Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas from our house to Yours!

We are delighted to have such a beautiful White Christmas. Our tree lined driveway is lovely to behold, but we are walking up and down until the snow melts. Oh, how I wish we had four wheel drive!

The copper downspout on our roof in the image of a flying goose is outlined in ice.

The infrequent snow in our area is beautiful and appreciated until the ice storms hit and we lost power. Then we wish we had not wished for a White Christmas!

Our resident herd: buck, doe and yearling buck taking time for lunch at the bird feeder.

We had a beautiful white christmas, unusual for this part of Oregon. Record snowfall for the Portland area, and of course, since this area is not equipped to handle this much snow we also had major power outages across the Willamette Valley. In our little town of Dallas, about 17,000 we had 5600 homes without power. We have natural gas so we had the gas fireplace for warmth and the cooktop for lots of warm meals. Candles and oil lamps provided night time light for games and reading. But after four days without power we were so thankful Christmas Eve afternoon when the power came back on and we had nice long hot showers. Our thanks and appreciation goes out to the many workers at the Pacific Power Company for all their hard work restoring out power!

We don't know how our boat is fairing up in Hood River Marina. The Columbia Gorge highway, Interstate 84, has been closed for much of the time, and the rest of the time either deep snow or freezing rain is keeping us home. We asked a boat neighbor to check on the boat and remove snow if possible. Since we have not heard we are assuming all is well. At leasts until we get up there to check ourselves. Not so with our boating friends Rob and Becky. Their boat the "Maxine" (seen in pictures of our trip back up to Hood River) (previous posting) was almost sunk when the covered marina in Scappose, Oregon collapsed due to the weight of the snow. Luckily for Rob and Becky their boat was one of three able to be removed from the collapsed docks. They are now waiting repairs to their damaged boat.

We're back in our slip at Hood River!

After our launch we went down river for a week and stayed at McCuddy's Big Oak Marina in Scappose Oregon. The Multanomah Channel is a great place, quiet, very green banks and a slow moving channel. Lovely mornings waking to a fog shrouded channel gradually the sun would peek through and burn off the fog leaving bright and sunny days. It was a lovely time. But it was time to go back to our home port of Hood River. We took 3 days to get there, traveling in company with Rob and Becky in their CHB 34 trawler. We had great weather, sunny and in the low 70's with no wind, a very peaceful uneventful day. The end of the first day we overnighted at Camas/Washougal on the Washington side of the river. A great harbor with a delightful restaurant on the water. The next day we got off about 10 am, motored to Beacon Rock where we lunched then started upriver against the current. Bonneville Dam was letting water out of the dam and it took a couple of hours running the engine at full throttle against the current only to be making about 1/2 a knot over the ground. We were keeping to the Washington shore line running in about 15 foot depth against 5.5 knots of current when our engine quit. No sputtering, just stopped. Walt called out "drop the anchor" and believe me it was down in short order. In those few seconds we drifted back in the current several hundred feet until our anchor grabbed hold, but was bouncing on the gravel bottom. Walt changed fuel tanks and miraculously the engine started immediately. I did not have the strength to bring in the anchor (by hand) so we changed places, Walt on the anchor and me on the helm, got everything secure and were on our way again. Just like nothing had happened! We were fortunate! Could have been a disaster! We still do not know why the engine quit, if we had run out of fuel the engine would not have started right up because of air in the lines. Only goes to show, you should always have an anchor rigged and ready to deploy!

After that "adventure" going thru the locks was a piece of cake. We spent the night at Cascade Locks and awoke in the morning to fog and rain. Again, it was beautiful. We were prepared with foul weather gear and the rain was not hard so it was a comfortable trip thru the fog shrouded Gorge. Once we reached Wind Mountain near Hood River the sun was out and we got the boat back to it's slip in Hood River Marina. Nice to be back home again!

The down river trip with Rob and Becky in their boat was delightful! Warm, sunny and not too much wind, we sat up on the bridge deck and made it back to Scappose, their home port in 2 days.

So, winter is setting upon us. We still have the mast to work on this winter and Marty will be sewing our Sailrite sail kits for the furling genoa and mainsail. Next spring....after resetting a newly rerigged mast and rigging, we hope to head to Puget Sound.

See you here on this blog next Spring to continue (or really begin) the Chronicles of Brigadoon!

Update at Last!

September 30, 2008. We launched today. After some adjustments we were off down river towards Scappose, Oregon, which is on the Multanomah Channel which runs between the Willamette River and the Columbia River. We are operating as a motor boat because

Walt will paint and re-rig the mast this winter in Salem . Sorry that I was unable to update the blog, but I forgot how to upload pictures. Hopefully this time I will be more successful.

So to backtrack......

4th of July 2008 A MILESTONE today! We put the bottom back on the boat! After all those months of grinding and sanding last fall and all the winter months undercover drying out, we have spent the last month adding epoxy fairing compound and fairing smooth the bottom. On July 4, a couple of great friends came and helped us with a marathon day of applying the two-part epoxy barrier coat (to help keep the water out of the fiberglass). A total of 5 coats, applied almost continuously. The weather was perfect, a mild 74 degrees, with only an occasional raindrop, the coats of epoxy barrier coat would just have time to get to the tacky stage so that we could apply the next coat before it set up. With two teams, one partner mixing the epoxy barrier coat and the other rolling it on; a team on each side of the boat, we managed to apply 5 coats in about 8 hours. Accompanying photos show the different colors of each coat: the pink on the bottom is the fairing compound, then alternating coats of grey then white.

Early August.....we painted the green stripe below the decks, and hurried towards finishing up the multitude of projects we had started this winter while under cover. August 24, Walt's college buddy Mike came up from California and helped us put the rudder back on, install the new shaft, propeller and cutlass bearing. Then he painted the bottom with the Bottomkote to keep off the marine growth. The boat was becoming to look like it was ready to be done!

Mid-September we found that finishing up all those projects would take more time than we expected (who would have guessed!) and launch date was slipped back to the end of September.

We scheduled launch for September 30 and had to scurry to meet that date, and of course there are still things that need to be completed, but we can do those in the water over the next month and winter. It's great just to be back on the water.

Needless to say, the last 15 months in the boat yard have been productive, we have a new-0ld boat. We're exhausted and looking forward to some months at home, but will continue projects (including new sails) . God willing we will be sailing in the San Juans next summer.

Will continue to post occasionally, thanks for your patience in following our Chronicles!

The blustery days of winter are hopefully over, but the rain and wind continue. The promise of Spring is in the air! Even so we still have gotten some work done.

Current in progress: forward hatch replacement with Lewmar Ocean series hatch; (main hatch replacement will come later);

installation of Maxwell windlass; removal of bow pulpit and all lifelines for rebedding and backing plates;

removal and repair of steering pedestal and replacement of steering cables; removal and replacement of traveler with Garhauer traveler;

continuing on rebuilding forepeak with installation of new water and sewage tanks, repair of old water tank and insulation of forepeak. Of course, all this is all going on at the same time: work for an hour or two on something until you run out of parts or the resin has to cure or the body needs rest. So the whole boat is in a state of uproar! But we are at a point where things are going back together.

Things are starting to come together and it is my hope that I will be better at keeping you informed of our progress. Keep in touch!

We are still at it!

Yes, we are still working... this winter in Portland has been a stormy one. Several major wind storms that either damaged the structure holding up the tarp or completely tore off the tarp. A couple trips back up to the boat yard to make repairs... we completely rebuilt the PVC structure, replacing it with 2x2 frames. That plus 4 snow storms in Dallas; one in particular dropped 8 inches on our hilltop. I know, that's not much compared to other parts of the USA, but here in Dallas, Oregon it's memorable.

Because of the stormy weather we manage just a few days working on the boat installing what we have fabricated at home. Walt has built several wiring panels to match the commercial ones. The set shown is for bilge pump and fuel tank selection for the diesel. The head configuration is totally from the hull up and different from most Ericson MkII's. By switching the position of the cabinet and sink, we gained 3 cubic feet of storage! This whole change was brought about because of the rotten bulkheads that held the side chainplates. Walt repaired the chainplates by fabricating solid fiberglass inserts and tabbing them to the hull. Now, nothing to rot!

Also in process is the installation of the new 316L stainless tanks (28 gal water and 28 gal holding) fabricated by Leonard French Welding. Leonard did a great job on the tanks and we can recommend his work! The whole story of this refit fits into this scenario: "While we are.... we might as well ....". So while we are waiting for warmer weather to re-fiberglass the hull, we might as well install our new hatches; remove and rebuild the steering system; remove and replace the propeller shaft, mechanical seal, and propeller, plus, plus, plus.

Funny story about the propeller and shaft. We took the shaft into Sheffield Marine for advice on the shaft, and after looking at the whole system, they said that the existing prop was for a high speed highly cavitating prop for a speed boat. No wonder it did not work well! Another recommendation for a marine service.


So, yes, we are still working. But major things are being completed. Besides, all boating is fun...right? Even on the hard!