once I did, the result was everything I hoped it would be. Thank you M2 Collision.
May 21, 2015 - Stepping Up

When I first boarded the Compass Rose (then named Above Board) I had by this time seen several Chris Craft Constellations. Only one other had the optional factory teak boarding ladder. It was a pricey option that often did not survive drunken boat captains who ran it into the side of a dock. This one's ladder had survived, but only just. The slats were weathered and charred by the sun from having not been varnished for at least a decade.
A, shall we say, portly potential buyer managed to finish what the sun and weather had started, by putting their foot through the weakened slats at the top of the ladder. My friend who came with me to offer his opinion, was a bit shy of horrified. But I was undaunted. After I purchased the boat, I took the ladder down and disassembled it. To my credit, I realized that I had yet to acquire all the skills needed to fix it, so I stowed it below until my knowledge could catch up with my ambition.
Six and a half years later, my intimidation was waning, and I regularly eyed the ladder. Then one day, as fate would have it, another Chris Craft Constellation landed in the boat yard where I had my slip. Having sank the night before, this vessel was the end of its journey. It was sad to see such an otherwise fine craft felled by neglect. It had been named restoration of the year in 1988. The plaque still hung over the dinette, now flecked with sea debris, still moist with salt from the sinking. It too had a boarding ladder, and it appeared in much better shape than mine. The oaf who was contracted to dismantle it grunted when I asked how much he would take for the ladder.
"You wooden boat freaks are all crazy. Fiberglass! You ever heard of it? It's what we make boats out of now. It lasts." Suppressing all the responses perkolating in my throat, I managed to repeat my query,
"how much will you take for it?"
"$125 . . and you have to remove it. Gotta be off by tomorrow, we're cutting this heap up after that. You realize this is all just food for mold and termites, right? I build boats for a living, this is a dying trade, and I am helping it to the grave" I smiled and thought quietly, get back to your tupperware little man. He furrowed his brow and grunted off while I fetched my tools.
Later, I pulled the last pieces of my prize onto my boat, I wondered how in the hell it could weigh so much and not be made out of solid gold. On the other boat, the ladder looked like all it needed was a good sanding and a few coats of varnish. But now, looking at it closer, it was clear that it was a different combination of the same level of challenges as the one I already had. But it was wider and beefier, so I decided it was worth it to restore this one instead. I carefully disassembled it, and started inventorying what would need to be done. The slats were badly weathered and needed to be replaced, the dowels that held them in were mostly rotted. But otherwise, the teak was in pretty good shape. All the hardware needed to be re-chromed.
The next day, I went up and got permission from the yard to use their table saw, and cut new slats for the ladder. The saw was probably built in the 1960's and like most of the power saws of that era, it was able to put up with the neglect that was commonplace in that boatyard. Two hours later, I had all my cuts done. I assembled the pieces for dry fit, and made some adjustments. The next day, I came up to the shop with epoxy, and some fine grained teak wood flour. I surrounded the assembled pieces with a kalidescope of clamps and sat back trying to envision what it would look like. After two days of curing, I released the clamps and sanded all the excess epoxy off to reveal a stunningly beautiful piece of craftsmanship. I was in awe of what this must have looked like for the person that first bought one of these yachts.
I came up with what I considered and ingenious cable mounting for the the ladder segments and Jackie and I laid down eight coats of varnish. What a sight those pieces were. A month later, the hardware came back from chrome plating, and we installed them. The next day, we laid everything out beside the boat, and after the last pin slid into place, we stood back and marveled at a sight that few have ever seen. When I walked up it, I felt what it must have been like for the first owner of the Compass Rose, when they stepped onboard. To this day, the ladder Impresses those who walk by. For me, it has meant much easier boarding with my arthritis.
A, shall we say, portly potential buyer managed to finish what the sun and weather had started, by putting their foot through the weakened slats at the top of the ladder. My friend who came with me to offer his opinion, was a bit shy of horrified. But I was undaunted. After I purchased the boat, I took the ladder down and disassembled it. To my credit, I realized that I had yet to acquire all the skills needed to fix it, so I stowed it below until my knowledge could catch up with my ambition.
Six and a half years later, my intimidation was waning, and I regularly eyed the ladder. Then one day, as fate would have it, another Chris Craft Constellation landed in the boat yard where I had my slip. Having sank the night before, this vessel was the end of its journey. It was sad to see such an otherwise fine craft felled by neglect. It had been named restoration of the year in 1988. The plaque still hung over the dinette, now flecked with sea debris, still moist with salt from the sinking. It too had a boarding ladder, and it appeared in much better shape than mine. The oaf who was contracted to dismantle it grunted when I asked how much he would take for the ladder.
"You wooden boat freaks are all crazy. Fiberglass! You ever heard of it? It's what we make boats out of now. It lasts." Suppressing all the responses perkolating in my throat, I managed to repeat my query,
"how much will you take for it?"
"$125 . . and you have to remove it. Gotta be off by tomorrow, we're cutting this heap up after that. You realize this is all just food for mold and termites, right? I build boats for a living, this is a dying trade, and I am helping it to the grave" I smiled and thought quietly, get back to your tupperware little man. He furrowed his brow and grunted off while I fetched my tools.
Later, I pulled the last pieces of my prize onto my boat, I wondered how in the hell it could weigh so much and not be made out of solid gold. On the other boat, the ladder looked like all it needed was a good sanding and a few coats of varnish. But now, looking at it closer, it was clear that it was a different combination of the same level of challenges as the one I already had. But it was wider and beefier, so I decided it was worth it to restore this one instead. I carefully disassembled it, and started inventorying what would need to be done. The slats were badly weathered and needed to be replaced, the dowels that held them in were mostly rotted. But otherwise, the teak was in pretty good shape. All the hardware needed to be re-chromed.
The next day, I went up and got permission from the yard to use their table saw, and cut new slats for the ladder. The saw was probably built in the 1960's and like most of the power saws of that era, it was able to put up with the neglect that was commonplace in that boatyard. Two hours later, I had all my cuts done. I assembled the pieces for dry fit, and made some adjustments. The next day, I came up to the shop with epoxy, and some fine grained teak wood flour. I surrounded the assembled pieces with a kalidescope of clamps and sat back trying to envision what it would look like. After two days of curing, I released the clamps and sanded all the excess epoxy off to reveal a stunningly beautiful piece of craftsmanship. I was in awe of what this must have looked like for the person that first bought one of these yachts.
I came up with what I considered and ingenious cable mounting for the the ladder segments and Jackie and I laid down eight coats of varnish. What a sight those pieces were. A month later, the hardware came back from chrome plating, and we installed them. The next day, we laid everything out beside the boat, and after the last pin slid into place, we stood back and marveled at a sight that few have ever seen. When I walked up it, I felt what it must have been like for the first owner of the Compass Rose, when they stepped onboard. To this day, the ladder Impresses those who walk by. For me, it has meant much easier boarding with my arthritis.
March 5, 2015 - Putting it all Together

On my mind's canvas, I had painted probably a dozen versions of the paint scheme and layout for the hull sides. Just when I thought I'd hit on the one I wanted, some other consideration derailed my plan, or my mood changed. My friend Tootie, had finally stopped trying to coerce me into painting an orchid color stripe down the side (yes, there is such a color as orchid). It did not help my cause that Pantone coincidentally picked Orchid as their color of the year for 2014. A whole year of her pointing out that annoying color nearly drove me insane. But I realized that until I started laying down tape lines, someone would be lending their advice. So, when March 2015 rolled around, I decided to put an end to the painting committee's ruminations and just go for what I wanted (my boat after all, right?).
Chris Craft originally had a deep sapphire blue stripe two plank widths wide that ran the length of the yacht just above a piece of half-round trim. The effect was nice enough, but there were certain details that were lost in that band of dark blue. Ones that I felt should stand out more. But I wanted to keep the rich blue trim color. It reminded me of the deep blue of the open ocean and was a part of the Constellation's heritage. So, I decided I would paint the same band, but in a light grey, cased by two smaller sapphire blue stripes above and below. This would set off some of the trim elements within the band, and had a very classic overall affect.
Even my painting committee chair, Tootie, eventually conceded that the affect was beautiful. By this time, Jackie Von Murphy and I had reconnected, and she was very excited to help me out with the project. After weeks of prep, we finally laid down the tape lines and primed the areas within. The pattern I chose came with a pretty high level of difficulty. The lines were set close enough together that if there was any unevenness, it would be easily betrayed. The logical assumption would be that you would lay the lines down by precisely measuring out the gaps. but boats in general, and wooden boats in particular, with their complex curves and slopes, defy mathematical placements. Math can only guide you so far, and then you must let the artist's eye take over.
When we had finally finished the last coat, we held our breath as i tugged away the tape to reveal a spectacular sight. From that day on, the Compass Rose became the object of many compliments on the docks. Years of work were finally beginning to shine through.
Chris Craft originally had a deep sapphire blue stripe two plank widths wide that ran the length of the yacht just above a piece of half-round trim. The effect was nice enough, but there were certain details that were lost in that band of dark blue. Ones that I felt should stand out more. But I wanted to keep the rich blue trim color. It reminded me of the deep blue of the open ocean and was a part of the Constellation's heritage. So, I decided I would paint the same band, but in a light grey, cased by two smaller sapphire blue stripes above and below. This would set off some of the trim elements within the band, and had a very classic overall affect.
Even my painting committee chair, Tootie, eventually conceded that the affect was beautiful. By this time, Jackie Von Murphy and I had reconnected, and she was very excited to help me out with the project. After weeks of prep, we finally laid down the tape lines and primed the areas within. The pattern I chose came with a pretty high level of difficulty. The lines were set close enough together that if there was any unevenness, it would be easily betrayed. The logical assumption would be that you would lay the lines down by precisely measuring out the gaps. but boats in general, and wooden boats in particular, with their complex curves and slopes, defy mathematical placements. Math can only guide you so far, and then you must let the artist's eye take over.
When we had finally finished the last coat, we held our breath as i tugged away the tape to reveal a spectacular sight. From that day on, the Compass Rose became the object of many compliments on the docks. Years of work were finally beginning to shine through.
January 10, 2015 - Go Take a Shower

When I first walked into the master bath, it was like much of the rest of the boat, a combination of previous owners attempts at refined esthetics. One thought burled dark walnut wallpaper would make the wood trim look classy (it did not). Another thought that faux granite wallpaper was the way to go, or that tiling over formica would up the quotient. But to really do justice to the yacht required giving proper respect to the original designers intent. Then balance that with your own flare and needs, but always in a way that remains true to the original design heritage and themes. Take the best and reimagine the things that might be lacking. The shower stall was one place that had escaped the efforts of past owners, but nonetheless, needed a bit of reimagining. The pressed board with white enamel finish would have been easy enough to renew, but the material was underwhelming as a finish on a yacht. So I set about putting my own creativity to work there. In my research, I found a material, colored polycarbonate sheets, that finally inspired me. The back of the sheet was colored so that the front would have a deep glossy affect. But the price was well out of my range. So, I did some more research and found a tutorial on how to make it yourself with off-the-shelf, Home Depot polycarbonate sheet, at a fraction of the cost. The shower was working at this point, so I had some hesitation as I went to start the job. "If it's not broken, don't fix it." But it was broken from the standpoint of what I needed it for. I will be selling the experience of being on a yacht, not an RV. So, I carefully started disassembling the shower stall, carefully removing all the trim. It was important to preserve the original trim, because it would keep the link to the original design, and help make what I was doing look like Chris Craft themselves might have done it if they had access to these materials. I was able to get all the panels off without having to destroy them (which took great patience), so I could use them as templates for the new sheets. I also ordered modern shower fixtures that would marry well with what I was doing. Then, I decided to give it the wow factor by engraving the back panel with the boat's initials separated by the geese from the Chris Craft crest in a nod to the original designers. I also added a vent for a fan to keep the moisture down and prolong the life of the finishes in the bathroom. As I laid in the panels, and peeled back the protective sheet, I got goose bumps. It was far better than I had hoped, and to this day, whenever anyone sees it, they are in fact quite wowed. And I got to take a nice hot shower after.

November 10, 2013 - Soft Spot
Dry rot is the name given to the damaged caused by fungus as it eats away at wood of almost any variety. The name is severely misleading in that the rot caused by fungus actually requires moisture. Typically, during the winter rains, a fissure in the paint allows water to slowly saturate the wood within. Once inside, the water becomes trapped and can remain there for months of dry weather. Fungus thrives in areas where their is moisture, warmth, oxygen and food (your boat). The fungus spores that were latent, waiting for the perfect conditions begin digesting whatever wood they are in contact with. For the wooden boat owner, this the bane of our existence. Our eyes constantly scour our boats surfaces looking for bubbles in the paint finish, or tapping suspicious areas with the blunt end of a screw driver or chisel listening for that tell tale thud of soft rotten wood. When I bought the Compass Rose, I knew this particular soft spot was hiding fungus spores. But it was low among my list of priorities. The rainy season was now fast approaching, and by now this spot had already grown to twice its original size. Any bigger than this, would require much more significant repairs, so the time to repair it was now. To repair something like this, casts you as the repairer in a roll rather uncomfortably close to that of a dentist. The damaged wood must be excavated much like a cavity in a tooth. All the bad material must go, and then the remaining area gets filled in and built back up to the original shape. The picture above is what the area looked like once the "cavity" was removed. You can see from the picture that this corner in particular involves a complex set of curvatures, so this tested my skills as a craftsman. Once the High gloss paint goes over this area, any mistakes I made will be glaringly obvious, so I took a lot of deliberate time in crafting the patch material as closely to the lost surface as my artistic eye could get me. In the end, I was very happy with how it came out, but I won't truly know how well I did until I put on the final coats of paint.
Dry rot is the name given to the damaged caused by fungus as it eats away at wood of almost any variety. The name is severely misleading in that the rot caused by fungus actually requires moisture. Typically, during the winter rains, a fissure in the paint allows water to slowly saturate the wood within. Once inside, the water becomes trapped and can remain there for months of dry weather. Fungus thrives in areas where their is moisture, warmth, oxygen and food (your boat). The fungus spores that were latent, waiting for the perfect conditions begin digesting whatever wood they are in contact with. For the wooden boat owner, this the bane of our existence. Our eyes constantly scour our boats surfaces looking for bubbles in the paint finish, or tapping suspicious areas with the blunt end of a screw driver or chisel listening for that tell tale thud of soft rotten wood. When I bought the Compass Rose, I knew this particular soft spot was hiding fungus spores. But it was low among my list of priorities. The rainy season was now fast approaching, and by now this spot had already grown to twice its original size. Any bigger than this, would require much more significant repairs, so the time to repair it was now. To repair something like this, casts you as the repairer in a roll rather uncomfortably close to that of a dentist. The damaged wood must be excavated much like a cavity in a tooth. All the bad material must go, and then the remaining area gets filled in and built back up to the original shape. The picture above is what the area looked like once the "cavity" was removed. You can see from the picture that this corner in particular involves a complex set of curvatures, so this tested my skills as a craftsman. Once the High gloss paint goes over this area, any mistakes I made will be glaringly obvious, so I took a lot of deliberate time in crafting the patch material as closely to the lost surface as my artistic eye could get me. In the end, I was very happy with how it came out, but I won't truly know how well I did until I put on the final coats of paint.
August 12, 2013 - A Touch of Class

Since moving on board the Compass Rose, I have never had any cushions for the foredeck bench seat or any of the other seating areas on the boat. But that was far down the list of worries I had at the time. Four and a half years later though, my butt was thoroughly ready for a little bit of comfort. Thankfully, that the milestone had finally come into view once the decks were showing their proud new colors. It was around this time that two very wonderful friends, Nick and Randal, stepped into my life to add that little bit of comfort and remind me of the excitement that comes with picking out colors and fabrics. That is when you really start to realize that the years of sacrifice and hard work are finally adding up to something.
The day Randal unfurled the fabrics and accents that he'd chosen after researching the history of Chris Craft and nautical interior design was an amazing day for me. I was reminded of all the fun parts that lay ahead that did not involve crawling around in a bilge or coating myself in fiberglass thistles. But even beyond that, I realized how much I appreciated having someone to stand with me, even for a moment to help me press the restoration forward, and even more so in the face of an aggressive arthritis flare-up.
Randal is a professional costume designer by trade, and I knew that he would do some amazing work, but I never expected the level of effort he put into the upholstery that showed up. I only hope that my finishing carpentry can live up to the work they both did. It is an understatement to say that I am humbly grateful for everything both he and Nick did while they were visiting. And even more so, knowing they made the trip from Pismo Beach down here just to do this for me. There will always be a place for you both on the Compass Rose. Thank you!
The day Randal unfurled the fabrics and accents that he'd chosen after researching the history of Chris Craft and nautical interior design was an amazing day for me. I was reminded of all the fun parts that lay ahead that did not involve crawling around in a bilge or coating myself in fiberglass thistles. But even beyond that, I realized how much I appreciated having someone to stand with me, even for a moment to help me press the restoration forward, and even more so in the face of an aggressive arthritis flare-up.
Randal is a professional costume designer by trade, and I knew that he would do some amazing work, but I never expected the level of effort he put into the upholstery that showed up. I only hope that my finishing carpentry can live up to the work they both did. It is an understatement to say that I am humbly grateful for everything both he and Nick did while they were visiting. And even more so, knowing they made the trip from Pismo Beach down here just to do this for me. There will always be a place for you both on the Compass Rose. Thank you!
August 6, 2013 - Getting a Grip

For months on end, the plywood decks of the Compass Rose have been exposed to the elements. No matter how much work I did to the rest of the exterior, with the decks bare, the boat looked every bit like it was going to be a career project boat. And that was something that needed to come to an end if I was going to be able to find a permanent home for the Rose. Marinas shun project boats with nose high looks usually reserved for a skunk sprayed dog. I had already been turned down at a couple marinas, so it was well past time to get on with it. As with many things on the boat that were firsts for me though, I had put off tackling this part of the restoration because I still doubted if I could do it to the standard I wanted. But there comes a point where you have to cast your own doubts aside and believe in yourself and your vision. I knew that the affect of the new deck coating would be dramatic, but to see it take shape absolutely blew me away.
There is an art to laying out the deck pattern that mathematical treatments cannot manage. I realized quickly that if I was going to achieve the look I was after, I would have to set the ruler down and let my eyes be the guide. It was my own Skywalker moment. When I switched off the targeting computer, and let the Force flow through me . . . ok, I know it's a bit of a stretch. The pattern that is laid out on the deck has only minor functional aspects to it in terms of aiding water run-off and is far more of a visual exercise than anything. The affect of the lines is to both break up the large expanse of monotone color, and to accentuate the lines of the boat.
The non-skid material I chose is a cousin of the material used on aircraft carrier decks, but is just now coming the attention of boat owners. As with many new products, no one wants to take the risk of trying them and being disappointed when they fail prematurely. More than that, no one wants to be chided by other boaters for making a mistake. But I had done my homework on this product, and knew it had been developed for use on docks as well as backyard decks. I had also used the product on another restoration I'd done a couple years earlier, and it had exceeded my expectations there. My only concern was if I would be able to get it to cure before the local bird population could see my handiwork and trash it. Thankfully, my new temporary slip at the Harbor Police dock was devoid of the squadrons of pelicans and seagulls that engaged in daily target practice on my foredeck at H&M Landing. To date, the new non-skid has performed exceptionally well.
There is an art to laying out the deck pattern that mathematical treatments cannot manage. I realized quickly that if I was going to achieve the look I was after, I would have to set the ruler down and let my eyes be the guide. It was my own Skywalker moment. When I switched off the targeting computer, and let the Force flow through me . . . ok, I know it's a bit of a stretch. The pattern that is laid out on the deck has only minor functional aspects to it in terms of aiding water run-off and is far more of a visual exercise than anything. The affect of the lines is to both break up the large expanse of monotone color, and to accentuate the lines of the boat.
The non-skid material I chose is a cousin of the material used on aircraft carrier decks, but is just now coming the attention of boat owners. As with many new products, no one wants to take the risk of trying them and being disappointed when they fail prematurely. More than that, no one wants to be chided by other boaters for making a mistake. But I had done my homework on this product, and knew it had been developed for use on docks as well as backyard decks. I had also used the product on another restoration I'd done a couple years earlier, and it had exceeded my expectations there. My only concern was if I would be able to get it to cure before the local bird population could see my handiwork and trash it. Thankfully, my new temporary slip at the Harbor Police dock was devoid of the squadrons of pelicans and seagulls that engaged in daily target practice on my foredeck at H&M Landing. To date, the new non-skid has performed exceptionally well.
June 5, 2013 - The Old Man and the Sea

Since 1977, my father and I have fished from the boats at H&M Landing. Usually, we would leave Orange County when it was still dark out and make the trek down to San Diego with the car loaded with tackle boxes and poles. By the time we arrived, the sky was grey with morning overcast. Sea gulls bellied their bardic calls out as I lurched down the ramp still shaking the sleep off from the car ride down. The gurgling diesels of the boats, and the smell of fresh burlap sacks will always be engrained in my memory.
Though some of their names have changed over the years, most of the boats that we rode on, are still ferrying fishers out into the Pacific today. Late in the afternoon, we would come back, usually with some fish tails poking from our bulging burlap sacks, but sometimes with them still as fresh as when we picked them up at the counter. On those days, Point Loma Seafood served as our stand in, helping substitute for what eluded us on the wavy blue waters. Over the years, my father's trips down that ramp have more often been after a nice meal, to reminisce about trips past. We wandered past the boats, pointing to this one or that one that had taken us on a trip.
My father now resides in Vietnam, and returns twice a year. When he ventures down to San Diego, we make a point of stopping at H&M for our ritual walk down the ramp. As his trip approached, I became deliberately vague about where the Compass Rose would be docked. I had the great fortune of having a wonderful friend's assistance in getting a temporary slip at our old stomping grounds, and I was determined to surprise him.
It could not have happened more perfectly. We sat for our traditional meal, and I quietly munched my sandwich with perfect innocence. Then, as he was finishing, I casually mentioned that we take a walk down to the fishing docks before they closed the gates for the night. As we walked between the boats, I looked back and asked my father, "Hey, you remember this one?" pointing at the Compass Rose. He looked for a moment before it dawned on him, and then excitement and shock washed over his face. There I was, bobbing along side the big boys. It is a memory that will stay with he and I for a long time to come.
Though some of their names have changed over the years, most of the boats that we rode on, are still ferrying fishers out into the Pacific today. Late in the afternoon, we would come back, usually with some fish tails poking from our bulging burlap sacks, but sometimes with them still as fresh as when we picked them up at the counter. On those days, Point Loma Seafood served as our stand in, helping substitute for what eluded us on the wavy blue waters. Over the years, my father's trips down that ramp have more often been after a nice meal, to reminisce about trips past. We wandered past the boats, pointing to this one or that one that had taken us on a trip.
My father now resides in Vietnam, and returns twice a year. When he ventures down to San Diego, we make a point of stopping at H&M for our ritual walk down the ramp. As his trip approached, I became deliberately vague about where the Compass Rose would be docked. I had the great fortune of having a wonderful friend's assistance in getting a temporary slip at our old stomping grounds, and I was determined to surprise him.
It could not have happened more perfectly. We sat for our traditional meal, and I quietly munched my sandwich with perfect innocence. Then, as he was finishing, I casually mentioned that we take a walk down to the fishing docks before they closed the gates for the night. As we walked between the boats, I looked back and asked my father, "Hey, you remember this one?" pointing at the Compass Rose. He looked for a moment before it dawned on him, and then excitement and shock washed over his face. There I was, bobbing along side the big boys. It is a memory that will stay with he and I for a long time to come.
May 5, 2013 - Moving Forward in Spite of the Cross Wind

It would be hard to say that I feel at home at the Harbor Police dock, but I have definitely enjoyed getting a taste of the view I hope I will regularly enjoy once the restoration is done and I am settled in somewhere on Shelter Island. The area has a nice village feel to it, and the views are reminiscent of the mediterranean. Boats come and go here, on there way to somewhere in the Baja mostly. A few days ago there was a fine vintage Canadian wooden rum runner that was visiting San Diego. The owners had meticulously restored and maintained it, and were now living their dream of wandering the coast of North America. For my part, in between doing the limited work I am able to get away with at the police dock, I am also keeping the Compass Rose's legs stretched by taking her our periodically. It also helps me to rebuild some rusty maneuvering skills which were recently put to the test when I took some friends out for a brief cruise.
The area we are in is notorious for having a bit of a wind tunnel effect that focuses even mild sea breezes into a formidable gust. The resulting cross wind pins the boat against the dock, and when the wind starts to reach 25 miles per hour, it is a major challenge to get the boat off of the dock. Add an audience to the wind conditions, and the sweat starts to bead pretty quickly on your forehead. Absent the wind, getting out of my slip is a relatively simple maneuver - turn the helm wheel hard over so the stern kicks out, and back out with alternating pulses of the transmissions between reverse and counter rotating props. In a power boat with twin engines, your maneuvering in and out of the slip is done almost exclusively with the transmissions since you have very little water flowing over the rudders. But with the wind hitting the side of the boat, the engines could not counter the force, and we were being sent right back onto the dock. The Compass Rose has a pivot point that is roughly two thirds down the centerline of the boat almost directly under the helm. This means that the bow of the boat is essentially a pretty strong lever arm. But what works for the wind in one direction, can also work for me in the other. By pushing the bow of the boat against the dock, it allows me to use that lever arm and push the stern of the boat out far enough that I can back the boat out of the slip and into the center lane. By that time, I have enough speed that the rudders are able to take over from there and I can use them to guide the vessel out of the marina. In other words, don't fight a strong wind, you will lose every time. Instead, use the wind to your advantage, or find a way around it. Any captain will tell you that departing in a cross wind from the inner most slip at a marina is one of the most difficult to achieve. And I will be the first to admit that I have a ways to go before I am expert. But I can manage it much better now that I have done it a few times, and I am definitely grateful for gaining the experience with a group of friends as the audience instead of paying customers.
Speaking of being grateful, I have to also send a special thank you to my friend Jackie Von Murphy. She has worked for many years at H&M Landing with various fishing boats at the landing, and in the course has made many friends. Through her contacts I was able to gain a temporary slip at the fishing landing so I can complete the inspections I need to get to a new marina. For years, my father and I have fished from boats at the landing, and it is my far his favorite place to visit when he is in San Diego. It will be such an unbelievable surprise for him to see the Compass Rose docked alongside all the big boys there.
Thank you Jackie!
The area we are in is notorious for having a bit of a wind tunnel effect that focuses even mild sea breezes into a formidable gust. The resulting cross wind pins the boat against the dock, and when the wind starts to reach 25 miles per hour, it is a major challenge to get the boat off of the dock. Add an audience to the wind conditions, and the sweat starts to bead pretty quickly on your forehead. Absent the wind, getting out of my slip is a relatively simple maneuver - turn the helm wheel hard over so the stern kicks out, and back out with alternating pulses of the transmissions between reverse and counter rotating props. In a power boat with twin engines, your maneuvering in and out of the slip is done almost exclusively with the transmissions since you have very little water flowing over the rudders. But with the wind hitting the side of the boat, the engines could not counter the force, and we were being sent right back onto the dock. The Compass Rose has a pivot point that is roughly two thirds down the centerline of the boat almost directly under the helm. This means that the bow of the boat is essentially a pretty strong lever arm. But what works for the wind in one direction, can also work for me in the other. By pushing the bow of the boat against the dock, it allows me to use that lever arm and push the stern of the boat out far enough that I can back the boat out of the slip and into the center lane. By that time, I have enough speed that the rudders are able to take over from there and I can use them to guide the vessel out of the marina. In other words, don't fight a strong wind, you will lose every time. Instead, use the wind to your advantage, or find a way around it. Any captain will tell you that departing in a cross wind from the inner most slip at a marina is one of the most difficult to achieve. And I will be the first to admit that I have a ways to go before I am expert. But I can manage it much better now that I have done it a few times, and I am definitely grateful for gaining the experience with a group of friends as the audience instead of paying customers.
Speaking of being grateful, I have to also send a special thank you to my friend Jackie Von Murphy. She has worked for many years at H&M Landing with various fishing boats at the landing, and in the course has made many friends. Through her contacts I was able to gain a temporary slip at the fishing landing so I can complete the inspections I need to get to a new marina. For years, my father and I have fished from boats at the landing, and it is my far his favorite place to visit when he is in San Diego. It will be such an unbelievable surprise for him to see the Compass Rose docked alongside all the big boys there.
Thank you Jackie!
April 31, 2013 - In Between

I have been at the transient Harbor Police Dock for over a week now. It took a bit of getting used to, such that anyone gets used to a transient dock. The vistas are fantastic, but the swells in our area of the harbor are a nuisance. Add to that the nightly chortling of the seals from the Navy submarine base, and the omnipresent worry that I have over where I will head to next, and you have a prescription for many sleepless nights. Vince from American Tanks finally paid a visit to the Compass Rose to check his original measurements for the fuel tanks I was supposed to have received in February. I would like to view this as progress, but how do you view checking measurements made in December of last year as progress?
I am working mostly on getting organized and trying to improve functional aspects of the boat (electronics and engine fuel systems). But the real work I need to do has to wait since the Harbor Police docks are fairly restrictive on exterior work. The taste of my success in leaving Fiddler's Cove is still in my mouth, but the anxiety of not knowing where I am going next is building in my stomach. Without a new survey, and insurance, I have no way to gain access to a new marina. I am truly a transient in a way I have not been since my father and I were living out of our car, being swept across Irvine by the police.
I have taken the boat out a couple times since my arrival, the most recent with Chris and his partner Tim. Each time I set out, I still have a bit of nervousness. The boats systems are still so improvised, and I am always conscious of the tenuous thread my boat and all my work hangs by. But, no matter how small the progress, I need those incremental successes to keep me moving - one step at a time.
I am working mostly on getting organized and trying to improve functional aspects of the boat (electronics and engine fuel systems). But the real work I need to do has to wait since the Harbor Police docks are fairly restrictive on exterior work. The taste of my success in leaving Fiddler's Cove is still in my mouth, but the anxiety of not knowing where I am going next is building in my stomach. Without a new survey, and insurance, I have no way to gain access to a new marina. I am truly a transient in a way I have not been since my father and I were living out of our car, being swept across Irvine by the police.
I have taken the boat out a couple times since my arrival, the most recent with Chris and his partner Tim. Each time I set out, I still have a bit of nervousness. The boats systems are still so improvised, and I am always conscious of the tenuous thread my boat and all my work hangs by. But, no matter how small the progress, I need those incremental successes to keep me moving - one step at a time.
April 21, 2013 - Moving Day (or, you don't have to go, but you can't stay)

San Diego's skyline as we made our turn
towards Shelter Island.
A plan starts out with certain elements (say people) that are out of your control, but need to be assumed in order to make the plan in the first place. The plan I made was to have a couple friends help me sow up loose ends and get the boat ready to get underway. That was the plan.
First, one friend that was listed in the "help me" column decided to move to the "I need help" column (I thought I'd closed that column out for the day). Then I had the requisite AWOL's (Absent Without Leave). So what was a rather light load of organizing and stowing gear, sowing up a few loose ends, and getting a good early start, wound up a frenzied screecher. Departure time was supposed to be at around 2:30 to 3pm. We wound up leaving at just about 5pm and racing the sun before it set. Since I have yet to install the navigation lights, I am not allowed to be on the water after sunset. But, as with many things in this restoration, it all came together at the end. My friends showed up, gear got stowed, loose ends tied, and Tootie even brought my favorite take-out (Saffron).
The first third of our journey after we cast off from Fiddler's Cove was a steady tide of nerves for me as I went around the boat checking for leaks, listening for sounds that did not belong and trying to assure myself that the boat was up for the journey. I wish I could say I remember seeing Fiddler's Cove fading in the distance, but I never had the serenity to cast a glance back.
But, by the second third of the trip, I realized that the boat had settled into a good rhythm, and we would be alright. I doubt anyone there had an appreciation for the level of stress I had up to that point. I had pushed the boat out onto the water with very little testing, thimbles for fuel tanks, and a drive train that had barely been roused from a four and a half year slumber. I was out on the water with everything I had invested, everything I had in life, all on the line. Few threads so thin have borne so much weight. But the Compass Rose had been tugging at its lines for weeks now, anxious to get her bow wet and throw off wakes. I could sense that she was happy. I am often criticizing myself for being too anal and perhaps going overboard on this restoration. But this trip showed the value props of that habit. Nothing leaked, or overheated, the fuel fed to the engines perfectly. The electronics and wiring all performed as designed.
I slowly brought up the power setting, and the more power I put on the shafts, the happier the boat felt. By the last third of our trip to Point Loma, I could see that we were not going to beat the sun unless I pushed the boat to the upper end of the power setting. So I eased up the throttles until the boat lifted up on plane with the water. Sea spray flew from the bow, and our wake curled in rows behind us. We picked up a seagull escort as we approached the transient docks at the end of Shelter Island Harbor. By the time our dock lines were safely wrapped around the cleats at the temporary slip, the sun had already slipped down below the point. But the golden light still lingered across the sky as I breathed a long sigh of relief in the shadows.Time for a well earned cup of coffee and some good sea stories.
First, one friend that was listed in the "help me" column decided to move to the "I need help" column (I thought I'd closed that column out for the day). Then I had the requisite AWOL's (Absent Without Leave). So what was a rather light load of organizing and stowing gear, sowing up a few loose ends, and getting a good early start, wound up a frenzied screecher. Departure time was supposed to be at around 2:30 to 3pm. We wound up leaving at just about 5pm and racing the sun before it set. Since I have yet to install the navigation lights, I am not allowed to be on the water after sunset. But, as with many things in this restoration, it all came together at the end. My friends showed up, gear got stowed, loose ends tied, and Tootie even brought my favorite take-out (Saffron).
The first third of our journey after we cast off from Fiddler's Cove was a steady tide of nerves for me as I went around the boat checking for leaks, listening for sounds that did not belong and trying to assure myself that the boat was up for the journey. I wish I could say I remember seeing Fiddler's Cove fading in the distance, but I never had the serenity to cast a glance back.
But, by the second third of the trip, I realized that the boat had settled into a good rhythm, and we would be alright. I doubt anyone there had an appreciation for the level of stress I had up to that point. I had pushed the boat out onto the water with very little testing, thimbles for fuel tanks, and a drive train that had barely been roused from a four and a half year slumber. I was out on the water with everything I had invested, everything I had in life, all on the line. Few threads so thin have borne so much weight. But the Compass Rose had been tugging at its lines for weeks now, anxious to get her bow wet and throw off wakes. I could sense that she was happy. I am often criticizing myself for being too anal and perhaps going overboard on this restoration. But this trip showed the value props of that habit. Nothing leaked, or overheated, the fuel fed to the engines perfectly. The electronics and wiring all performed as designed.
I slowly brought up the power setting, and the more power I put on the shafts, the happier the boat felt. By the last third of our trip to Point Loma, I could see that we were not going to beat the sun unless I pushed the boat to the upper end of the power setting. So I eased up the throttles until the boat lifted up on plane with the water. Sea spray flew from the bow, and our wake curled in rows behind us. We picked up a seagull escort as we approached the transient docks at the end of Shelter Island Harbor. By the time our dock lines were safely wrapped around the cleats at the temporary slip, the sun had already slipped down below the point. But the golden light still lingered across the sky as I breathed a long sigh of relief in the shadows.Time for a well earned cup of coffee and some good sea stories.
April 20, 2013 - Fair Maiden

Tootie takes the helm. (stop looking there!)
To my eyes, the Compass Rose will always be a thing of beauty, but it has been a while since others could see what I do. But at the end of the day, you can't be all show and no go. So, it was time to put an end to the four and a half years since the Compass Rose has gotten underway on her own power. I had to pinch myself. A few weeks ago, I was staring at a pile of engine parts and was beginning to wonder if the Rose would just become a floating hotel that never moved except under the tug of a tow line. But the fights with fuel lines and cooling pipes finally subsided, and in their place was the purr of two Detroit Diesel 8V-53's. No matter how nice they purred though, it would mean nothing unless I could put them and the rest of the boat's systems to the test. It was time to take her out for sea trials.
After a few quick (desperate) calls to friends, I had a crew worthy of the Compass Rose' journey. I also had a fresh new membership to BoatUS in case we found ourselves at the wrong end of a three hour tour and in needed of a tow.
At 3:15pm, the dock lines fell limp on the dock as the Compass Rose pushed herself out into the center lane. A few quick turns, and we were headed out into the open bay with the wind at our backs.
Tootie is someone I can best describe in Star Trek terms as ship's counselor Deanna Troy. If I needed any kind of emotional support, or a shoulder to cry on (yes, that quite literally happened), Tootie was there. As a native Hawaiian, Tootie has an inner peace that preserved my sanity during the better part of this venture. Unfortunately, Deanna's wardrobe was unavailable for our sea trials as you can see from above. But the smile and the hair floating in the breeze more than made up for the wardrobe "malfunction". Hawaiians are a sea faring people with a deep attachment to the ocean. So I could not have asked for a better blessing than to have Tootie's hand at the helm while I went around checking seals and satiating my frayed nerves.
I am pleased to say that BoatUS did not receive a call from us that day, and the Rose and I shared a wonderful few moments as I rested at the bow to catch a glimpse of sea spray peeling off of her planks. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the dock lines stretched taught back at the slip. Thank you Tootie, Michael, Mark and Lulu for sharing the moment with me.
After a few quick (desperate) calls to friends, I had a crew worthy of the Compass Rose' journey. I also had a fresh new membership to BoatUS in case we found ourselves at the wrong end of a three hour tour and in needed of a tow.
At 3:15pm, the dock lines fell limp on the dock as the Compass Rose pushed herself out into the center lane. A few quick turns, and we were headed out into the open bay with the wind at our backs.
Tootie is someone I can best describe in Star Trek terms as ship's counselor Deanna Troy. If I needed any kind of emotional support, or a shoulder to cry on (yes, that quite literally happened), Tootie was there. As a native Hawaiian, Tootie has an inner peace that preserved my sanity during the better part of this venture. Unfortunately, Deanna's wardrobe was unavailable for our sea trials as you can see from above. But the smile and the hair floating in the breeze more than made up for the wardrobe "malfunction". Hawaiians are a sea faring people with a deep attachment to the ocean. So I could not have asked for a better blessing than to have Tootie's hand at the helm while I went around checking seals and satiating my frayed nerves.
I am pleased to say that BoatUS did not receive a call from us that day, and the Rose and I shared a wonderful few moments as I rested at the bow to catch a glimpse of sea spray peeling off of her planks. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the dock lines stretched taught back at the slip. Thank you Tootie, Michael, Mark and Lulu for sharing the moment with me.
April 15, 2013 - Where it All Began

I finally could not avoid the task I am least skilled at - cleaning up in preparation for moving. After several failed attempts to set a departure date, April 21 seemed like it might be the date for me to close out my four and a half years at Fiddler's Cove Marina. Even in a marina, you get settled in after a while and put things in places you are destined to forget. As I dug through the dock box wondering why on earth I had interred so many useless things there, I came across this section of bronze piping. It bares the scars of the pipe wrench I borrowed to take it off. I instantly flashed back to the moment this pipe instigated a long journey for the boat and I. In December 2008, while crawling through the bilge of what was then named Above Board, the surveyor stopped at this piece of piping and explained that I should examine why there was salt water seeping from its connections. A light crust of blue-green crystalline fuzz was tracing a line down the pipe along the path of an occasional drop of saltwater that rolled down the side. I saw the valve below the piping that was connected to the hull and asked if he could show me how to shut it off in case I had any issues (good move).
Three days later, I laid down in the forward cabin, looking forward to a good sleep. There is no sleep that quite equals a bed on the water. I had gravitated to the forward cabin, even though it was the smaller of the two. Something about it felt right, like it just fit me. After about a half hour I was on the horizon of sleep when the bilge pump went off. By now I had grown accustom to the pump going off every three to four days. It would pump about three or four gallons of water that had seeped in through the the hull planking and the keel before the float switch settled the pump back into silence. For older wooden boats, this is not uncommon, and not a particular cause for concern. I rolled onto my other side and started to drift off again.
About a half hour later, I heard the pump trip again. This time my pulse went a bit higher. When I bought the boat, I had warned myself to be prepared. That the boat would test me early on to see if I had the metal to stand by her and take her through a restoration, and not just leave her hanging somewhere, halfway to nowhere. She had one chance at salvation, and she needed to know I was the one to take her there. I lay there wondering if my test was at hand. As the pump switched off, I convinced myself that it was an anomaly. But my ears grabbed at any sound and I could not settle back into sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, the bilge pump tripped again, and this time my blanket flew sideways as I grabbed my flashlight. I went immediately to the access door in the galley above the bilge pump. When I shined my light down, it reflected off of about two feet of water. I could see the pump at the bottom was hopelessly overwhelmed. Somewhere along 46 feet of hull, water was coming in and coming in fast. I lifted the access door to the engine room, and looked down to the far end at the sea strainers the surveyor had pointed out. The trickle of saltwater drops that had been weeping from the pipe was now a fountain. For a moment, I thought of maybe tying a rag or something around it to slow it down, but I realized there was no way a rag was going to hold back the sea water. If I was going to save the boat, I would have to shut off the massive valve below the pipe.
Sometime in the boat's history, someone had either lost the handle to the valve or broke it, so they put a long bolt through the shaft that served as a handle. But the bolt was not really thick enough for the task of turning the valve inside the housing, and I could feel it starting to yield as I pulled at it. But I had no choice. I had to close the valve, and the bolt was the only means I had to do it with. It would either snap, or the corrosion in the housing would give way and let the valve slide closed. I grabbed a wrench and used the closed end to increase the lever arm. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the valve shaft moved and the valve swung closed. Slowly, the fountain subsided.
Four hours later, my heart settled back into a normal rhythm, and I drifted off to sleep as the sky began to grey with morning light.
When I woke up, I borrowed a pipe wrench from a neighbor. As the teeth grabbed the metal, the pipe turned to the side and snapped off. Electrolysis had eaten the bronze pipe threads to faint slivers. As I stared at the threads, it dawned on me that this boat and I were destined to be together. You see, the boat was scheduled to be placed out on a mooring a week after I bought it.
If I had not bought it, the boat would have been found in the morning with only the wheelhouse roof and part of the bow above the water, tied to the mooring ball. No one would have been there to hear the pump, or pull the valve shut.
As I held this piece of pipe, I reflected back on the day that was the start of our four and a half year journey. All of the sweat, aching muscles, and emptied wallet had brought the boat and I full circle. I was now about to steer the Compass Rose out onto the water again.
Three days later, I laid down in the forward cabin, looking forward to a good sleep. There is no sleep that quite equals a bed on the water. I had gravitated to the forward cabin, even though it was the smaller of the two. Something about it felt right, like it just fit me. After about a half hour I was on the horizon of sleep when the bilge pump went off. By now I had grown accustom to the pump going off every three to four days. It would pump about three or four gallons of water that had seeped in through the the hull planking and the keel before the float switch settled the pump back into silence. For older wooden boats, this is not uncommon, and not a particular cause for concern. I rolled onto my other side and started to drift off again.
About a half hour later, I heard the pump trip again. This time my pulse went a bit higher. When I bought the boat, I had warned myself to be prepared. That the boat would test me early on to see if I had the metal to stand by her and take her through a restoration, and not just leave her hanging somewhere, halfway to nowhere. She had one chance at salvation, and she needed to know I was the one to take her there. I lay there wondering if my test was at hand. As the pump switched off, I convinced myself that it was an anomaly. But my ears grabbed at any sound and I could not settle back into sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, the bilge pump tripped again, and this time my blanket flew sideways as I grabbed my flashlight. I went immediately to the access door in the galley above the bilge pump. When I shined my light down, it reflected off of about two feet of water. I could see the pump at the bottom was hopelessly overwhelmed. Somewhere along 46 feet of hull, water was coming in and coming in fast. I lifted the access door to the engine room, and looked down to the far end at the sea strainers the surveyor had pointed out. The trickle of saltwater drops that had been weeping from the pipe was now a fountain. For a moment, I thought of maybe tying a rag or something around it to slow it down, but I realized there was no way a rag was going to hold back the sea water. If I was going to save the boat, I would have to shut off the massive valve below the pipe.
Sometime in the boat's history, someone had either lost the handle to the valve or broke it, so they put a long bolt through the shaft that served as a handle. But the bolt was not really thick enough for the task of turning the valve inside the housing, and I could feel it starting to yield as I pulled at it. But I had no choice. I had to close the valve, and the bolt was the only means I had to do it with. It would either snap, or the corrosion in the housing would give way and let the valve slide closed. I grabbed a wrench and used the closed end to increase the lever arm. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the valve shaft moved and the valve swung closed. Slowly, the fountain subsided.
Four hours later, my heart settled back into a normal rhythm, and I drifted off to sleep as the sky began to grey with morning light.
When I woke up, I borrowed a pipe wrench from a neighbor. As the teeth grabbed the metal, the pipe turned to the side and snapped off. Electrolysis had eaten the bronze pipe threads to faint slivers. As I stared at the threads, it dawned on me that this boat and I were destined to be together. You see, the boat was scheduled to be placed out on a mooring a week after I bought it.
If I had not bought it, the boat would have been found in the morning with only the wheelhouse roof and part of the bow above the water, tied to the mooring ball. No one would have been there to hear the pump, or pull the valve shut.
As I held this piece of pipe, I reflected back on the day that was the start of our four and a half year journey. All of the sweat, aching muscles, and emptied wallet had brought the boat and I full circle. I was now about to steer the Compass Rose out onto the water again.
April 5, 2013 - The Makeover Unveiled

I'm not a big fan of makeovers. They always seem to be akin to putting lipstick on a pig. Usually some favorable lighting sets the tone for an exercise more geared to superficial changes, that leave real problems hidden just under the surface. But the makeover for these Detroit Diesels is a makeover in the very best sense of the term.
1. Engine wiring - all new
2. Engine cooling tubes - stripped, weld repaired and repainted
3. Transmission Oil cooler - replaced
4. Engine exhaust manifold end housings - 3 replaced (damn that was hard)
5. Cooling and exhaust gaskets - replaced
6. Raw water cooling pumps - rebuilt
7. Transmission oil lines - 3 replaced
8. Thermostats - all four replaced
9. Engine exterior - stripped, sanded and repainted
10. Engine hoses and clamps - all replaced
11. Exhaust elbows - welded/high temp epoxy repaired
12. Engine oil pressure, transmission oil pressure - converted from mechanical to electrical monitors
!3. Engine temp senders - replaced
14. Engine shut-off solenoids - realigned
15. Sacrificial Anodes (5 per engine) - replaced
I will admit, as you can see from the pictures though, the lighting is different. But lighting or no lighting, the boat's engines are as sound as I can make them for now. And the beauty of all this work is evident when I press the start button at the helm console. No fussing, no cranking, just a light press on the button and both engines jump to life without hesitation. I sometimes forget to acknowledge the extent of an achievement once I reach it. But I mastered electrical circuitry, diesel theory, fuel systems and cooling systems to lift these engines out of a four year slumber without ever having hardly touched a diesel before. And that is only a fraction of what I have had to master to bring this boat from nearly sinking, to being almost ready for the open ocean. How on earth could I have thought that I could do this much? I never told myself I couldn't is about the best answer I can come up with.
1. Engine wiring - all new
2. Engine cooling tubes - stripped, weld repaired and repainted
3. Transmission Oil cooler - replaced
4. Engine exhaust manifold end housings - 3 replaced (damn that was hard)
5. Cooling and exhaust gaskets - replaced
6. Raw water cooling pumps - rebuilt
7. Transmission oil lines - 3 replaced
8. Thermostats - all four replaced
9. Engine exterior - stripped, sanded and repainted
10. Engine hoses and clamps - all replaced
11. Exhaust elbows - welded/high temp epoxy repaired
12. Engine oil pressure, transmission oil pressure - converted from mechanical to electrical monitors
!3. Engine temp senders - replaced
14. Engine shut-off solenoids - realigned
15. Sacrificial Anodes (5 per engine) - replaced
I will admit, as you can see from the pictures though, the lighting is different. But lighting or no lighting, the boat's engines are as sound as I can make them for now. And the beauty of all this work is evident when I press the start button at the helm console. No fussing, no cranking, just a light press on the button and both engines jump to life without hesitation. I sometimes forget to acknowledge the extent of an achievement once I reach it. But I mastered electrical circuitry, diesel theory, fuel systems and cooling systems to lift these engines out of a four year slumber without ever having hardly touched a diesel before. And that is only a fraction of what I have had to master to bring this boat from nearly sinking, to being almost ready for the open ocean. How on earth could I have thought that I could do this much? I never told myself I couldn't is about the best answer I can come up with.
April 1, 2013 - Diesel Sippy Cups

Seriously, this picture is no April Fools joke (I only wish it were). Since the fuel tanks are not ready yet, I have no choice but to resort to the engineer's box of tricks (also known euphemistically as The Jury Rigger's Manual) to figure out how I could get fuel to the engines using the existing plumbing. My first incarnation of this apparatus was less than successful. The first challenge was in getting the air out of the lines. I used siphon pressure to draw fuel out of the canisters and down to the boat's resident plumbing. This was an effective, albeit messy method that involved feeding the tubing length into the canister. Once submerged in the fuel, I simply plugged one end and drew the tubing back out to connect to fuel lines below. I naively thought the tubing would sit nicely at the bottom of the canister and suck fuel. Not so much. It curled in every imaginable direction and managed to sit anywhere but the bottom of the canister. It was like there was a magnet repulsing it from the bottom. It should be noted that the tubing I selected is rather resilient and does not faint at being roughed up, shall we say, by a frustrated mechanic with a temper. Having failed to beat the tubing into submission, I decided that brains might be the order of the day and toweled the diesel off of me for the next round. A poor kid dropped his sippy cup as he walked down the dock, and thus my next tactic was born. Copper tubing would serve as a straw, allowing the engines to be reliably supplied with the full capacity of the canister. From the picture, you might also notice that the return line seems to be coming from the opposite side of the boat. Knowing my German zeal for simplicity and intuitive solutions, one might wonder why in the heck I would have the fuel return coming from the opposite side of the boat. Well, this involved a few hard lessons for me. Naturally, one would assume that the port engine would feed from the port tank, and return the overflow to that very same tank. Not on this boat, nothing would ever be that straight forward here. Somehow, over the years, someone switched the feed lines at the filters and had the engines feeding from the opposite tanks. There is no good reason for this, and I queried more than a few "old salt" mechanics. But I really did not have time or money to purchase new lines and fittings to fix this, so I just went with it. It was, however, the return lines that really got me good. They actually went to where they were supposed to. Thus, I wound up spilling roughly 5 gallons of diesel needlessly into the bilge. 50 absorbent pads later, I finally got back to to the task of proving my fuel tank bypass. In the end, it all worked flawlessly. The engines ran as if they had not slept more than a couple of months.
March 31, 2013 - Yuck!

There really is no other way to say it. Yuck! With the engines almost ready to be started, I decided to change out the fuel filters so I did not have any fuel flow problems. Nothing will shut a diesel engine down faster than clogged fuel filters (except perhaps running out of fuel). Since the fuel tanks were removed because they had rusted through, I expected to fine a bit of something in the filters when I pulled them, but nothing like what I found. Everyone I have shown this picture to thought these were oil filters. If I had not known better, I would have thought so myself. Just for visual reference, the clean filter is beside it.
March 23, 2013 - Better Think Twice

The reassembly of the engines was going pretty damn smoothly, and I was down to reattaching the fuel lines to the engines. Along the way through different owners, some absurd bastardizations had been incorporated into the plumbing connections. Nothing gets my German desire for order and simplicity buzzing more than extraneous complexities, so I began uprooting useless fixtures from the fuel lines. I was about to toss this connection when the obstruction with the hole in the middle caught my eye. I retrieved a dental pick from my tool box to try to clear the obstruction, but when I looked at it, something about it looked just a bit too precise. Like someone had meant for it to be there. The line in question was a fuel return line. In diesel engines, the fuel is pumped under very high pressure to the injectors so it can overcome the pressure in the cylinder (21 to 1 in Detroit Diesels). When the fuel hits the super heated air, it explodes on contact, thus no spark plugs. The injectors are all connected to a manifold, and the excess fuel not used by the injectors is returned to the fuel tanks. But in order to keep the pressure in the manifold high, that requires some sort of restrictor valve or fitting. Thus my odd-ball fitting that I almost threw out. The hole in the center is drilled precisely at the right diameter to ensure the manifold pressure is kept high enough while allowing the excess to return to the fuel tanks. I definitely learned something new on this day.
March 15, 2013 - Keeping Your Cool

Gaskets in hand, I now could turn to putting the engines back together again. So I started with the cooling system and the giant tanks that mount on the front of the engines. The tanks themselves weigh at least 30 pounds before any of the other fixtures go on, so I was happy to have the help of a fellow mechanic at the marina, Calvin, who had worked on Detroit Diesels for most of his Navy career. Between the two of us, we made short work of piecing the system back together. All the time I spent prepping the parts made a difference, and the installation went pretty smoothly. Best of all, the engines were starting to look like engines again. After having torn them down so far, you start to wonder if you are going to be able to get them back together and have them work again. So it is always a relief when you start the reassembly and see them taking shape.
February 28, 2013 - Coming Apart Before Coming Together

Once I started the engines for the first time in four years, I realized that if I was going to be able to run them reliably, I would need to take them apart and fix a few things if I wanted this boat to really come back together. The exhaust manifold gaskets were leaking, and most of the cooling system was clearly in need of overhaul. The effort taking the engines apart soon proved to be worth it. As a result, I found that three end housings were bad, one oil cooler was leaking, and several pipe segments had cracks in them. These were all relatively minor problems, but if left untreated, they would have caused major damage to the engines and perhaps even the boat itself.
February 25, 2013 - A Horse of a Different Color

The diesels onboard the Compass Rose are the boat's work horses, and mine were in need of a new coat of paint. With marine engines, the paint is less about looks than it is about preventing corrosion. Salt water will quickly corrode bolts and nuts into a solid mass of mineral that is impossible to maintain. The paint for these engines should also be a light color like white or beige so that it will show leakage easily. Having stripped all the cooling system and exhaust manifolds off of the engines, it was time to prime them. Here, the primer is grey primer loaded with a high concentration of Zinc to help control future corrosion. Okay, I will admit it, I also wanted them to look pretty.
January 21, 2013 - Shhhhh!

Nobody likes a noisy guest, but the "purring" of Detroit Diesels can drown out even the noisiest guest. Since I want my passengers to be able to hear each other while the boat is underway, it was time for the Compass Rose to shed its old sound insulation (which was just plain old fiberglass insulation) for something a bit more modern. Enter this shiny new insulation. Faced with mylar and two layers of acoustic foam sandwiching a thick sheet of butyl rubber, this sheeting is both a good sound insulator while improving the lighting and it is also very easy to clean. What it is not is easy to install. Lulu and I sweated our butts off putting this stuff in. It is a lot heavier than it looks, and placing it in a cramped engine room is even less fun than it sounds. But, it will be worth it - I think, I hope. Thank you Mom for your support. Without you I could not have gotten it in the first place. And thank you Lulu for putting up with my whining while I was putting it in.
December 19, 2012 - Rough Patch

Today marks a major mile stone for me and the Compass Rose. The very first project I embarked on once I bought the Rose, was to fix the leaking roof. It sounds like an easy enough task. Hah!
Not even close. It took three months of intermittent scrapping and coating with Jasco Paint Stripper (I call it Satan's bile) just to get the old coating off before I could even think of how to go about fixing it. Of course at that point, I realized that I did not really know what the best way to fix it would be, but hey, I went into this wanting to learn a few things, and this was obviously going to be one of them.
In time, I realized that for my purposes, the roof was not quite strong enough, and this gave rise to the belief that I needed to consider laminating on another layer of marine grade plywood. This is not your garden variety Home Depot plywood. Special resins are used to enable it to endure the marine environment of high humidity, salt, and constant heating and cooling. It is warranted for 40 years against delamination. But even that warranty does not ensure a leak proof roof. The seams and screw holes need to be sealed in a way that will allow them to move with the wood as it expands and contracts. The closer your patch material matches the wood, the longer the seams will hold. The splotches of tan color on the ply wood pictured above is as perfect mixture of epoxy and filler as I can achieve to match the plywood. There will be a chorus of professionals who will say I screwed up and should have used such and such, and their method is probably a very good alternative, maybe even a better one. But time will tell, and I am happy with it. And I am the customer, so in the end, I am always right. Right? lol
Not even close. It took three months of intermittent scrapping and coating with Jasco Paint Stripper (I call it Satan's bile) just to get the old coating off before I could even think of how to go about fixing it. Of course at that point, I realized that I did not really know what the best way to fix it would be, but hey, I went into this wanting to learn a few things, and this was obviously going to be one of them.
In time, I realized that for my purposes, the roof was not quite strong enough, and this gave rise to the belief that I needed to consider laminating on another layer of marine grade plywood. This is not your garden variety Home Depot plywood. Special resins are used to enable it to endure the marine environment of high humidity, salt, and constant heating and cooling. It is warranted for 40 years against delamination. But even that warranty does not ensure a leak proof roof. The seams and screw holes need to be sealed in a way that will allow them to move with the wood as it expands and contracts. The closer your patch material matches the wood, the longer the seams will hold. The splotches of tan color on the ply wood pictured above is as perfect mixture of epoxy and filler as I can achieve to match the plywood. There will be a chorus of professionals who will say I screwed up and should have used such and such, and their method is probably a very good alternative, maybe even a better one. But time will tell, and I am happy with it. And I am the customer, so in the end, I am always right. Right? lol
December 14, 2012 - In a Pinch

Age tends to rob us of the fine edges and smooth lines we found in adolescence. Wrinkles. sags and scars are as unavoidable as taxes (unless you are Mitt Romney). So too was the inheritance of the Compass Rose from forty eight years of age. I removed the rub rails (pictured in my car jousting post below) prior to going into the boat yard, but ran out of time to restore them. So, it was time to apply my magic touches and get them back in shape. Chris Craft, more than most other yacht manufacturers, took their styling cues from automotive design during the sixties. Helm consoles, cabin shells and exterior trim (rub rails) all began to morph their shapes in time with the The Jetsons' sky car. The sixties were a fascinating time period in engineering design when artistic form and function were balanced almost equally. Far removed from the utilitarian days of Honda to come. The rub rails I was now working on restoring were shaped to match the fins that sprouted on Cadillac and other sixties cars. Unfortunately (and not due to my car jousting endeavors) the tip had snapped off of one of the fins, and rather than cut the other one shorter to match, I decided to restore the tip by laminating a new piece of wood on and shaping it from there. I obsessively keep (hoard) leftover pieces of wood because I hate cutting a nice large piece just to get some small odd bit. While this justification satisfies me immensely, it does nothing for the dock master who casts disapproving eyes at my pile of odd bits on my dock finger. A placement of a pinch clamp (pictured) and a good 24 hours for the epoxy to cure, presto! The end product was a near perfect match to the original.
December 11, 2012 - Before and After

Don't you just hate before and after photo's? You know there is a gimmick - the lighting, the angle, a little PhotoShopping to remove the blemish or wrinkle, shrink that double chin. And yet, nothing can tell the story of progress better than a little side by side comparison. With wooden boats, that can be a bit tricky. I went back and looked at some of the first shots of my boat that I have, and you know something, she looks pretty good (and she ought to, I did find reasons to buy her after all). So, I will admit right from the outset, that my before and after shot is rigged. Yep, blatantly rigged. Not to deceive mind you, but to give a bit more accurate of a picture. Because you see, to really understand what kind of transformation has happened to the Compass Rose, you have to see what was beneath the surface. The parts you don't see unless you look under the paint. The defunct electrical system, the leaking fuel tanks, the rotted wood and corroded pipes. No amount of ghastly lighting could show all of that. But it was there, and now, for the most part, it's not. Sure, there is still water in the bilge, and projects aplenty to be done. But the Compass Rose is starting to look a bit more rose like each day, even if its owner certainly is not smelling the part.
December 7, 2012 - The Unveiling

At 1:30 am, on December 7, I finally laid down my paint roller and sat on a couple of planks up by the bow for a few moments to admire what would be unveiled in just over four hours. But I was too tired to really appreciate anything other than the pillow in my bed. In a few short hours, the workers would come to remove the scaffolding that had dented my head so many times over these last three weeks.
I awoke at 6:00 am to the sounds of workers shouting from down below. I threw on my jacket and clambered down the scaffolding one last time, I had to be there as they took the curtain down and let the world see what had been hidden from view these last few days. As their razor blades liberated the tarp, I stood next to Lulu and watched the Compass Rose emerge from beneath. We stood there like two proud parents at graduation. What we saw exceeded our expectations - The Compass Rose, after 4 years of careful, methodical and trudging restoration, now stood proud with her new colors. For the first time since I had owned her, people looked at her and saw the same beauty I did when I first laid eyes on her.
I awoke at 6:00 am to the sounds of workers shouting from down below. I threw on my jacket and clambered down the scaffolding one last time, I had to be there as they took the curtain down and let the world see what had been hidden from view these last few days. As their razor blades liberated the tarp, I stood next to Lulu and watched the Compass Rose emerge from beneath. We stood there like two proud parents at graduation. What we saw exceeded our expectations - The Compass Rose, after 4 years of careful, methodical and trudging restoration, now stood proud with her new colors. For the first time since I had owned her, people looked at her and saw the same beauty I did when I first laid eyes on her.
December 2, 2012 - Fort Rose

Welcome to Fort Rose. This is what Lulu has dubbed the two story battlements that surround the Compass Rose. Now that we have swathed the scaffolding in tarps, the work area has a completely different feel to it. For the outside world, there is an air of mystery about what lay behind the curtains. For us, it feels like a respite from the prying, judging eyes of the yard. A chance for us to create, absent all the "advice". We have finally kicked all the other chefs out of our kitchen, and now we are cooking our way. By noon, all the tape lines that will define and accentuate the boat's features had been laid down carefully. The detail stripes of the paint job serve, more than anything else, as a testament of the skill of the painters. One of the hardest things to paint, as it turns out, is a straight line. And harder than that, is a line that while not mathematically straight, appears visually straight and even with the other side. Whether we pass or fail this test, will be seen in an instant by looking at the boot-stripe painted down by the waterline as it merges at the bow. For me, this moment is also a great relief. I now know that all that lay between the Compass Rose and the water are three coats of paint, and some trim stripes.She has been out of the water too long, and were it not for the high humidity and moderate temperatures, the planks would have already given up far too much of the sea water they still hold. In a sense, wooden boats are living things. They breathe, and move like a living organism. But if they become too dry, the wood will begin to crack and split, and tug ever harder at its fastenings
November 30, 2012 - Making the Cut.

While the paint job was finally progressing, the keel work was also slowly inching along. Roy Kerr, the ship wright I hired to help me with the repairs, had carefully cleared away the worm eaten wood on the keel and carved a nice bed for the splice of oak that would be patched in to restore the boat's backbone. The splices we were making were relatively shallow, none exceeded the bolt heads for the keel, so I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief. Deeper damage would have meant more serious repair, and I was already at the limits of my budget. Now it was up to me to find the oak we needed to make the repair. White oak is not always easy to find, and certainly 3" thick sections are even harder. But as fate would have it, San Diego's Maritime Museum was embarked on building a Spanish Galleon from scratch just down the road. Their build site was replete with all manner of hardwood. Purple Heart, Sapelle, Teak, and Live Oak to name a few. Due to the scale of their construction, their scraps were sufficient to build an entire new keel for my little yacht. So, I went down to visit the build site with Roy and see what kind of scraps we could find. And, in truth, we both are boat junkies and wanted to see up close what they were doing. Roy is natural born Jamaican, and you can't miss his thick accent and infectious laugh. He has been working on wooden boats for 40 years now, and few know their craft as well as he does. But unlike many crafters, Roy also enjoys passing what he knows along. The wooden boat community is a small and tight community, and Roy is well known in that circle. So after making the halting trek through a yard full of Roy's fellow crafters, we finally arrived at the scrap piles. After scouring through slices of live oak logs, we found the exact piece we needed. The slice looked like a giant had shaved it off in a meat slicer. We both eyed the slice and debated for a few moments before hoisting it on our shoulders. Chris Craft Keels were make of regular White Oak, and there is a definite difference between the two. Live Oak is the wood used to build the USS Constitution (Old Iron Sides, as she is called). The British coined the name because the Live Oak of her hull was so dense that the cannon balls of the day would bounce off of the hull. If there is anything that has saved the species from extinction, it is that it's so dense and consequently very difficult to work with. Typically, you would try to match as closely as possible the wood used for a splice, but since the repairs were shallow, the Live Oak would be fine. The manager of the build site could have easily directed me down to the local hardwood store to try to obtain our quarry, but that is what makes the wooden boat community what it is, we help each other whenever we can. So, after a $20 donation to the San Salvador, we loaded our log slice into my friend Jesse's car and headed back to the yard. By this time, each day of the yard trip had become vitally crucial, and it was during these days, I worked my longest hours. After a full day of sanding, drilling, cutting, and a night of patching, at 12:30 am, I dragged out the oak pieces we had cut, and used the last energy I could find to finish the repair.
November 28, 2012 - At Last!

Eta James could not have said it better, At Last! Weeks of prep-work and night-work and over-work finally gave way to a green light to lay on the primer coat. Lulu, who has been my most steady volunteer since I got to the yard, could not have been happier. Once again, I had a full host of good friends who came down and helped make what seemed almost impossible into something that seemed almost possible, and then . . . something quite incredible. I think I have bumped my head from every possible angle on what I have termed my $1,000 jungle gym, but there was no way this project could have happened without the scaffolding. In spite of the bumps and bruises on my noggen, I will always be grateful to Eric Fager for providing it ( and he will probably be happy knowing it knocked my head as many times as it did).
We started rolling the primer on at about 2 pm, so I was worried that we wouldn't get done before the sun dipped down and the dew began to collect. But as we hit the half-way point, my fear dissipated. By 4 pm, we were rolling the final stretches. Then, as with every major marker, we took that great step back, and I just sat there for a few hours that night looking at every inch of the boat I could light up with portable lights. Every bit as satisfying to me as the lyrics floating from Mrs. James lips (no offense Eta, and thank you for the wonderful music).
We started rolling the primer on at about 2 pm, so I was worried that we wouldn't get done before the sun dipped down and the dew began to collect. But as we hit the half-way point, my fear dissipated. By 4 pm, we were rolling the final stretches. Then, as with every major marker, we took that great step back, and I just sat there for a few hours that night looking at every inch of the boat I could light up with portable lights. Every bit as satisfying to me as the lyrics floating from Mrs. James lips (no offense Eta, and thank you for the wonderful music).
November 24, 2012 - Theeere's A Liiiiight, Over at the Timenstein Place

Long after Riff Raff and Magenta went to bed, I continued to push ahead. This was one of many late nights I would work, fighting sleep, soreness and dew. My friend Mark somehow never seems deterred, no matter how disheveled and odd a local my boat finds itself in. Even when he has to climb up scaffolding to get on and off the boat, he remains undaunted. He is addicted to his run-ins with my cat, Friday, and she seems equally addicted to their encounters. Meanwhile, I smear epoxy onto the boat late into the night in vain hope that I might find both of them peacefully asleep by the time I finally relent and drag my sore body up the scaffolding myself. Night time affords me the chance to side light the hull and reveal blemishes and defects that cannot be seen during the daylight. But each coating I smear onto the Compass Rose, only brings more defects into the light. By morning, I also found that the heavy dew that had been plaguing me for several nights was turning my epoxy patches into useless goo. After gooing up countless sheets of sandpaper to remove the fouled epoxy, I found I was able to salvage most of it. The days are adding up, and each one adds incrementally to the yard bill. I am in a race now, trying desperately to reach the finish line before my financial resources dwindle to nothing. Each decision I make now bears more weight. If I cut the wrong corner now, all my work could turn out to be an expensive disappointment. But it is hard to argue with a shrinking account balance.
November 22, 2012 - I Challenge You, Good Sir!

Today, I have invented a new sport - Car Jousting. As honorable as any sport, car jousting involves attaching a pointed part of your boat to your car, and then cruising about town, looking for a suitable opponent's touche. Cute bikers butts will also do in a pinch. In my infinite wisdom, I decided that I could not wait to borrow a friend's truck and took on the task of transporting this piece of trim from my marina in Coronado, to the boat yard in Point Loma (about 11 miles or so). I can only imagine the shocked drivers as I went by them on the I-5 looking for my quarry. My friends at the boat yard were all thoroughly amused at my "creativity".
November 21, 2012 - Seams Pretty Easy, Right?

One of the beautiful elements of wooden boats are the plank seams that follow and set the graceful lines of the boat. They were so desirable that many fiberglass boats carried these vestigial lines with them for a long time after wood had virtually disappeared from boat building altogether. The seams themselves are beveled onto the planks for practical as well as esthetic reasons. Without the beveled edges, the paint tends to easily crack and split as the individual planks expand and contract with heat and humidity. Enamel paints are flexible and put up with a certain amount of movement, but they have their limits. So beveled edges were used to spread the load on the paint and allow it to move with the wood better. The Compass Rose's planks were mostly preserved and in good condition, but a few spots had been eaten by rot. One of these was at the bow, and occurred right at the seam of two planks. Rot is much like tooth decay. To fix it, you must grind out the bad material, and replace it with a suitable filler. However, in filling the lost material, you lose the seam of the two planks. In most areas, the seam line can easily be recovered by placing a piece of tape across the gap and carving the seam back in. But when the seam runs along the bow and describes a complex arc, then the artist's eye must take over. Here, the plank seam cannot be placed mathematically, because the plank changes width as it closes in on the apex of the bow. The bow has a bit of a flare at the front that forms a beautiful crown shape. I had put off repairing this area for a long time, because I knew that I would either nail it the first time, or chase the right line for days. When I finally carved this one in, my smile was almost as wide as the seam was long.
November 19, 2012 - Who Better to Help File?

The story of my trip to the boat yard, is an amazing story of a host of volunteers who together probably formed the most diverse crew to ever grace the Koehler Kraft Boat Yard. Between the drag queens, gay guys, people in recovery and various ethnicities, I think we managed to present the redneck's nightmare (and I think we even had a redneck also (yes, Lulu, that would be you. lol). I don't even want to imagine the looks and muffled comments we got from the rest of the yard, but we came in and showed everyone just what kind of strength there truly is in diversity, and for that I am very proud. Today, was one of many days that one of my dearest friends, Tootie, came down to help out. I naturally picked something that I assumed Tootie would have a natural affinity for - filing. I figured if he could do such a bang up job on his nails, my boat would be stunningly easy. I had decided to open up the seems where the planks were spliced and use epoxy to help prevent the paint from cracking at the seams after a couple years. Butt splices as they are known are notorious for splitting the paint and starting the process that leads to the breakdown of the paint job. In theory, rounding the seam out should allow the stress to be spread out over a larger area and prolong the paint job's life span. Such lofty goals do nothing to transform the process into anything beyond tedious. Drag queens are not known for being shy or for hiding their displeasure for certain tasks. Needless to say, we moved on to something else as soon as we could. Thank you, Tootie, for an outstanding job!
November 17, 2012 - Making Smooth from Rough

Forty seven years have left the Compass Rose with many blemishes up and down the length of her hull, and even a few scars from mold. The next week will be a methodical process of sanding, patching, re-sanding, re-patching, and so on. The process will start during the daylight hours, but as the hull gets smoother, the night time hours will be used to highlight defects that cannot be seen during the intense light of day.
My cat/overseer Friday has noticed the movement of the boat onto dry land, and she does not at all care for it. She has lived almost her whole life moving in time to the rhythms of the ocean. Dry land is alien to her and she growls at every sound and vibration. She has become very nocturnal now and spends most of her night jumping on and off my bed and prowling the topside decks. The pitter patter of her paws sounds like a gremlin.
The boat is not the only thing that is rough around the boat yard - the yard owner, who only goes by the initials CF, is every bit as rough as the Rose. After waiting half a day for the boat to be jacked up so the keel could be exposed, I finally decided to venture into the office and inquire when they would be lifting the boat. My answer was shouted down from the olympian heights of CF's office -"your boat is not structurally sound enough to jack up on it's chines until the keel is repaired. You will have to fix that first." The decree was not followed by anything else, and since he shouted it down from the mount, I figured he was not particularly interested in the work himself. His comments, of course, stood in contrast to what I had observed when the boat was pulled from the water, and what his own yard hands had told me, "Your boat's really strong. Handled the haul out really well." That coupled with the fact that jacking any boat with my hull design up by its chines is not really a very good way to lift it.
For the layperson, the chine is the outside corner line the runs the length of the boat at the bottom of the hull. The boat's frame is laid out like a person's skeleton in many respects. The keel is the back bone, and the frames that attach to it are like your ribs. The chine would be where your ribs begin to curve up and around toward your chest. Imagine someone lifting you by the outside edge of your ribs. This is essentially what was being proposed for my boat. Ya-no. Not this boat, thank you. Enter Roy Kerr, ship wright. Roy is an amazing craftsman, who you come to realize quickly is a person who lives his craft, and loves it deeply. He was born in Jamaica and has a thick accent, and makes the most amazing Jerk Chicken sauce you have ever had (please send me another jar Roy). Roy is also one of the few craftsman who is willing to let you work along side him an learn, which for me is a major plus. Roy came down and within a few minutes of him being there, I knew all would be well.
My cat/overseer Friday has noticed the movement of the boat onto dry land, and she does not at all care for it. She has lived almost her whole life moving in time to the rhythms of the ocean. Dry land is alien to her and she growls at every sound and vibration. She has become very nocturnal now and spends most of her night jumping on and off my bed and prowling the topside decks. The pitter patter of her paws sounds like a gremlin.
The boat is not the only thing that is rough around the boat yard - the yard owner, who only goes by the initials CF, is every bit as rough as the Rose. After waiting half a day for the boat to be jacked up so the keel could be exposed, I finally decided to venture into the office and inquire when they would be lifting the boat. My answer was shouted down from the olympian heights of CF's office -"your boat is not structurally sound enough to jack up on it's chines until the keel is repaired. You will have to fix that first." The decree was not followed by anything else, and since he shouted it down from the mount, I figured he was not particularly interested in the work himself. His comments, of course, stood in contrast to what I had observed when the boat was pulled from the water, and what his own yard hands had told me, "Your boat's really strong. Handled the haul out really well." That coupled with the fact that jacking any boat with my hull design up by its chines is not really a very good way to lift it.
For the layperson, the chine is the outside corner line the runs the length of the boat at the bottom of the hull. The boat's frame is laid out like a person's skeleton in many respects. The keel is the back bone, and the frames that attach to it are like your ribs. The chine would be where your ribs begin to curve up and around toward your chest. Imagine someone lifting you by the outside edge of your ribs. This is essentially what was being proposed for my boat. Ya-no. Not this boat, thank you. Enter Roy Kerr, ship wright. Roy is an amazing craftsman, who you come to realize quickly is a person who lives his craft, and loves it deeply. He was born in Jamaica and has a thick accent, and makes the most amazing Jerk Chicken sauce you have ever had (please send me another jar Roy). Roy is also one of the few craftsman who is willing to let you work along side him an learn, which for me is a major plus. Roy came down and within a few minutes of him being there, I knew all would be well.
November 15, 2012 - The Fish Is Out of the Water

Much like fish, wooden boats do not like to be out of the water. Boats of this type are water tight due to the swelling of the wood at the joints until a near prefect seal is achieved through the expansion of the planks against one another and against the seam battens. The longer the wood is out of the water, the more it releases this water and contracts. So in a sense, there is a time clock ticking during each haul-out. The shorter the haul out, the better (for the boat and my pocket book). Wooden hulls are also designed to distribute loads along the length of the frame in much the way a monocoque hull of a plane is designed. But this means that it does not like focused loads on pinpoint areas that it experiences when coming out of the water. Since the boat is being pulled out for both painting and keel repair, this will be the longest period the Compass Rose has been out of the water, and therefor the most stressful for her. Fortunately, winter is a time of higher humidity and lower temperatures, so this will draw the water from the planks much more slowly and allow a greater window. This will also be the most taxing time for me as well. I have placed myself in the position of doing most of the work, both to save money, and because this a big part of the journey I signed on for when I bought the Compass Rose, and it would not feel right to be distant from the most important work of the restoration. No one would do the kind of careful work that I will be doing, because the Rose is not their boat. Few hands could carve back the plank seams that have been lost in patching and repairing, because few people know the lines of my boat the way I do. By now, I can feel where the lines go even when they are not there.
November 13, 2012 - Big Things are About to be In Motion

The biggest of these things is the boat itself. It is going to be towed up to Kohler Craft Boat Yard in Shelter Island, San Diego for a complete repainting. This has been such a long time in coming that it is hard to believe it is finally at hand. And it will be one of the most exciting parts since the boat will dramatically change in appearance almost over night. I should at this point acknowledge the support of my mother, who saw how hard I have been working, and was impressed with how much thought I put into developing the business plan for my new venture and decided to invest in it. I also need to acknowledge the support of Christopher Garacci and his partner Tim, who have decided to invest in this venture after seeing firsthand the hard work and vision I am pouring into the boat. Chris and I go way back, and in some ways, it is because of seeing his accomplishments in remodeling that I was encouraged to try my own hand at it. One of the biggest divides between thinking and doing is simple confidence and believing you can do a thing. That is what Chris showed me.
After months of other prep work I was finally able to get down to cutting up some plywood and dry fitting it to the salon roof/sundeck. The roof always had a bit more flex to it even with just me up there, and with two passengers, I imagined that would even be more so. So I decided to laminate some additional plywood on there before doing the final refinishing of the roof. Just with the new sheets dry fitted, I can feel a real difference. The roof is much stronger and will last a very long time (the wood is warranted for 40 years).
After months of other prep work I was finally able to get down to cutting up some plywood and dry fitting it to the salon roof/sundeck. The roof always had a bit more flex to it even with just me up there, and with two passengers, I imagined that would even be more so. So I decided to laminate some additional plywood on there before doing the final refinishing of the roof. Just with the new sheets dry fitted, I can feel a real difference. The roof is much stronger and will last a very long time (the wood is warranted for 40 years).
August 19, 2012 - Shifting the Balance

Boats and life share many characteristics, and not least among
them is the need for balance. If you have ever set foot on a dingy or small
water craft, you will know of what I speak. A boat out of balance will vomit its guests into the water with amazing efficiency. Our dock master at Fiddler's Cove Marina, Curt Snyder, was recently acquainted with this concept when he impersonated a human boey after falling off of an unbalanced dingy. Life can behave in much the same manner. If you load up one side of your life with too many ambitions, and neglect to distribute your efforts, life will vomit your ambitions overboard leaving you to chase after them as they try to float away. As the start of school approaches tomorrow, I was reminded of this parable as I contemplated my day's work load. For weeks, I had been putting off taking my car in to get the 'check engine' light looked at in hopes that it was some vague sensor that had
relatively little roll to play in the functioning of my car (in fairness, the delay
was probably more out of anxiety over the bill). On Thursday, my avoidance
tactic utterly failed as the car went into a sputtering, lurching fit on the
freeway - accompanied by a dazzling array of lights on the dash board. The
result of my out balanced ambition to concentrate all my efforts and resources on the boat while neglecting the car, was vomited up on the garage floor of a local mechanic who will probably be very happy at how my life (and money) must now be rebalanced. This reminder from life was probably well timed as I start school, and must practice good balance and discipline if I am going to achieve success with both the boat and my grades. I remain hopeful that I will have the resources on hand to make managing both ambitions a much more realistic possibility. Otherwise I may be staring at another unattractive mound of vomit in the middle of my life.
So, after reflecting on all this, I went back inside the boat, and started digging out my school supplies and dusting them off from their long summer's nap. After printing out my class schedule I went back outside and sanded the fiberglass on the back deck until I was satisfied with it. Then, after a quick rinse off shower, I brewed a cup of tea (English Breakfast) and watched the crescent moon slowly fall into the ocean. Balance restored - today.
them is the need for balance. If you have ever set foot on a dingy or small
water craft, you will know of what I speak. A boat out of balance will vomit its guests into the water with amazing efficiency. Our dock master at Fiddler's Cove Marina, Curt Snyder, was recently acquainted with this concept when he impersonated a human boey after falling off of an unbalanced dingy. Life can behave in much the same manner. If you load up one side of your life with too many ambitions, and neglect to distribute your efforts, life will vomit your ambitions overboard leaving you to chase after them as they try to float away. As the start of school approaches tomorrow, I was reminded of this parable as I contemplated my day's work load. For weeks, I had been putting off taking my car in to get the 'check engine' light looked at in hopes that it was some vague sensor that had
relatively little roll to play in the functioning of my car (in fairness, the delay
was probably more out of anxiety over the bill). On Thursday, my avoidance
tactic utterly failed as the car went into a sputtering, lurching fit on the
freeway - accompanied by a dazzling array of lights on the dash board. The
result of my out balanced ambition to concentrate all my efforts and resources on the boat while neglecting the car, was vomited up on the garage floor of a local mechanic who will probably be very happy at how my life (and money) must now be rebalanced. This reminder from life was probably well timed as I start school, and must practice good balance and discipline if I am going to achieve success with both the boat and my grades. I remain hopeful that I will have the resources on hand to make managing both ambitions a much more realistic possibility. Otherwise I may be staring at another unattractive mound of vomit in the middle of my life.
So, after reflecting on all this, I went back inside the boat, and started digging out my school supplies and dusting them off from their long summer's nap. After printing out my class schedule I went back outside and sanded the fiberglass on the back deck until I was satisfied with it. Then, after a quick rinse off shower, I brewed a cup of tea (English Breakfast) and watched the crescent moon slowly fall into the ocean. Balance restored - today.
August 18, 2012 - Back At It

After taking some time out to show off my accomplishments to my friends, Chris and Tim, I launched back into work today. The cool ocean breeze held most of the day, and the thunderstorms over the desert mountains were dwarves compared to yesterday's. The fiberglass work on the aft deck is pretty much done. But this work is the foundation layer, and has to be covered with a smooth (fairing) coat of epoxy. Then, after some light sanding, it gets primed and painted, and then the deck hardware can start going back on. The result will be a knock out visually, and should last a long time if I care for it properly.
When fiberglass and stainless steel were introduced to boats, people assumed that the age of carefully maintaining boats was over, and they could leave their TupperWare (slang for fiberglass boats) to soak up sun and salt for an eternity before they collapsed into dust piles. Not really. Ask anyone whose gel coat is as foggy as San Francisco Bay and they will tell you that the sun is brutal to all resins. The chemical stew that boats are immersed in both above and below the water also slowly chews at both resin and stainless steel. I had a choice of materials for replacing my failing fuel tanks, and you would have thought that stainless steel would have been the perfect way to go. But stainless can be very finicky, and if it is denied oxygen, it shows its Achilles heel quickly (I went with aircraft grade aluminum, which is relatively bullet proof).
But these are academic discussions that do not even come close to conveying what really drives my love for what I am doing. True, it is hard to suit up in hot weather and trudge through laying down prickly sheets for fiberglass. But to me, a boat (and a restoration) has always been about more than the sum of its parts.
The sunrises and sunsets form bookends to my work days, and the distance between them is steadily shrinking as fall and winter approach. With a little bit of luck, and the help of some good friends, the Compass Rose will be ready.
When fiberglass and stainless steel were introduced to boats, people assumed that the age of carefully maintaining boats was over, and they could leave their TupperWare (slang for fiberglass boats) to soak up sun and salt for an eternity before they collapsed into dust piles. Not really. Ask anyone whose gel coat is as foggy as San Francisco Bay and they will tell you that the sun is brutal to all resins. The chemical stew that boats are immersed in both above and below the water also slowly chews at both resin and stainless steel. I had a choice of materials for replacing my failing fuel tanks, and you would have thought that stainless steel would have been the perfect way to go. But stainless can be very finicky, and if it is denied oxygen, it shows its Achilles heel quickly (I went with aircraft grade aluminum, which is relatively bullet proof).
But these are academic discussions that do not even come close to conveying what really drives my love for what I am doing. True, it is hard to suit up in hot weather and trudge through laying down prickly sheets for fiberglass. But to me, a boat (and a restoration) has always been about more than the sum of its parts.
The sunrises and sunsets form bookends to my work days, and the distance between them is steadily shrinking as fall and winter approach. With a little bit of luck, and the help of some good friends, the Compass Rose will be ready.
August 16, 2012 - What Does Cleaning Have to do With Restoration?
My mother will probably nod in agreement when she reads this, but I have to acknowledge that one of my weakest characteristics is my cleanliness. Twenty years in the Marine Corps could not completely transform me away from the tendency to let certain things go. As my friend Mark has often pointed out, if I am going to be in the boat and breakfast business, I will have to get a firm handle on this aspect of myself. I have given myself more latitude when it came to neatness on the boat during the restoration. No matter how hard I clean, as soon as I start work the next day, it all seems to be for naught. But letting things go has a price - actually a lot of prices. Losing tools and spending hours trying to find them, or giving up and buying another one only to find the one I was looking for two months later. Rusted blades, drill bits, scrappers - you name it, and I have probably rusted it. Rather than stopping myself early and allotting time for cleanup, I work until the last ray of light slides off the western horizon. By then, I am too tired to clean up the tools, and just go inside and collapse for a few hours. But dew does not do wonders for expensive (or cheap) tools.
And then there is the omnipresent clutter of bins and piles of things and tools and parts and wood, and, and . . . and you can't see past them to envision what you are trying to do.
So, today I stopped the giant machinery of the restoration and climbed out for a second to restore some order to things. For a restoration to come out right, it needs the restorer and all of his tools to be up to the task, and that cannot happen if you are drowning in stuff. There is no doubt that while the restoration is on going, daily in-depth cleaning is simply not practical, but organization and regular tidy up are essential. So, my boat is teaching me something my mother spent years trying to instill in me. Well mom, at least it's happening ;-)
And then there is the omnipresent clutter of bins and piles of things and tools and parts and wood, and, and . . . and you can't see past them to envision what you are trying to do.
So, today I stopped the giant machinery of the restoration and climbed out for a second to restore some order to things. For a restoration to come out right, it needs the restorer and all of his tools to be up to the task, and that cannot happen if you are drowning in stuff. There is no doubt that while the restoration is on going, daily in-depth cleaning is simply not practical, but organization and regular tidy up are essential. So, my boat is teaching me something my mother spent years trying to instill in me. Well mom, at least it's happening ;-)
August 14, 2012 - Shape of Things to Come

There comes a point in a job when all the things you have been envisioning in your head are clearly manifesting in the real world, and you can easily see the finished product. Today was that day, and it was very satisfying. Every move until today, was an act of faith that what I was doing had not just ruined a passable teak deck. When I first planned out the fiberglass project for the back deck, I was looking at a deck that I had restored to near original condition, and one that still had some fatal flaws. I also was looking at some areas where deck hardware is mounted that would never have a clean reliable sealing surface unless I made one. A deck on a boat is not just an area that you walk on, a deck is a roof. Its primary function is to convey water efficiently and quickly off of the boat. Chris Craft had designed the decks on the Constellation so that they sloped downward from the center and downward from front to aft. This directed water to the outside edges, and to the aft of the boat, where it drains over the side. But mounting hardware to porous wood is always tricky and prone to premature failure. While my overall plan calls for extending the helm station roof so it covers the aft deck, the outer edges of the deck will still be exposed to rain and run-off. As with anything on a boat, if you ask five other restoration specialists what they would have done, you will get five different answers, and an emphatic wagging finger that says the other guy's idea is insanity.
After examining the construction of the deck and the surrounding structures, I settled on what you see in the picture. To the four other wagging fingers, I can only say, "hey, the customer is satisfied." The truth is there is no perfect way to restore the deck. Just choices that will yield varying results and undoubtedly, a few trade-offs of some goods for some bads. I had the experience of talking to a materials engineer who was brilliant in her field. She had recently done her decks on a fine restoration that is cruising up and down the Western US coastline. Even with all of her experience, she still had to go back and redo her deck work with a different material. That is not to discount knowledge as a resource. But ultimately, it does come down to some educated guessing, some trial and error, and frankly, some luck.
After examining the construction of the deck and the surrounding structures, I settled on what you see in the picture. To the four other wagging fingers, I can only say, "hey, the customer is satisfied." The truth is there is no perfect way to restore the deck. Just choices that will yield varying results and undoubtedly, a few trade-offs of some goods for some bads. I had the experience of talking to a materials engineer who was brilliant in her field. She had recently done her decks on a fine restoration that is cruising up and down the Western US coastline. Even with all of her experience, she still had to go back and redo her deck work with a different material. That is not to discount knowledge as a resource. But ultimately, it does come down to some educated guessing, some trial and error, and frankly, some luck.
August 13, 2012 - Melt Down

At roughly 13:30, the persistent heat wave finally broke, and an onshore breeze quickly began sweeping off the remains of thunderstorms over the eastern mountains. I had started my work early this morning, so, by this time I was already soaked through in sweat, and very grateful for some relief. I'd been doing some epoxy work, but with the sun as intense as it was, the epoxy was going into melt-down mode inside the plastic syringe before I could use it to fill old screw holes.
When people often complain about how wood rots, they usually fail to note that much of the rot wood undergoes could have been prevented with proper technique. In this case, the stainless steel trim that runs the length of the boat had been installed with a combination of brass, steel, and stainless steel screws (only the latter of which is truly suitable - like metal to like metal). Added to that mistake was the fact that most of the screws had not been sealed thus allowing water to soak into the screw holes and start the rot process. And as the final insult to proper technique, when some of the screw holes failed from rot, someone had the bright idea to use plastic inserts that you use to hang pictures with to restore the screw holes. So, to do the job properly, I drilled out all the old screw holes and filled them with a mixture of epoxy to prepare them for new screws and sealant. It is a tedious but necessary step that I am glad to be done with. So, with things decidedly cooler in the afternoon, I got my second wind, no pun intended, and started laying fiberglass on the rub-rial edges. But while the wind was very good at chasing away the heat, it was also very effective at chasing away my strip of fiberglass tape before I could wet it out and get it to stick to the rail. Twelve feet of partially wet tape went swirling into the water like a streamer. I fished it out of the water and stared at the useless strip for a few seconds before I went into my own melt-down. I started slapping and stabbing epoxy all over the rail before I finally started to cool off and set up a new strip. Note to self: throwing a fit with tub of epoxy in one hand and a saturated brush in the other is never a productive or neat path to go down. I must have looked like a pretty pathetic mess with epoxy dripping off of me and the boat, but the end result turned out pretty good in spite of my theatrics.
When people often complain about how wood rots, they usually fail to note that much of the rot wood undergoes could have been prevented with proper technique. In this case, the stainless steel trim that runs the length of the boat had been installed with a combination of brass, steel, and stainless steel screws (only the latter of which is truly suitable - like metal to like metal). Added to that mistake was the fact that most of the screws had not been sealed thus allowing water to soak into the screw holes and start the rot process. And as the final insult to proper technique, when some of the screw holes failed from rot, someone had the bright idea to use plastic inserts that you use to hang pictures with to restore the screw holes. So, to do the job properly, I drilled out all the old screw holes and filled them with a mixture of epoxy to prepare them for new screws and sealant. It is a tedious but necessary step that I am glad to be done with. So, with things decidedly cooler in the afternoon, I got my second wind, no pun intended, and started laying fiberglass on the rub-rial edges. But while the wind was very good at chasing away the heat, it was also very effective at chasing away my strip of fiberglass tape before I could wet it out and get it to stick to the rail. Twelve feet of partially wet tape went swirling into the water like a streamer. I fished it out of the water and stared at the useless strip for a few seconds before I went into my own melt-down. I started slapping and stabbing epoxy all over the rail before I finally started to cool off and set up a new strip. Note to self: throwing a fit with tub of epoxy in one hand and a saturated brush in the other is never a productive or neat path to go down. I must have looked like a pretty pathetic mess with epoxy dripping off of me and the boat, but the end result turned out pretty good in spite of my theatrics.
August 12, 2012 - Rounding the Corner

There is wisdom to the Sabbath - unfortunately, may the Lord forgive me, it is wisdom I cannot yet allow myself the benefit of. On the flip side, I rest very well when I do rest. So, today I awoke and launched right into it, sanding the bow, cutting holes through the fiberglass for the stanchion posts, fixing a broken belt sander, and then - hold the drum roll, more epoxy/fiberglass. The only thing that sustains me through this needley work is the knowledge that it is nearly complete, and soon I will be able to leave all the weaves and mixtures in the hazardous chemical storage locker where they belong. As fate would have it, I got distracted in thoughts of all the other steps ahead, and mixed the wrong batch of epoxy first. I needed to fill some gaps before I laid the mat down, but rather than whipping up a filler mix, I concocted a wet-out mix. For the lucky people who will never have to worry about these things, epoxy resin is revolutionary in its properties and highly superior to polyester resin. Apart from being more flexible, epoxy resin takes longer to harden, so you have longer to work with it before it turns into a rock. But on a sunny day, even epoxy resin will want to harden quickly, and if you mix a lot of it together (like when you are trying to wet out thirsty fiberglass mat), it has a tendency to start a chain reaction that makes it into an angry frothy mess - and an expensive one at that. So, I sat there perplexed at why I was staring at the wrong mix before my emergency panic alarm went off - OH MY GOD, YOU ARE ABOUT TO LOSE THE ENTIRE BATCH, YOU NUT CASE! That launched me into over-drive, and before a mackerel could swallow a minnow, I had the other batch mixed and flew up the boarding ladder with both mixes in hand. Saint Nick never put presents under a tree as fast as I put the filler onto the deck, then a quick change to the other tub, and soon the fiberglass was all laid down and saturated with resin. They say that perfection is the enemy of good, and sure enough, just as I went to fuss with what was a pretty damn good job, what was left of the resin started gurgling angrily. Thankfully, I took a deep breathe and decided good was good enough for today.
August 11, 2012 - The Heat, Friend or Foe?

With the tail end of summer comes a series of oven like thermometer readings that even on the coast can be withering. Oddly enough this occurs as the days are actually getting shorter, like a pendulum still swinging in one direction even as gravity is trying to pull it the other way. For boat work, the heat is a mixed bag of benefits and drawbacks. Heat drives the atmosphere and when combined with a sputtering hurricane to the south of us, can launch thunderstorms coastward from their normal mountain perches. But the heat helps drive down the moisture content of the wood on the boat, and this is good for the work I am doing right now. On the other hand, the heat is not good for the worker doing the work (me). The last two days I have felt like a pat of butter in a very hot pan. Fiberglass work necessitates an array of protective equipment that is pretty much the opposite of what would be my chosen attire on days like this:
Coveralls (sleeves down)
Hat (with neck sun shield)
Respirator
Goggles
Moon Boot (to prevent pressure on arthritic foot)
Ear Plugs
Gloves
Annoying Cat Supervisor (Friday)
Since I lack prescription sunglasses, I am left to the full glare of white epoxy that by the end of the day leaves me feeling like I am a shade away from snow blindness. But enough about my martyrdom. The outcome of all the suffering is really looking good. The boat is slowly changing in appearance to look, well, more like a boat. Hopefully a very satisfying state when it is all done. Of course, no matter how well I do it, there will be subtle flaws that I will always see and will drive me batty, but such is life.
Coveralls (sleeves down)
Hat (with neck sun shield)
Respirator
Goggles
Moon Boot (to prevent pressure on arthritic foot)
Ear Plugs
Gloves
Annoying Cat Supervisor (Friday)
Since I lack prescription sunglasses, I am left to the full glare of white epoxy that by the end of the day leaves me feeling like I am a shade away from snow blindness. But enough about my martyrdom. The outcome of all the suffering is really looking good. The boat is slowly changing in appearance to look, well, more like a boat. Hopefully a very satisfying state when it is all done. Of course, no matter how well I do it, there will be subtle flaws that I will always see and will drive me batty, but such is life.
August 9, 2012 - Seams Like I'm Getting Somewhere

As the picture and title denotes, I spent the day cleaning out seams and doing detailed prep work for the final layers of fiberglass. The difference between a job that lasts many years, and one that lasts a few seasons can be very little. So I committed myself to slowing down a bit and getting up close to some of the areas I am working on. That decision is paying dividends already by letting me see some areas that needed extra attention, and some small surprises that would have been frustrating discoveries in a couple years. My friend Mark is visiting as an unofficial boat & breakfast guest (he does this often enough that I should charge in spite of the boat's condition). In between Mark's egomaniacal flights of fancy, he likes to make digs at what he alternately calls a Floating Construction Zone & Starve to Death. I should be so lucky that he would starve to death. My cat Friday (who imagines that she owns the boat and man servant in the forward cabin(me)) has a relationship with Mark that bares amazing similarity that of Yoda (Friday) and The Evil Emperor (Mark). Mark keeps showing me the fight scene from the movie between the two, and with each hiss and taunt exchanged between the two, it becomes difficult to distinguish the film clip from their interactions. Each plots the demise of the other, while I quietly hope they manage to take each other out simultaneously. I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to lay down a good part of the remaining fiberglass (not withstanding the shinanigans of Mark and Friday).
August 7, 2012 - Sweating It

A mountain thunderstorm towering over the marine layer.
We have officially entered the time of summer when monsoonal moisture starts to crawl northward along the Baja peninsula and the Sea of Cortez. For those who live inland, they have less of a view of the battle of the air masses unfolding around them. But for those who live on the water, we have an unobstructed view, and I watch it with a very keen interest. The marine layer during the summer is my friend. If it lays frothing just off shore waiting for the failing sun, then I know we are going to have a cool breezy day. But when it vanishes from sight and the air sits stagnant and humid, then I look east and watch the thunderstorms building over the mountains. I count the anvils spreading in the sky like mushroom caps and look to see where they are going. When the spring rains faded, I unpacked the boat from all its protective tarps and began the final push to restore the boat's exterior and make her water tight for the coming winter's rains. But wood is a sensitive material. It expands and contracts with temperature and most of all with moisture. For any kind of epoxy or painting, it is necessary for the wood to have a very low moisture content, or the work you do will not last very long. Moisture interferes with a good mechanical bond, and also can give rise to premature failure of the coating when the wood dries out. Worse yet, if you seal in moisture, you can feed mold development. In short, rain right now would pretty much screw up all the work I am trying to do. So I am resorting to doing the Indian rain dance backwards (at least as much as my arthritic foot will allow). Today was very unusual in that it really seemed like the marine layer and the tropical moisture were doing battle with each other. At mid-day, it appeared that neither held the upper hand, and neither would relent. But it was a David and Goliath battle. The marine layer so thin and whispy, towered over by giant pouncing anvils. Bands of billowing cumulous came overhead as they tried to outflank the marine layer. But in the end, the marine layer seemed to win out - at least for today. The thunder storms retreated eastward. In a couple more weeks, this will not really matter, because I will have finished the decks and salon roof, but right now, I am definitely sweating the rain.
That said, I made good progress today. I should have the fiber glass wrapped up by the end of the week, and then turn my attention to the non-skid. With any luck, I will be able to get the engines running by the end of this month, and then all I have left is prepping the hull for paint. Wish me luck. Or even better, come down and help ;-)
That said, I made good progress today. I should have the fiber glass wrapped up by the end of the week, and then turn my attention to the non-skid. With any luck, I will be able to get the engines running by the end of this month, and then all I have left is prepping the hull for paint. Wish me luck. Or even better, come down and help ;-)
August 6, 2012 - You See The Gypsy

I still nurse this ambition that I can overwork myself one day, and not have it affect me the next day. While the arthritis in my foot has tempered this notion somewhat, idealism dies a very long death with me. I ventured onto the deck as the last of the morning mist was taking flight at the urging of a blazing sun. Typically there are only one or two days out of the year that I can even imagine wanting air conditioning, but the omnipresent heat and humidity have made this year an exception. I probably would not notice it as much if I did not have to wear so much equipment for the work I am doing right now.
As much as I preach against fiberglass, I am certainly making good use of it in this restoration. Invariably, someone will make a wise crack that my boat is wooden in name only. I have chosen to selectively use glass to accomplish things that could have been done when the boat was built if there had been the materials knowledge base to draw on then. The physical barrier formed by the fiberglass will not only help to prevent deterioration of the wood underneath, it will also provide extra strength and stability at an important area. But it is indeed a nasty material, and my experience with it so far has me convinced that we are making a real mistake in not developing methods to capture and recycle composites. Both the resins and the mesh materials are substances that should not be allowed to spread in the environment. But like many things, we will come to terms with the dangers of them only after a long period of denial instigated and sustained by whatever corporations are most vested in continuing our ignorance. I am not suggesting that the materials should be eliminated, but we need to make sure that we do not simply try to burry them and hope they go away. Most problems never go away so neatly.
The comments from the dockside peanut gallery have turned decidedly to the positive side, and that is a welcome change. But I did have one neighbor venture past and characterize my dock finger as a "gypsy encampment". Not quite sure how to take that one. Does that mean I am about to be ushered out of this town, or is Stevie Nicks going to be dropping by adorned in one of her cute shawls?
I think the Rose and I are both eager to be on the water again. But she is a patient gypsy because she knows the work I am doing will assure her future.
As much as I preach against fiberglass, I am certainly making good use of it in this restoration. Invariably, someone will make a wise crack that my boat is wooden in name only. I have chosen to selectively use glass to accomplish things that could have been done when the boat was built if there had been the materials knowledge base to draw on then. The physical barrier formed by the fiberglass will not only help to prevent deterioration of the wood underneath, it will also provide extra strength and stability at an important area. But it is indeed a nasty material, and my experience with it so far has me convinced that we are making a real mistake in not developing methods to capture and recycle composites. Both the resins and the mesh materials are substances that should not be allowed to spread in the environment. But like many things, we will come to terms with the dangers of them only after a long period of denial instigated and sustained by whatever corporations are most vested in continuing our ignorance. I am not suggesting that the materials should be eliminated, but we need to make sure that we do not simply try to burry them and hope they go away. Most problems never go away so neatly.
The comments from the dockside peanut gallery have turned decidedly to the positive side, and that is a welcome change. But I did have one neighbor venture past and characterize my dock finger as a "gypsy encampment". Not quite sure how to take that one. Does that mean I am about to be ushered out of this town, or is Stevie Nicks going to be dropping by adorned in one of her cute shawls?
I think the Rose and I are both eager to be on the water again. But she is a patient gypsy because she knows the work I am doing will assure her future.
August 3, 2012 - Glass Half Full

Today marked the beginning of the fiberglass work at the bow, side rails and foredeck. I have Eric (El Squeako) Fager to thank for today's progress. In spite of his vow never to set foot on a boat without a match and lighter fluid, he offered to help out when he knew I needed it. I am learning to deal with what I hope is a temporary bit of arthritis in my left foot. The doctor gave me a "moon boot" to help reduce movement of my foot so the ligaments can heal. This all sounds great in theory, and prompts visions of me laying out with my foot kicked up as I recline on a sun lounge on the foredeck sipping iced tea and noshing on crostinis blanketed with smoked salmon and bathed in olive oil with cracked pepper flecks. Hah! I wish. But the day will come as they say. No, the upshot of my arthritis visitation is that even relatively easy tasks like walking to the front of the boat, now are laced with varying degrees of pain and carefully maintaining my balance in spite of the robo-foot attachment that seems to get caught on every edge and line it can find.
Removing the cap rail (a mostly decorative piece of trim that runs down the side of the boat from bow to stern) was a bold move on my part. Some people I talked to felt it might be overkill to go that deep into the boat's structure. But ever the German perfectionist, I was determined to at least have a look under the rail pieces before I tried to seal around the edges of them. I was convinced from some of the signs I was seeing that the sealant underneath them had failed and allowed water to seep in and start rotting the wood underneath. Once the first piece of rail came up, my hypothesis was confirmed. The sealant originally used had a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years, and the boat was now 47 going on 48, so go figure. Tendrils of mold snaked like veins under the rail pieces, and some isolated sections of wood were already relenting to the mold's appetite. My solution to the problem was to remove all the old sealant and treat the entire area with a boric acid solution that would prevent the mold and also keep termites at bay. Following that treatment I would lay down epoxy and fiberglass mat to make a permanent barrier to moisture. Having recently completed work on a friends refrigerator box, my fiberglass skills have grown to the point I felt ready to take on the challenge. Today's results confirmed that I have essentially mastered the art. I can also say that I am very glad I chose the path I did. It's certainly one of the larger projects that I have taken on, and one that forced me to significantly push the boundaries of my skills. But without a doubt, this repair will be well worth the durability it imparts to the boat. With any luck, and the assistance of a good friend (thank you in advance Antwane) I should have all the glass laid down tomorrow. After that, some light sanding and a smooth coat, and it is ready for the restored rail pieces to go back on.
Removing the cap rail (a mostly decorative piece of trim that runs down the side of the boat from bow to stern) was a bold move on my part. Some people I talked to felt it might be overkill to go that deep into the boat's structure. But ever the German perfectionist, I was determined to at least have a look under the rail pieces before I tried to seal around the edges of them. I was convinced from some of the signs I was seeing that the sealant underneath them had failed and allowed water to seep in and start rotting the wood underneath. Once the first piece of rail came up, my hypothesis was confirmed. The sealant originally used had a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years, and the boat was now 47 going on 48, so go figure. Tendrils of mold snaked like veins under the rail pieces, and some isolated sections of wood were already relenting to the mold's appetite. My solution to the problem was to remove all the old sealant and treat the entire area with a boric acid solution that would prevent the mold and also keep termites at bay. Following that treatment I would lay down epoxy and fiberglass mat to make a permanent barrier to moisture. Having recently completed work on a friends refrigerator box, my fiberglass skills have grown to the point I felt ready to take on the challenge. Today's results confirmed that I have essentially mastered the art. I can also say that I am very glad I chose the path I did. It's certainly one of the larger projects that I have taken on, and one that forced me to significantly push the boundaries of my skills. But without a doubt, this repair will be well worth the durability it imparts to the boat. With any luck, and the assistance of a good friend (thank you in advance Antwane) I should have all the glass laid down tomorrow. After that, some light sanding and a smooth coat, and it is ready for the restored rail pieces to go back on.
July 31, 2012 - Big Steps From Little Steps
When I first started with the restoration of the Compass Rose, I always trained myself not to look at the project in its entirety. If I did, I would probably be like the myriad people that come by and observe - "That's quite a project. Real labor of love." My neighbor's father, who was over cleaning up the boat next to me in preparation for his son's return from Afghanistan, stumbled into those exact phrases. To him they were a compliment, and I am more conditioned to hearing them as a substitute for "boy, you sure are a crazy one". But thanks to the support of a few fantastic people, I now have enough wind in my sails and am close enough to the finish line, that I can now step back and look at the whole thing. After so many trudging little steps over three and a half years, they have finally begun to add up to some very big steps. Early September will see the Compass Rose headed to the boat yard for her new paint job. From now until then, I have a lot of prep work to do to make sure that the paint job she gets will last her many years.
Today, after sanding along the rub rail (pictured above), I went down into the engine room and tested out the 1 5/16" socket that I had been waiting to arrive in the mail. This was not your standard Auto Zone socket, no way. Nothing they have could stand to be at the end of a four foot breaker bar without snapping into a dozen pieces. My diesel engines have been in hibernation for about 3.5 years now, and waking these bears up from their slumber is something that must be done carefully. Diesel mechanics come in two varieties: 1. Those who know what they are doing. 2. Those who make their living by acting like they know what they are doing. As a 20 year veteran jet engine mechanic with a management background, I am used to these two grades of mechanic and can sniff a number two out pretty quick.
I had the misfortune of meeting a number two at the marina a week ago (who came highly recommended by a deep pocketed gentleman who probably needed deep pockets to pay for his number two's mistakes). I politely asked for his card as he queried what engines did I have. "Detroit Diesel, 8V-53N's" I proudly said. "Augh, man, two stroke? almost no body works on those anymore. Real dinosaurs you got there. Olde Smokies. How long since you last ran them?" He brushed his mustache to hide the drool. "Bout three years since they were last ran, they were running great at the time, but I needed to do a rewire and repair the exhausts so I have not run them since then."
"Ya, well, hope ur ready to put out some money on them, cause they're gonna need it, man. I would love to help you, but I can tell you what will happen when I try to start them. Either they'll fire off fine, which I doubt, or the piston will slam into a sticking valve and break it off, and then you're lookin at a full overhaul, and that's gonna be some serious bucks."
Any fool that tries to wake up engines that have been hibernating for 3 or more years by just pressing a pudgy finger on the start switch is asking to empty their wallet. Rule one in such a case is to first crank them by hand using a large socket (mailed) and a nice long breaker bar (borrowed). I casually mentioned my plan to him to see his reaction.
"Hah! Good luck buddy, with a 21 to 1 compression ratio, you'll need a huge breaker bar and an elephant to sit on it." Nice, I liked the elephant line. As a little aside, diesels have fuel injectors that you can pull out much like a spark plug (diesels have no spark plugs, btw). Once you remove them, you squirt a little Magic Mystery Oil in each cylinder and let it sit overnight. Then in the morning, with the injectors still out, you crank the engine by hand a few turns, and if everything goes smooth, then you put a nice rag over the open injector holes and hit the starter switch. By pulling the injectors, you are not fighting the compression of the pistons and so it goes pretty smoothly. Detroits are a bit different in that the injectors are underneath some other parts, and removing them then requires them to be carefully adjusted when they are put back in. So, in the back of my mind as I descended into the engine room this evening, I quietly contemplated how I might get the assistance of an elephant, should the number 2 be right.
Something about handling a four foot breaker bar just brings out the lesbian mechanic in all of us. I seated the socket over the crank shaft nut and took a deep breath, prepared for the worst. I bore down on the bar, and then suddenly, the engine's crank shaft spun and I heard the gentle velvety brush of piston rings moving against the cylinder walls. Elephant my ass! I may have put on a few pounds since boot camp, but an elephant I am not. After rounding the first full turn of the crank shaft I switched to the other engine which responded similarly. So the upshot of all this is that my engine's eyes are now cracked open, and ready to emerge from their slumber. And that number two is not getting anywhere near my engines.
Today, after sanding along the rub rail (pictured above), I went down into the engine room and tested out the 1 5/16" socket that I had been waiting to arrive in the mail. This was not your standard Auto Zone socket, no way. Nothing they have could stand to be at the end of a four foot breaker bar without snapping into a dozen pieces. My diesel engines have been in hibernation for about 3.5 years now, and waking these bears up from their slumber is something that must be done carefully. Diesel mechanics come in two varieties: 1. Those who know what they are doing. 2. Those who make their living by acting like they know what they are doing. As a 20 year veteran jet engine mechanic with a management background, I am used to these two grades of mechanic and can sniff a number two out pretty quick.
I had the misfortune of meeting a number two at the marina a week ago (who came highly recommended by a deep pocketed gentleman who probably needed deep pockets to pay for his number two's mistakes). I politely asked for his card as he queried what engines did I have. "Detroit Diesel, 8V-53N's" I proudly said. "Augh, man, two stroke? almost no body works on those anymore. Real dinosaurs you got there. Olde Smokies. How long since you last ran them?" He brushed his mustache to hide the drool. "Bout three years since they were last ran, they were running great at the time, but I needed to do a rewire and repair the exhausts so I have not run them since then."
"Ya, well, hope ur ready to put out some money on them, cause they're gonna need it, man. I would love to help you, but I can tell you what will happen when I try to start them. Either they'll fire off fine, which I doubt, or the piston will slam into a sticking valve and break it off, and then you're lookin at a full overhaul, and that's gonna be some serious bucks."
Any fool that tries to wake up engines that have been hibernating for 3 or more years by just pressing a pudgy finger on the start switch is asking to empty their wallet. Rule one in such a case is to first crank them by hand using a large socket (mailed) and a nice long breaker bar (borrowed). I casually mentioned my plan to him to see his reaction.
"Hah! Good luck buddy, with a 21 to 1 compression ratio, you'll need a huge breaker bar and an elephant to sit on it." Nice, I liked the elephant line. As a little aside, diesels have fuel injectors that you can pull out much like a spark plug (diesels have no spark plugs, btw). Once you remove them, you squirt a little Magic Mystery Oil in each cylinder and let it sit overnight. Then in the morning, with the injectors still out, you crank the engine by hand a few turns, and if everything goes smooth, then you put a nice rag over the open injector holes and hit the starter switch. By pulling the injectors, you are not fighting the compression of the pistons and so it goes pretty smoothly. Detroits are a bit different in that the injectors are underneath some other parts, and removing them then requires them to be carefully adjusted when they are put back in. So, in the back of my mind as I descended into the engine room this evening, I quietly contemplated how I might get the assistance of an elephant, should the number 2 be right.
Something about handling a four foot breaker bar just brings out the lesbian mechanic in all of us. I seated the socket over the crank shaft nut and took a deep breath, prepared for the worst. I bore down on the bar, and then suddenly, the engine's crank shaft spun and I heard the gentle velvety brush of piston rings moving against the cylinder walls. Elephant my ass! I may have put on a few pounds since boot camp, but an elephant I am not. After rounding the first full turn of the crank shaft I switched to the other engine which responded similarly. So the upshot of all this is that my engine's eyes are now cracked open, and ready to emerge from their slumber. And that number two is not getting anywhere near my engines.