on the hard in Port Townsend
Week 1 - Halekai on dry land - again
We returned from Fernley, NV with John’s truck around midnight on Tuesday evening and spent a couple of more days at anchor. HaleKai had been a good girl and stayed put while we were away (sigh of relief, it is always a bit unnerving to leave a boat on the hook as the anchor could drag, or the chain fail and the boat would then be adrift😳).
On Friday morning we motored her to the working dock and the rig inspection was started, then she was hauled out with a 75 ton Travelift and set on stands for her new home for the next few months. We are allowed to stay onboard which helps a lot financially. It does come with a few challenges though: the way to get onboard is a steep 14 ft ladder and inside I feel the floor slopes down a bit, makes me feel like she is going to fall over even though it is not possible. And there is no running water. So next half a year will be spent glamping! I love it, but let’s see how I feel about it in 6 months… We do have access to a bathroom, showers and a laundromat which makes it doable. Getting dressed in the middle of the night when the temp is in the 30’s and 40’s to make the bathroom run of 300 yards does sound less than appealing though. So we have an old-fashioned porta-potty onboard. Did I say glamping?! Hmmm…
We just realized that we have owned the boat three years and hauled her out three times. When we first learned that the cruising boats are usually hauled out every two years for the bottom painting and inspection, we though that was a lot, but we have managed to do it even more often. The problem is that, we now feel it is the normal thing to do… Hopefully we get enough things fixed this time so we don’t need to do this again for a few years🤞🤞🤞
Week 2
Week 2 - MASTless!! 😳
This past week’s big happening was the removal of the mast. It totally boggles my mind that a huge 65 ft 12x6 in diameter aluminum stick that weighs 700-800 lbs can be lifted out of the boat without damaging the boat, the mast or the surroundings. We removed the boom and the vang and helped with the removal of the shrouds and stays to help on the cost, and the whole procedure took about 40 mins. The trickiest part was to keep our rod rigging from bending unnecessarily but even that went very smoothly with the direction of Justin, the Rigger.
So why go into such trouble as the rod rigging was done in 2016, mere 8 yrs ago? We had needed to do some repairs to our sail track, and had also loosened and tightened the stays and shrouds while working on various projects (no rigger on Kauai!), and noticed during the sail to Hanalei that the shrouds were too loose (tightened them in Hanalei) and during the crossing over here it became obvious that the forestay was too loose. Also our mast was set in a crooked position and she seemed to have a rake at the masthead forward, not back as it was supposed to be. Also John had not been able to remove and change the old sheaves at the masthead (the old ones are cracked and brittle), the antenna at the top is ancient (not even sure where it leads to as we have another antenna above the bimini), there are a few electrical wires stuck inside the mast, the foredeck light works only occasionally, and the radar detector up there does not work. We also want to do some improvements: replace the winches with a self-tailing large one, install a clutch for each line, add a couple of cleats, possibly place the radar dome on the mast, attach new radar reflector properly,… We want to make sure the mast will stay up and not cause us problems for a while👍 So, she is now down waiting for us to get to her. Added to the list ✔️
Week 3
WEEK 3 - delays, delays, delays...
We were supposed to have a building brought over our boat last Thursday but then the date was moved to Tuesday and then again to this Thursday. Now it looks like it will happen, as the previous renter is taking apart the front structure he needed to build to accommodate his boat in it. 🤞🤞🤞 that it will actually happen tomorrow and I will have something to report next week… We’ve been looking forward to having a shelter from rain, and to be able to control the temperature and humidity (important for fiberglass work and painting!)
In the meanwhile we have gotten more organized, actually done it now 5 times. Not sure why, as I can live in total chaos but John functions better when the work area is neat. I do like finding the tools easier though🥰 He is reforming me…!!!
My friend Katalin has asked many very pertinent questions about our lives on the boat and I realized, I have not explained some aspects of it very well. E.g. how do we get all the stuff up into the boat or out… or how do we get water for doing dishes… or what do we do with the waste water… So here we go: we do have a pulley system in the back (usually used for the dinghy to pull her up out of the water), we hook a bucket or a bag to it and haul her up. And vice versa when stuff needs to go down. There are also plenty of trips up and down the ladder fetching smaller tools:) - When we arrived from Hawaii, we filled out water tanks while at a dock. As our tanks hold about 100 gallons (usually 150 but we have to figure out where the leak is so that we can return to filling them full), we have still been using that water. We cannot use the boat drains though so it is the old-fashioned basin in the sink, that is emptied to a bucket, which after making its way down off the boat (via the afore mentioned pulley system) finds a thankful tree to receive its contents. Probably sounds more cumbersome than it is😏 Actually, on a second thought, everything on a boat is cumbersome. The other day I baked scones. To find what I needed, I basically had to empty three cabinets of stuff to get everything. In a way that is also good, as the cabinets get reorganized all the time and I find stuff we can get rid of or we need to eat before it spoils. So nothing so bad that there wouldn't be something good about it👍
Week 4
Week 4 - oh no, electrical scare...
We got the building (yay!), more about that next week as there was something else that happened this past week… There was a storm coming, as predicted, and we had tied all loose items safely in expectation of up to 50 kt winds. On Saturday evening as we were getting ready to enjoy a cozy evening in the cabin relaxing with Netflix, we noticed that the heater was not working. It did not take long before we also realized that we had no shore power to the boat. When John removed the plug from the boat, the plug had burn marks on it, yikes!! We left it disconnected, watched our show (Dark Winds) on battery power, turned all possible power suckers off (e.g. the freezer for the night and the porta-potty fan) and used headlamps and flashlights as we cannot charge the boat batteries with our engine or the generator; they are both sea water cooled and we are on the hard - high and dry.
Next morning we took the wiring apart and found out that about 4 inches of the wires into the boat were burnt😬 Some scary stuff! Then Sunday and Monday were spent on getting the supplies and fixing the problem. We ended up driving to Seattle to get a Smart Plug that has 20% more contact area than the old style, and felt better after that was connected. However, the electrical problems were not over yet; John noticed that we were getting variable voltage to the boat from the shore connection, it varied anywhere between 105-150V. Power was turned off again and he talked to other boaters in the yard. Our friend CJ from the two boats next door, had also noticed that and informed the office. It turned out that a wire connection had almost burned out on a transformer and a lot of sparks were flying around it. Fortunately the power company was right on it and we had steady power within 2 hours.
Well, what did we learn about all this? We do need out electrical looked at NOW and like totally seriously. I am ready to rewire the boat! I have actually been ready for a long time but I think it has just now moved up on the priority list. I was also totally impressed how much John understood about that stuff😍 Especially that he noticed the fluctuating current. And we will be forever thankful for Dick for his advice and helping us install the Galvanic Isolator. That is probably why we still have a boat! Mahalo nui, Dick🙏🙏🙏 U da bomb!
Week 5
WEEK 5 - port haven at port of port townsend
I should know better than to make promises, and shamefully I need to break one now: the shed is not ready yet so hopefully that episode will come soon… In the meanwhile I might as well tell a bit about this spot we are in right now. I had a hard time finding any postings about the boat yard out here so maybe this will help somebody else.
There are great many boat yards all along the West Coast; luckily our choices were narrowed down by the fact that we were specifically looking to be in a do-it-yourself yard where the owners are allowed to work on their boats and also that we could live aboard while the boat is on the hard. That narrowed our search quite a lot. Our friends are in Napa Valley Marina and they do allow that too but after some discussion with them and other boaters, we decided to stay up in this area for the winter fixing the boat. We have learned a lot about the process and here are some of the pros and cons of staying up here:
PROS:
- People in the area are super friendly and one could not ask for nicer port staff. Would be nice if we could just hang out in their office all day!
- Availability of boat workers and services is phenomenal. There is access to every imaginable service from wooden boatbuilders to metal fabricators and everything in between. We have the sailmakers repair and retrofit our old mainsail and the rigger inspecting and helping install the mast, shrouds and stays. We will also talk to a boat electrician at some point.
- Two chandleries, two grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware store, and the quaint town center with all its stores are all within a walking distance. So is the Saturday Farmer’s Market and the Post Office.
- Pricing of haul-out and time on the hard is much more favorable to our wallet than the Hawaii prices were.
- This is a very beautiful area😍 And the whole Puget Sound and Salish Sea area is very boater friendly with many boating services all around. It is definitely an accepted life-style out here.
- We are in a very good position to head up to Alaska in the spring / summer. It would have seemed like so much longer of a trip from SF up and if we were that far south, Mexico might have been calling too loudly;)
CONS:
- Almost 10% sales tax here in the Washington state!
- There is a paper mill a couple of miles down the coast and when the conditions are right (😜!), the stench from there is quite pungent. For me it is just like another home-coming as I grew up near a paper mill.
- Weather:
- It gets cold here. A few days in a year it snows, and the temp hovers in the 40’s, sometimes even lower in the winter. So if you are planning on doing fiberglass work, you need a heated shelter. There aren’t that many available. But we got lucky to be able to rent a movable metal shed that covers about ⅔ of our boat and then we are building the rest of it. More about that later…
- It is typical for Northern latitudes fall and winter: overcast, gray, rainy or at least misty. Again, some kind of a shelter to do any major outside work on the boat is needed.
- We were very surprised to find out that they have strong windstorms coming through here this time of the year. The shelters over the boats need to be quite strongly built as the winds reach up to 50-65 knots. The storms come quickly, and after a few hours abate, but they can cause havoc in that short time. We saw a jib on a fuller come partially loose and flogging ferociously in the wind making the loudest cracks as it was torn some. On the same night, a folded trimaran fell over to lean on its neighbor. The strangest thing is, that the winds are very localized. Just about 20 miles south, they rarely have these kinds of storms.
Like you see, the weather is the major concern when doing boat projects. Summer time is nice and the yard stays busy all year round.
There is also this Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op and they have a yard next door where people can have their boats the same way as we do at Boat Haven but it is run by the Co-op instead of the Port of Port Townsend. I have heard nothing but good about them also. We actually did not even know about them until we had made arrangements with this yard. It was a bit confusing to us to figure these things out. But here we are, settled in for the winter👍 And we love it! This place is a good fit for us.
Week 6
Week 6 - shelter at last
Week 6 - shelter at last
We rented a metal building that is about ⅔ of the length of our boat to get some cover from the elements. It was absolutely amazing to see how it was moved with a forklift in very tight places. Here it is being moved into place.
Week 6 - shelter at last
Then came the hard part: deciding how to build the rest of the shelter. Two heads, two different sets of ideas, total relationship bliss, hah! 😂 We started by using available ladder-pyramids as corners…
View from our deck toward the front as the framework was starting to take shape. To get to the top parts, our boat neighbor, CJ, lent us a Genie lift, that was able to get me up to the roof beams to work up there. I was skittish but made friends with the Genie and now love her:)
How it looked from outside at night. Some moments were quite scary when I was up on a 25 foot ladder screwing stuff into the walls and the winds started to pick up. We decided that John was stronger to support the ladder for me, so I was the lucky one to go up😳🤪
Then came the struggle with heavy large pieces of thick white plastic that needed to be pulled tight and screwed into supports every 3-4 feet. Last step was to use a 20,000 BTU heat gun to shrink the plastic so that it became very tight and strong. John was wise enough not to even try to pry that gun out of my hands, I was having too much fun!
The finished shelter❣️ Actually only the South end and sides are done but that was most important as the winds come mainly from that direction. Winds up to 50 knots are fairly frequent - that is Beaufort scale 10 for those who are more familiar with that measurement. The edges of the walls are also staked into the ground every 2 feet and we have the front tied to two large blocks. Now just 🤞🤞🤞 that she will withstand the winter storms here.
And our relationship seems to have survived this trial, yay!
Week 7 - halekai's transom gets a "face lift" 🥰
This is how our transom looked. Not too bad, but actually the balsa core between the two fiberglass layers is soft and mushy from water intrusion. It was too weak to install the Hydrovane we already bought...:(
Her name and homeport were hastily added with electrical tape in Papeete before we started our trip to Hawai`i. We couldn't imagine it would last this well for 3.5 yrs and 6,000 ocean miles!
Everything possible has been taken off and I measured carefully three inches from the edge to be able to fair it so that the new layers of glass have a base to attach to (I have been a very diligent student at U-tube University.) Then I used a circular saw to cut along the lines about 3/4 inches deep. Next was the hope that the transom would come off in one piece... and it did! The two exhaust pipes (one for the engine, the other for the hydronic heater) proved to be a bit more of a problem: we actually ended up cutting the fiberglass all the way through to get them off. But this is jumping ahead...
The core was so rotten that about 1/3 of it I could just scoop off with a scraper. The second third I needed to do a bit more work on and the last third I actually needed to pry a bit to get it all off. None of it was hard work😳 It was actually scary how easily it all came off. It is not supposed to be like that... The wood and the gelcoat layer had delaminated (separated) in most places from the fiberglass which it was supposed to be adhered tightly to.
Then came the gouging out of wet and crumbling balsa wood pieces from under the edge of the transom, the part that I had left intact. This week is going to be filled with some fiberglass itch!
While I've been destroying the boat (!), John has been the helping hands for me and keeping the regular things going. He also removed the worn out autopilot RAM, and emptied the bilge. He has also spent a long time doing research and contacting people about our projects.
Amazing how little we seem to get accomplished in a week 🤪
Guess what we figured out was the reason for all this rottenness!? The chainplate that holds the backstay in place, has a part welded in it that sits flush on the deck. When it was set that way, the bottom part of it did not fit in the space allotted for it, so they cut out a piece of the fiberglass behind it, you can see that slit in the pics. That fixed the problem - except it created a new one: over the years enough water was able to enter the balsa in the transom to do all this damage we are now dealing with. Unbelievable! Boats and boat builders and boat fixers... fortunately we won't be there to hear what is said about us after we sell her 🤣
Week 8
Week 8 - a minor set-back...
Well, actually we were a kind of prepared for it: as I was working on the transom - this week I finished building a little “treehouse” on the top of 8 ft scaffolding to hold in the heat, was cleaning out the edges under the remaining part of the transom, drying the area in the bottom with an infrared heatlamp, patching the two exhaust holes, grinding and sanding, making a template, cutting fiberglass mat to size, cutting and patterning the coosa board (a lightweight fiberglass and foam board used in lieu of balsa as a core material) - I noticed a slight gap between the transom knee and the inner fiberglass layer. I should have known better than to check it out!!! But curiosity and sense of duty to do the job right while I’m at it won, and I cut a small area off to take a peak. I better not bet for you to guess what I found, as I know you are right: yes, more rotten wood. The whole inside of that knee is just full of disgusting, wet, dark, almost muddy pieces of what used to be wood. YUCK! After gouging it out for a while, we decided to leave it for now as I needed to shower, do laundry and pack: heading back home the very next day to Hawaii for the Holidays. Enough time for us to think about what is the best plan of attack… Any ideas? Please tell us… besides selling the boat, I mean🤪
Our fancy plastic shed is definitely not waterproof and I ended up building a cover over the table also. In practice that will work out better also as the heat will now be contained below 8 feet instead of escaping up to the 20-ft ceiling. Love the good working spot:) I guess somebody else loves it too, but in a different way!
John changed the seals in the truck’s exhaust as she was getting awfully loud again and removed the old heating system on the boat (Espar hydronic heater). We found out that in the least it will need to be serviced/re-built - if they still happen to have parts for it. Might need to look into a new one… Removing it was a slow, cumbersome, difficult process. We also struggled a day trying to figure out how to unscrew the old exhaust pipes from the transom. No luck so I ended up just cutting them out… Love my power tools! Poor John: he hates to cut holes into our boat. I, on the other hand have no trouble as that means we are progressing forward. Cannot rebuild before cutting the rot out first… So, while I was destroying the boat, he was working on building the back of the shed. That worked for both of us👍🙃
WEEK 9 - john is working alone
This week’s update is from John’s pen as he has been diligently working on the boat while I have been back home in Hawai`i - supposedly working on the house but just having more fun with my daughter and friends and picking up some regular work also… Here is John:
Stern entrance to the shed
This week has had some challenges and some good forward progress for Hale kai. The structure has been completed, we are now in an enclosed structure.
rented metal shed and the structure we have built
The challenges are that the building is a mobile unit and open at both ends and the sides don’t reach the ground. The main portion of the shed (as you will see in the photos) is a little shorter than Hale kai. Shed almost 40 ft, Hale kai 48ish ft.
view into the shed from the bow end doorway
A little lumber, some screws, pallets, a couple of wooden pyramids, a couple of eco blocks, tie down straps, some very heavy shrink wrap, several hours of design and engineering discussions, and we now have a mostly dry place to work in that should be able to withstand the 40 to 50 MPH winds that we have already had and more to come.
Yup, everything on this boat is OLD!
We have removed our antiquated Espar heater and will be sending that out for evaluation. The autopilot’s hydraulic ram will be replaced as the one we have is no longer serviceable.
This was the closest to a research pic we had...😂
Many hours have been spent researching and resourcing parts and information. (e.g. YouTube, forums, vendors and more.)
We are taking the bottom down all the way to gelcoat / fiberglass
And now, sanding has started on the bottom in preparation for CopperCoat. Most of that work we actually hired out as it is very hard work and we are getting short on time already.😏
Week 10 - more sanding and cleaning
While I was in Hawaii, John continued to clean-up and vacuum in the evenings after Pio had stopped sanding the hull.
He did also finish securing the back end of the shed by making wall frames covered with shrink-wrap plastic and a proper door.
The 17th John spent traveling:)
Weeks 11-12 - Merry Christmas and happy new year 2025 ❣️
Week 13
Week 13 - Back home!
The New Year started with no bang for us. We arrived back on HaleKai on New Year’s Eve 2024 tired from the night flight and slept 11 hours. There was not a peep to be heard out here for which we are very thankful for. Celebrations on Kaua`i tend to make the place feel like a war zone with home made bombs and store bought fireworks shaking the house as the neighborhood is having a blast, literally😳. I’m not a fan as the loud sounds cause me a lot of anxiety…
It was great to visit Hawai`i, and especially to be with my daughter, but both John and I realized that it is no longer home. We missed being on the boat! After recovering from the travels, we spent the rest of this week cleaning after the sanding of the bottom is pretty much completed. The sanding dust was everywhere!!! We thought that the closed-vacuum-system would prevent this much better, but alas, that was not the case. Well, this will be the last time we do this! I have already set-up a smaller enclosure for the area to be sanded next so that the dust is better contained. I do not like housework so vacuuming for 2 days straight, I could very well have lived without🤪
I also started school again❣️ That frees up some working space for John to start on his projects while I am away 9a-5p 5 days a week for 12 weeks. I am taking a three month intensive course called Foundations of Woodworking I at Port Townsend School of Woodworking and absolutely love it. I need some more woodworking skills and this opportunity was just too great to pass up. Yes, I know, not the best time as we need to get so much done on the boat but I don’t think we will ever have enough time for this so I’m just doing it. Sink or swim…
Weeks 14 - 19
Weeks 14 - 19 - Being lazy… or not…
Somehow the New Year got going and I never stopped long enough to update the website; if there is anybody waiting for new posts, my apologies. When we talked to friends and family over the Holidays it seems that there isn’t too much interest in these posts - no worries as I am the first to understand how busy one’s life can be. It is hard to squeeze time for everything we want to do. I still want to keep this going as it gives me a chance to look back some day and smile remembering these times… So here is the short of these last few weeks:
In school I am learning tons, including how to make mortises and tenons, dovetails, coplanar faces on wood, evaluate the proper wood to use for a project etc. I am feeling much better about fixing stuff on the boat now even if the course is not specifically designed for boat building. I am surprisingly tired in the evenings and don’t get anything done on the boat front except on the weekends, bummed about that. So I end up catching up on paperwork and relaxing in the evenings. Research for boat things also takes up surprisingly much time.
John has been keeping the general stuff going forward on the home - actually boat - front. He keeps the boat orderly, does the dishes, hauls clean water from the harbor tap filling our tanks, hauls the dirty water away, etc. Besides that he is working on the boat. We did get an electrician to come and evaluate our systems and the verdict was no surprise: we need a pretty good overhaul of the whole system. As a result we are ripping the insides apart to have good access to everywhere. Finally! I’ve been wanting to do this forever already 🤣
We do try to take a day off a week and go for a ride to visit new spots around here. Sometimes we make it to the movies on Two for Tuesdays or some other fun activity, like playing pool. Couple of weeks ago we attended the Seattle Boat Show and learned a lot. John also started working at West Marine, they offer a nice employee discount on most stuff. He is working two 4-hour shifts a week which is perfect for us. We feel like our adventure of sailing has already begun even though we are still fixing the boat. Being out here to fix her is essential; the availability of stuff is just amazing. No more super high prices, shipping fees or “we do not ship to Hawaii”. These little things make life so easy. Life is overall very good and we are loving it out here! 😍
Bench tools we made during the first two weeks of class using only 'old kind' hand tools