The Goose Comes Home and a Jib Comes Down

It only took a year but the Goose is finally home! Yes the famous "eXpedition" eDition by the indomitable Andy Lin is now safe and secure in my yard. I'll let the pictures tell the story of the move.

Sitting forlornly on her trailer.

Throwing some Titebond at a corner

All hooked up and ready for a move

Safe at home

Some work was done on the Blue Flower as well. I've encountered a few problems with lowering her jib during rising winds. The obvious answer was a downhaul. So after a quick trip to Ace work began in earnest, the Typesetter working and me photographing. First up was adding a nylock to the jib block. (There is probably a better name for this particular block but I'll simply put up a picture.)

Flattering picture of the Typesetter digging under the foredeck

Lending a hand. Literally

With the block in place we set up the downhaul. Seems there were a few other bits on the boat at one time as there are three distinct holes in the bowsprit. We added a block, ran the line through the hanks and a downhaul was had. Here are some pictures.

Always excited to get a new line on the boat

Through the block and aft. A great setup!

The second issue we tackled was the consistent issue with the triple block set up on the mainsheet. I've never been happy with the slow response and the amount of drag in the set up. Maybe with her original 80sqft of polytarp but now it's overkill and more so dangerous. I'm unable to get the boom far enough with sheet to control her safely and the slow response can be killer in high wind. My last  few forays in wind I've attached the mainsheet directly to the boom and held it in hand for better feel and control. After a bit of discussion it was decided a traveler rig was the best set up. We could have opted for a fancy double block but a single ring was used instead. The swivel block from the old set up was attached to the boom after a bit of eyebolt wrestling by the human vice and the new set up shows marked improvement while on the hard. We hope to do water testing soon!

Notice too that pictures have returned to the blog! My camera has already survived one capsising and is still going strong. Look for more pictures and adventures soon!

Busy Summer

Launch of my boat with it's original 80sqft sail plan. Stolen shamelessly from the Sleeping Schnauzer.

 It's been a fairly busy couple of days. Seze is now full rigged and waiting to return to her trailer. The varnish really improves the appearance of the vessel. Now he won't admit it, but when I first introduced him to wooden boats The Typesetter couldn't understand why people varnished wooden boats to make them look like fine cabinets. I think he understands now, his boat has more bare varnished wood then both of mine put together. Or it could just be a happy accident.
 Re-rigging the boat was an experience in itself. I have no camera and forgot to take notes when I disassembled the rig. I was left with spars ten miles away and a literal plastic bag of boat parts Now my rig is far from being the most complicated, I would imagine most plastic boats this size have far more rigging bits then mine, but it seemed daunting nonetheless. All my life I've been taking stuff apart. Sometimes to see how it worked, other times to simply take it apart for the sake of seeing how many parts were in it. And I can't count on one hand the times I put what I took apart back together. So while taking it apart is a theme,  putting it back together certainly isn't. Well the Typesetter put three good coats of spar varnish on my bits and let me know he was done. So with nothing else to do I picked them up and figured I'd wait a bit to look at pictures and the like to prepare.
 Turns out I'm also impulsive and impatient. What started as simply putting the bits back on turned into fully re-rigging the boat. First up was putting the pulleys and metal sidebars on the lower mast. Now when Andy rebuilt her, in his finite wisdom he added a tabernacle mast much like the one found on his Weekender. I'll spare you the details but just to say the first time I put it together I got it all backwards. On the plus side judging by the holes and wear telltales on the mast I was not the first to make this mistake.
 The rig proper was fairly easy to get done. I did learn that my fear of heights disappears when I'm rigging a gaff rig ten feet up on a shaky aluminum ladder. Who knew, right?
 With and extra day off evening work I pulled the Trudy off the blocks she's been resting on all winter and wrung out her spirit sail for the first time in a year. She's rested about as well as one would expect. A full restoration would be required to get her up to snuff. I could sail her now but a few hours of work will make her her truly ship shape once more. One thing that did impress me, as it always does is the simplicity of her sprit sail. I'd forgotten I'd added a boom and she responded well while yard sailing today. I think I'll need to fashion a proper mast and spars for her. And redo the rudder with less haste and more thought to actually making it work. Once I get the bugs worked out I hope to use her as my training ship for prospective captains and mates to Blue Flower. If you can sail an eight foot dinghy with a sprit rig I figure you can sail just about anything, certainly a 12' gaff rigged microjammer.
 As work continues on my current fleet a few nagging thoughts come up. As always, what is the next boat. This has been a constant on this blog and it's no closer to getting solved. The fact is I have a boat I can finish without too much work. She's the eXpedition Goose, 12' of pure Andy Linn innovation and planning. Really a scaled up Salem Electron, a PDR he sailed on the 2009 Texas 200. She's got a centerboard, rakish shape, a cloud of sail and designed for long distance solo sailing. Andy actually just finished his last? Texas 200 in an Perttu Korhonen designed Oooze Goose. She's carry four comfortably and be safe for Flathead if I wanted to take her out on big water. The cost is finishing up the centerboard, painting, framing and decking. And finding a 100sqft lug sail.
 Currently she sits in the Typesetters boat yard with a coat of primer and no wood work completed. It's almost August and I can't leave her there forever, nor in that state. She was given to me for free and she's mine so finding something to do with her is up to me. Part of me want's to find her a nice family who'll use her every weekend. I mean I could use her every weekend and I may end up doing that but only time will tell.
 IF I were to have a next boat, the list is short. Bolger Tinycat (Bobcat), Mayfly 14 and the Goat Island Skiff. All have their plus's and minus' but they are all a step up from the Super Teal. They will require more attention, patience, materials and money then my current build. If I were to add an in between boat I'd include the Bolger Payson Windsprint.
 But 80% of boating is planning and scheming that rarely comes to fruition.But it's a damn sight better then nothing at all!

Quiet Times and Reflections

HMS Wee Rose. A Bolger Nymph done up to the nines by Rick Cambell. If a Nymph can do it, why not a Teal?

It's been quiet on the physical front but certainly not quiet on the mental one. One of the ideas forwarded to me about the S/V Blue Flower by it's former owner and co-builder Andrew Linn was that I should turn her into a show boat. That is make this Teal and example of the breed for wooden boat shows across the Pacific Northwest. And that is the route I've decided to take. This will require a bit of work over the coming fall and winter. The list is quite long and growing but for prosperity's sake I figured I'd throw it up here. And here it is in no particular order.

1. Take the gunnels down to bare paint and brightwork them.
2. Remove all spars and brightwork them.
3. Rework rigging as required to achieve the proper look
4. Repaint deck in Royal Blue
5. Touch up interior as needed
6. Brightwork the seat, rudder and lee board.
7. Rework the seat to make it removable and stowable
8. Make duckboards for the floor
9. Repaint the Hull
10. Get a proper cover the boat itself
11. Figure out a proper anchor set up
12. Make and brightwork a boom crutch
13. Design and make a boom tent.
14. Get new sails built and/or ordered
15. Install deck cleats fore and aft

The idea again is to make a windjammer in miniature. It'll be a longer process then I was thinking and a bit more expensive but I think the end result will be worth it. A very unique vessel with a strong pedigree that will with luck get more people into building and sailing their own boat. The goal is to have all this done by the CWB's Home Built Boats weekend 2012 where the S/V Blue Flower will make her full debut.
  I downloaded and watched a delightful multi-part BBC documentary called The Boats That Built Britain hosted by master mariner Tom Cunliffe. It was a wonderful look at some of the vessels that grew the mighty British empire and should not be missed by any true sailing or boating aficionado. As an outgrowth of my interest in Mr  Cunliffe I ran across one of this books Hand, Reef, and Steer: Traditional Sailing Skills for Classic Boats. This is an amazing in depth look at setting up and sailing the gaff rig. From handling your vessel under sail in a harbor to rigging a forestay this is a must have for those who sail this classic rig. It is a bit dense for those of us with a hobby knowledge of the rig but the wonderful illustrations and photos help guide one along and all those new words and actions start to make sense.
  Tom answers all his own email and I am tickled pink that he's graciously put a signature in the post for me. Technology is truly amazing when a new gaff rig owner in the high mountain dessert of Montana can correspond with one of the worlds greatest gaff rig sailors halfway across the globe.
  What of the PDGoose you may ask? Well it's also in the list of things to get done this autumn, at least to the point I can in good conscious leave it over the winter, ready for spring. A name has been tentatively given and the S/V Flying Fox should make a grand sight on the inland waters of Montana.