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Splicing New Reefing Lines
Polerys didn’t come with reefing lines. Well, not real reefing lines. The original setup was to tie some rope to an eye on the port side, then loop it through a reefing loop on the sail, then cleat it on the starboard side. If you wanted to use the second reef point, you’d use the same rope and process, but through the second loop on the sail. If only there was a better way.
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Final? Sail of the Season
I keep thinking it’s the last sail of the season, but then a lovely weekend magically appears. We took Polerys out to test out the new blocks. And also because it was sunny. It was a little cold, but we were projected to have 8 knots of wind. Perfect for a couple of amateurs.
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Small Upgrades
We’re starting to make some progress on some of the easy fixes. The old wooden blocks were falling apart. The metal parts were still solid, but I didn’t trust them, so we replaced them with some Harken blocks. Sadly, there was no way to remove them without grinding them off.
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The Refit Plan
Here’s my plan for upgrades and repairs. I see three “types” of projects. Projects I can do at home, projects I can do while in the water, and projects I have to do on “the hard”, up in Port Townsend. I have 3 weeks of vacation each year, so that’s when I’d tackle those big projects. One marina has a 2 year waitlist for a live aboard. The one I want, has a 5 year waitlist. I’m hoping the first one opens up, I can move aboard, save money, and then move to the other one when it’s ready. I’m basing this on priority, as well as season. For instance,…
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The First Sea Trial
I recognize that I’m posting this slightly out of order. This took place in June of 2020. After buying the boat, we took it for a short sail around the southern point of Puget Sound. The boat was moored in Gig Harbor. Gig Harbor has a very narrow, very shallow entrance. Honestly, we are lucky that we just happened to do the first sail during high tide. I didn’t even think to check.
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Renaming Ceremony
We finally got the boat clean enough to where we weren’t embarrassed to have guests aboard. Originally I had planned to have a bunch of friends over, but with the COVID19, we decided it best to limit it to my fake parents, and then have a boat warming party later.
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Cleaning and Reorganizing and lots of Cleaning
You know what’s fun? Cleaning. Especially cleaning something that probably hasn’t been cleaned since Reagan. The boat has been sitting largely untouched for many years. There actually wasn’t too much mildew, but there was a ton of gunk. And junk.
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The Boat Purchase
I’ve been looking for a boat for years. The problem is timing. Here in Seattle, as in most large cities, live aboard slips are limited. Once I live on the boat, I’ll be able to save quite a bit of money. However, until then, I’d have to pay rent for my apartment, and a slip for the boat. At the same time, I knew that I’d need to work on the boat, which would be difficult if I was living on it.
Rebuilding a 1963 Chris Craft Sail Yacht 35 to sail the world
