Port Townsend sailing

In mid August, I made it up to Port Townsend to see my friend Howard. Please read Howard's blog about his upcoming journey to Tierra Del Fuego.
I didn't get much sailing time in, but I got to chat with a lot of people.

Then yesterday, I made it back to Port Townsend for the Wooden Boat Festival. Again, I got to see a lot of friends and chat about small boats. A good time.

Palooza Crooza 2016

A hearty thank you to Marty and all my new friends from the Palooza Crooza 2016.

Friday evening

Rainbow over Indian Island

I arrived Friday evening and put PT Puffin (origin of the name) on the hard behind NWMC. Most boats had already arrived although a few more showed up on Saturday morning.

Saturday

Saturday was the Palooza show. A ton of people stopped by to look at the boats. I had a great time discussing boats with everyone. I completely lost track of the time and before I knew it the day had ended.

The weather was very Port Townsend for most of the day. Spatters of rain mixed with wonderful periods of brightness.

There was a captains meeting called by Marty around 6:30 and a potluck before that.

Marty said the weather didn't look great, so the plan changed to sail to Mystery Bay. Which was fine by me because I love that little bay and I was a bit concerned about the original plan to sail past Point Wilson.

I'm always happy to know about the motorsailers that follow us along in case of emergencies. A huge thank you to the guys who do that to make sure the rest of us stay safe. This year it was Kirk, Ron and Marty. I didn't get any pictures, but they are my heroes.

Sunday

Sunday morning we left for Mystery Bay. We went around Rat Island and then had a nice leisurely downwind sail to Mystery Bay. We arrived around 11:30, which was pretty fast. We spent the day just playing in Mystery bay. The day was cloudy for most of it and in the low 60s.

Sergei and Quin in Serenity

Sergei

Simeon and Stephen in Noddy and Charles and Bruce in Silver Belle

Aft shot of Silver Belle

Thanks

I'd really like to thank everyone. I had a great time. Especially meeting new folks with similar interests.

There were lots of pictures taken.

I'll update this post when there are some links to other people's pictures.

My boat wishlist

Monday when I got home I found that the 3/8" bolt pin that ties together the rudder to the rudder head had lost it's nylon lock nut. Luckily, the bolt didn't come out or I wouldn't have had a rudder. I will replace it with a clevis pin. I also need to re-glue in the bronze bushings into the rudder. I also need to find some large nylon fender washers to shim the rudder into the head because there is some loose play there.

I do have some improvements to make to the boat:

1. I still haven't decided what to do about the bailers in the bottom of the footwell. I'm too nervous to cut into the bottom of the boat without a good plan.
2. I need to re-make my tent. Preferably out of waterproof fabric.
3. I need to make a new tent pole and reinforce the oarlocks. The tent pole goes into each oarlock. There were some good designs for oarlock mounts at the Palooza.
4. I need oars and oar storage
5. I need a way to tie down the sleeping boards that cover the footwell, I occasionally hear them clunk in the cabin as the boat shifts.
6. I need stainless eyes on the aft of the boat for tying it to the trailer.

Bruce was helping me to make a rainproof cover over the tent when we came up with a good idea to lash the boom to the mast to draw it aft. We then put the sheet through the forward downhaul block. This makes a great tent ridgeline. I used a tarp as a tent. Luckily I didn't get rained on at all.

Steampunk

Curiously enough, the Port Townsend annual steampunk festival was in town on Saturday and Sunday. The Steampunk folk were out in force. These guys are great. They like to make stuff and I like that.

Steampunk is the idea that the late 1800s were a period of great intellect where they were limited by their steam engines. At one point I walked past a hall and heard a Victorian scientist giving a lecture on the scientific properties of aether. Great fun.

Steampunk Hover car

Steampunk bicycle car

Another Pt Townsend Wooden Boat Festival

Saturday September 10 I drove up to Port Townsend for the annual Wooden Boat Festival. As usual, the joint was very busy with plenty of people. I wanted to take the PTPuffin (who hasn't been wet since mid July because of the rest of life), but I didn't want to fight all the other boats and boaters at the festival.

Luckily, I ran into Dale who let me crew for him on Luna for about 4 hours in the PM for a wonderful little sail. We puttered around for awhile then found Mike in Tor and Simeon in Noddy. Skol sailed with us as well. Mike even got the spinnaker deployed on Tor for awhile.

Afterwards, Dale and I had a beer and hung out. We ran into Jackie Monies. I didn't even know she would be around. It was nice to see her again.

Next year, I would like to take an extra day off and put the PTPuffin in the water and maybe stay on her for the weekend.

Bronze ring for centerboard cover removal

While in Port Townsend I stopped by the Chandlery and picked up a pull ring and a closed anchor chock.
The anchor chock will go on the bow.

The pull ring was an easy install, so I did that today.

Measured and knifed out before applying a chisel

The removal of material wasn't too bad. Forstner bits are great for hogging out material. I had to go deeper than I thought to get the entire pull ring in there.

Dry fit

Ugly shot of the removed material

I didn't get any pictures, but I coated that liberally with epoxy and filled the screw holes.
After it set up a bit, I installed the pull ring and the screws. It'll cure right in there.

Finished!

Pictures from the Small Craft Academy and Palooza Crooza

Howard Rice and John Welford put on a small craft skills academy July 18 & 19. During the academy, I learned a lot about the scamp and how to sail her.

Brent's Shackleton

We deliberately capsized a GigHarbor Boatworks scamp and righted it and self-rescued. This made me feel a lot better about self-rescue operations. We also learned how hard it is to capsize a scamp. It doesn't just happen by accident.

capsizing and rescuing Jackie Monies' Cowboy Cookies

We also sailed out to Rat Island.

Brent and Preston in Shackleton

Sergei and Tyler in Serenity

On the beach at Rat Island (near to far: Cowboy Cookies, Serenity, Scallywag)

On the beach at Rat Island (near to far: Shackleton, PT Puffin, Tor)

There were many more activities and opportunities to learn during the academy. I understand my boat a lot better. Now I just need some time to hone my skills.

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Sunday morning about 15 boats left Port Townsend for the Palooza Crooza and headed for Mats Mats Bay. The air was light, so Brent offered us a tow behind his 2.5hp motor.

Shackleton towing PT Puffin

Shackleton with a bit more wind

Noddy in dead air

Beautiful clouds over Mats Mats.

The Palooza Crooza was a huge success. Much thanks to Marty for organizing. Much thanks also to the chaperone Pete who made sure we all stayed safe and to the hospitable folks in Mats Mats bay who let some of the Croozas camp in their backyard.

I slept in the boat for 4 nights in a row for this journey. There was plenty of room for storage and I slept very well with the yoga mats and a sleeping pad.

I also built a list of tasks:

1. mast mount a windvane
2. install the cleat for the motor slide
3. Decide and install either a tiller clutch or a hiking stick (or both)
4. Use a clampmeter to find out how many amps the motor uses
5. find a better way to charge my battery when on the water
6. install real oarlocks and buy oars
7. install a bailer
8. install an anchor chock
9. install some more tel tales

This weekend is the Red Lantern Rally in Mystery Bay. I'll spend some time up there. I hope we have a good turnout like last year.

Back to Port Townsend

Here are some pictures I took in August of the scamp before she was done. 

new scamp

scamp

And here are some shots after she's done.

Finito!

Finished

On the star where we layed her down

Me and PT Puffin

And here is a video I made from shots of our build in August 2014.

Rigging gear for sale at Palooza Jul 17-20

At the 2015 Palooza Crooza, I'll have some extra Davey & Co and Tufnol blocks for sale. This is all brand new gear still in the bags and undamaged.

If you are interested in buying any of these, please contact me directly. You can PM ElHeffe on the Scamp message board.

Pt Townsend Wooden Boat Festival

The first weekend in September was the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival.
Holy cows there were a lot of people there.

I woke up on Saturday morning after working on the boat somewhat late. The intarwebs were down at our house. That's not good and it worried me, but I left and headed out for the ferry. It was a fun drive back up to Pt Townsend I even had some time for a brief chat with Nancy.
It was kind of like going home. I felt right driving past the turn to our rental house.

I even considered driving up to the house to see how it looked.
When we arrived, there was a rock in the front yard that had a small stack of rocks on top of it. As we drove past one time, I told Quin to poke it. He did, and we found out that it really was a stack of rocks, not one of the sculptures with a rod in it to hold the rocks. Ooops.
So we (mostly Quin) spent some time stacking rocks to rectify our mistake. We even improved the situation and built a couple more towers (again, Quin).

I didn't stop by the house, but I like to think the rocks are still standing and have been improved.

I arrived in PT about noon. The park & ride behind the Safeway had a sign that said "full" and they were opening up the marina parking area. I didn't think that was right and drove through town.
It was right. There were a lot of people in town. I had to park in uptown near the library. I walked down the stairs and to the maritime center. It was packed.
I paid my discounted entrance fee (thanks for the membership, Nancy) and went into the marina area.

It was like a normal street fair with 8x8 white canopies except instead of selling jewelry made from rocks and shells or tie dyed kids clothes, they were selling epoxy or tools. Lee Valley had their booth right where our boat had been built!
I stepped out back and found Josh there manning the Small Craft Advisor booth along with trusty #1 right beside. And Simeon was there as well.
Simeon told me that John Welsford was speaking at 1:00, so we wandered over there.
But first, I wanted to see the EdenSaw challenge. This is where teams have 48 hours to build a seaworthy boat. Scott was in the challenge and I wanted to see him.
Needless to say, he was quite busy, but we did talk briefly. I wished him well and moved back to see John talk.

Scott has the green shirt

You can see their boat

When writing this post, I found out that Scott's team won. A very nice video was posted.

I listened to John speak about safety and small boats, and while there I said hi to Melissa. Nice to see her again. I spoke with some other scamp builders, then went on walkabout.
I found my way over the the NWMC and spied Simeon just heading out. He asked me if I wanted to go out with him, and I most assuredly did.
We spent the afternoon sailing about; a lovely day on the water that I thoroughly enjoyed. Simeon was a wonderful host and even let me take the helm. I got in more sailing time than I've had in years and we had some good conversation. I hope I didn't bore him with too many questions about scamp building.

Simeon and Noddy, #11

We were out over 3 hours, but the time seemed to just fly past. I didn't even sunburn as badly as I thought I might.

I even got some pictures of the rigging of #1 and Noddy and a few ideas of things to do during my build.

I drove home that evening happy. It had been a great day. Thanks Simeon.

Me and Noddy. Photo by Simeon.

Weekend after camp

So camp was over, but we still had our house rented until Monday and dad didn't fly home until Tuesday AM.
Nancy and Lindsey were headed up to see us, but wouldn't show up until after a church event, like 3 or 4 in the PM.

So dad and I went for another paddle. This time near Port Hadlock and the Wooden Boat School. The water was just beautiful and calm. Luckily I was able to catch a few pictures with my water proof case around my camera.

The only problem was that we were near a channel and the current was flowing pretty heavy. At one point I yelled at dad and told him to paddle. I swear he was within 6 inches of hitting a post and he probably would have dunked the boat. And that water is cold. It could have been a bad situation, but it all worked out. And the water really was beautiful.

Dad with the boats.

Beautiful water

Lovely

In the afternoon, we got Quincy to go out and paddle with us in Mystery Bay. You can see my Oru there. There is just no way that little 12' boat can keep up with my other 17' boats. But it fits in my trunk and that's great. At some point in the last few weeks, I realized I own 4 boats. 2 of them are homemade and one of them was funded on Kickstarter. I'm not sure what that says, but it's interesting.

Later that afternoon, Nancy and Lindsey showed up and we had a nice evening in our little house.

Happy on the beach

That seems like a great picture to end this post.

Finishing scamp camp

While we were living in our little house, I was the unofficial cook. I really enjoyed coming up with a simple menu for 3 dudes living in the woods. We ate very well; the menu included philly sandwiches, turkey reubens on sweet dark bread. Of course we did easy stuff too, a few days we just had grilled brats.

On Sunday evening, we even had salmon. I bought one big steak and a jar of honey mustard salad dressing and some grilling planks.

Salmon is required in the Pacific NW

Wednesday morning, dad ran down to Gig Harbor with my Jetta to pick up the trailer. The trailer was something I was sweating. Just one of the details I freak out over. In the end, it all worked out well and I thank Dave at GHBoatWorks for his help. I had even purchased the right size ball. I even had a trailer light tester that worked. I remember my dad messing with trailer lights for hours when I was a kid. Those testers are great.

Here is dad painting epoxy on the interior

After Wednesday's steaming then clamping, Thursday morning the carlins had the right shape. When they cooled, they stayed in the curved shape. Now they just needed to be glued in place. And we were out of glue in tubes. So we mixed up some epoxy thickened with colloidal silica (it add strength to the epoxy, but makes it really hard to sand. I think I need a primer post on working with epoxy someday) and glued in the carlins, one on the outside (gunwale) and one on the inside (inwhale). This was sticky messy work. Epoxy is always sticky and messy, but this one I thought was especially bad.

Here she is with the carlins glued in place.

This is a blurry picture, but you can see better what has been done.

closer

The deck will sit directly on top of the carlins. I may add some strengtheners under there, but I'll worry about that later.
And another shot from the stern.

The sole is in the bottom.

Once we got that done, we knew we wanted to load her on the trailer tomorrow, so we scrambled to put a coat of epoxy on the exterior, just for protection. She was going to be driven for a couple hours and we didn't want any rock chips or other unmentionables against the soft wood.

Friday morning, our only job was to get the boats loaded on the trailers. Wow, after an intense 2 weeks, we were done. I took lots of pictures here, as did everyone. I think we were all proud parents.

Our boat and Peter's boat, Silver Bars (great name)

Quincy

Loading her onto the trailer didn't take very long. 4 people could easily lift a boat with a pair of 2x4s slung underneath. The hard part was that the trailer we had was meant for a boat with skegs. We didn't have skegs yet, so we had to prop her up at the stern. But once we got that done, she was travel worthy.

I couldn't resist the star shots below. A couple years ago, I had admired a scamp sitting on the mariner star at NWMC. Now my own boat was setting there. Granted, she wasn't seaworthy yet, but there she was.
I'll have to go back and get the same shot when she is done. Whenever that might be.

NMWC star

Dad and Peter

And with that, our camp was over. It was sad. I felt like boot camp was over; these people with whom I just spent 2 weeks were going to scatter and probably not see each other again. I liked everyone at camp and it was sad to head out. It had actually been a draining morning getting her loaded and saying goodbyes.

Quincy was able to run with Howard and Melissa to Melissa's home so he got to spend some extra time with Howard and he quite enjoyed it. I was glad he was able to go.

He got back to PT just in time to meet dad and I at a japanese place for lunch.

Dad had a great time with his chopsticks.

joy and chopsticks

I have only heard from a couple people at that camp on the SCAMP message board. I was able to see Melissa and John Welsford at the Wooden Boat Festival a few weeks later, but that's another story.

Week 2 of Scamp Camp

Week 2 of the scamp camp was a bit hectic. We had only 4 more days plus some time on Friday to load the boat onto trailers and get out of the NWMC. The Wooden Boat festival was 3 weeks away and they needed the space.

Monday we added on the 2nd plank. Adding the planks was actually quite tricky and required quite a few people. The planks stretch around the boat and have to touch each rib. Normally you'd use small screws into the bulkhead ribs, but we had an 18ga pin nailer (battery operated) that was nearly perfect. Just be sure to use stainless steel nails in case one ever is accidentally exposed.

Quincy

Tuesday we had a special treat. We went up to the CNC place that had cut our kits. Computer numerically controlled machines are essentially a decently large rotary router head mounted on a really big 3 (or 5) axis machine. The router head moves in the x & y direction, and it can also move up and down on the z axis. Since it's all computer controlled, the operator just has to tell it how fine to make each cut; if you use a 1/16" router bit, then you'll have very fine control over all your cuts but large pieces will take awhile. If you use 1/2" bit you'll chow through material faster. Some machines even have auto-chucks to chuck different size bits. We spent some time there in the afternoon and it was really neat. We also picked up our rudder and centerboard halves. They were mirror images of each other and roughly cut.
Unfortunately, I didn't get raw pictures of the rudder and centerboard. I'll have a post on those later. (As of this writing, I'm still trying to catch up with this blog - I feel I need to write up what we've done, before I go into what we're doing currently.)

By the end of Tuesday, we had placed the third and final plank.
We still have a lot to do though, including putting on gunwhales and inwhales.

Quincy

Wednesday, we got out the steamer. The gunwales and inwhales are made of yellow cedar 20mm x 30mm. Scott bought a big 13 foot chunk about 4"x5" or so and ripped it down. The yellow cedar piece was clear and beautiful so the resultant beams were very nice. It even smelled nice.

3/4 view

The standard view before the gunwales

And another view.

In between planking, we spent a lot of time cutting and installing cleats. The cleats hold up the seats and generally provide structure. In the picture below you can see all the cleats attached. They're also 20x30mm yellow cedar. You can also see some fillets in various places.

Cleats.

Scott fired up the steamer after lunch. It was a modified 15 gallon water heater. (I'm sure the safety mechanism was completely left in place and the thing was perfectly safe. Uh huh.)
It took a long time to get up it's steam up. Scott would race in with a carlin in gloved hands (though they weren't really that hot) and place it on the boat. We'd screw in the aft end and clamp it up along the sides of the boat. We did two per each side of the boat. But we didn't fix them permanently. That came on Thursday when we moved one of the pairs to the inwhale.
In the below picture, you can see the 2 carlins clamped to the boat.

carlins clamped at the gunwale

To be continued.