The End of a Season

The end to our first season in the water

We put our boat in the water on July 30th, 2018 after being on the hard (on land) since September, 2016. The boat, as you may have read already, underwent a major retrofit with all new electrical, electronics, plumbing, toe rails, and major structural repairs made. We have had to replace all the rigging and lifelines as well. Many other miscellaneous projects were completed too. We spent July through October sailing outside of Port Townsend and continuing with the myriad of projects needed to make the boat ready for a long sail.

Why did we pull the boat out?

We were sad to pull the boat out and leave it on the hard. We made the decision to store the boat on the hard for a few reasons. First, the cost to have the boat on the hard was slightly cheaper than keeping it in the water. Second, we planned to have the boat at Point Hudson in Port Townsend and while it’s beautiful there, we hear the water can get quite rough in bad weather. I envisioned myself worrying about the boat coming loose and sinking. Lastly, we still have about 4 big projects left to do including work on the prop and thought having the boat on the hard might be easier to do this work in the winter.

Getting our boat ready for winter

The first thing we did when we put our boat on the hard was to make a canvas cover for the boat. This was an interesting challenge and I’ll post about this in another entry. The boat cover took us two weeks to make and it seems to be doing the job! We also had to clean the bilge because we had a gas spill. We decided it would be a good idea to top off the gas tank before pulling the boat out for the winter. We filled the tank with 13 gallons and then the gas started leaking around a seal into the engine room. Now we have project number 6 to do during the off season. We also did what we could to ready the boat for winter storage such as opening all the cabinet doors, taking off all perishables, propping up the mattresses, taking off the floor boards, emptying the water tanks and opening all the seacocks. We also removed our clothes and all our winter sewing projects and supplies. We turned on the fans and set the heater on low. We put locks on the outboard and secured the companion way. Then we walked away to our next adventure off of our boat. We were a bit melancholy when we left the boat. It felt like leaving a child behind at daycare.