Gulf 32 "Merry Me" passes through to Alaska

It's great to see other Gulf 32's come through Friday Harbor and I had a real treat last week when "Merry Me" came through on her way to Alaska. Her owner, Bob, had just taken her on her maiden voyage under his command and made a stop here at San Juan Island to see his friends Debbie and Kimba. They had worked around each other up in Alaska.

She is an older Gulf, about an 82, and there were many differences between her and my 88. In her previous life she had actually spent some time in Friday Harbor as a charter boat, but is now on her way to the great north. Bob has his hands full with the usual projects one faces when you take ownership of a boat. Nobody seems to sell their boat at the peak of their maintenance schedules!

I'm jealous of his voyage north, and feel kindred he will do so in a Gulf 32. This marks the second Gulf 32 to pass through here on their way to Alaska this spring.

SV Silent Partner returns from going around Vancouver Island

My friends Adam Mims and Peter Frost just returned from their off season voyage around Vancouver Island on Peter's O'Day 27 "Silent Partner". He and she are veterans of several trips into northwestern Alaska and she is well outfitted for offshore trips. Still, weather offshore in April can be dreadful.

Turns out they had remarkably good weather and sailed 85% of the time. They said they had SE winds going up the inside and NW winds coming down. They hit rough water at Nahwiti Bar and the Brooks Peninsula, but nothing beyond their comfort zones. I think they said their highest winds maybe hit 35 or 40. Gales, but not storms. They had to hold up in Bamfield for several days to wait out one strong storm, but then did a 100 mile day from there straight to Victoria. Left Bamfield at 2:30 am and made it to Victoria at something like 7pm. Said they had rough patches at Swiftsure banks and did a lot of surfing on the way in.

They had a tremendously good time, with all the usual highlights of a trip like this, but perhaps the most unusual and special place they visited was the upper reaches of Knight Inlet. They went all the way up and gained anchorage on a sand bar off one of the countless drainages. Sounded truly extraordinary. Huge mountains and countless waterfalls. They saw a pod of about 100 pacific white sided dolphins in the upper part of Knight Inlet, and Pete said that is where he sees them most often, is up the inlets.

It was a pure pleasure to host these sailors at the start and end of their voyage, and they were all the better for having done it.

Away from the slip to Jones Island

Finally, after what has seemed an eternity, Aeolus is back together enough for use and we took full advantage and went over to Jones Island for the day on Sunday. Tackling the steering system meant that Aeolus was out of commission for that time, and although it was only a few weeks, the weeks had been beautiful sailing conditions and it killed me to have her stuck at the slip. I am still working on the new bow hatch, but that doesn't keep her from being sailed.

Sure enough, we couldn't have our cake and eat it too. Sunday was beautiful here in the San Juan Islands, but alas, no wind. There had been perfect sailing wind so many days prior to Sunday, but no luck taking advantage of it.

Heading over to Jones is like heading home. Once again, we had the entire south cove to ourselves and people stayed away by the millions. What few boats go to Jones outside of July and August seem to always go to the north cove, even when there are north winds. Baffling. The south cove has a far better beach, and is bathed in sunlight. As you can see from these pictures, it was a warm and beautiful day and we had the place to ourselves. The boys played in the water and we tidepooled all around.

While lounging, two bald eagles came over to eat something that was on the beach. They were fairly close, and we got to watch them at leisure. How often do you share a pocket beach with feeding bald eagles???

Anchoring here is easy, and the holding is good. Depths are about 30 feet, which is outside the range of most eelgrass and so that feels good. There are a couple mooring buoys, but we're cheap and honest, most of the time on both scores.

Begin forward sliding hatch replacement

The forward sliding hatch on a 1988 Gulf 32 uses teak rails as the guides for the sliding hatch. When new, it probably looked nice and worked well, but 20 year old teak starts to get brittle when neglected and the edges of my rails were cracking and broken in places. It was fine for inside waters here around the San Juan Islands and Georgia Strait, but you wouldn't want a large offshore wave crashing onto your bow.

Replacing the hatch had been on my mental list for some time, and so I've been taking measurements and pricing things.

I ended up going with a Lewmar Ocean 70 hatch, which should be a pretty exact fit. I read about other hatch companies, but either their standard models didn't fit my opening or I couldn't find a retailer for them. Price would be an issue too with some of them. Unbelievably, West Marine had the best price as they were having a huge sale on them. That, my friends, never happens. They even beat Defender and PY Yacht and Fisheries. Anyway, I order my hatch and what do I discover? It's used. Yes, you read that correctly. West Marine sent me a used hatch. They made good when I called and sent a new one that came: slightly damaged. Something had pierced the packing box and slightly scratched the acrylic lens. Oh well, I can live with that, since it'll happen soon anyway.

Removing the old teak rails has proved very tough. The screws holding it in are cheap little bastards with small heads that strip easily. Plus, they used 5200 to bond the teak to the coaming. This bastard is just not coming off easily. This is great, except that the top part of the teak that actually holds the hatch in place was brittle and cracked and broken. This bottom part that is so solid is sort of wasted strength, as the top is the business end. Anyway, here are some pictures of the carnage. I had to drill off the screw heads in many cases because they stripped. then it was a pry bar affair, pretty much. I'll have to do some modest fiberglass and gelcoat work, but nothing big. Once I get all this cleaned off, I can put on the new hatch, which should be very nice.

Reseating the steering pedestal

Hit a milestone with the reassembly of my steering system yesterday with the reseating of the steering pedestal. When first removed, I found that it had been seated with butyl rubber using a thin seal around the edge and a thick bulge just inside to prevent water intrusion even if something got past the lip. I decided it worked well for 20 years so I might as well stick with it. After drilling otu the bolt holes through the epoxy I began to put it all together.

The first thing was to clean all the corrosion of the SS bolts. The aluminum pedstal and SS bolts creates the problem. I saw the Edson now tries to sell aluminum bolts to solve this, and wants a crazy price for them when all it takes is a little Lanacote to solve the problem. I cleaned out the pedestal holes, lubed them up with Lanacote, put a bead of butyl rubber around the bolts and pressed them into the holes. Even though the lanacote will prevent the butyl rubber from sealing tightly against the pedestal bolt hole, it is all hydrophobic and will more than do the job. I couldn't be sure the butyl rubber would protect the bolt in all places from further corrosion and so took this step.

When pressed in, the butyl rubber squirted out nicely from around the bolt head. From under the cockpit, I could also reach up through the larger hole and press down the butyl rubber lip to the cockpit and get a good seal. Now I just need to reassemble all the pulleys and cables under the cockpit and check their adjustment. You can also see the upgrade to the far better pedestal guard feet. The original ones were plastic crap.

I love Butyl rubber for sealing!

I must sing the praises of butyl rubber here. When I replaced my pilothouse windows the original ones had been sealed with butyl tape and when I removed it, it was like new after 20 years. After reading about butyl rubber various places, I came to see how amazing the stuff is for certain applications. I've used almost every sealant known to mankind at some time or another, and none of them earn my love as much as butyl rubber.

Everywhere it has been used on Aeolus remained bone dry after 20 years in the Northwest. The stuff does the job impeccably. It sealed the steering pedestal to the deck for pete's sake, which means it was exposed to water under pressure, and when I removed the pedestal recently, there had never been so much as a drop of water to ever make it under the butyl rubber.

For applications where sealing is the only needed, and not bonding, it wins for me hands down.

1. It's sticky enough to stick to surfaces and prevent water from passing.
2. It lasts forever, I mean forever, and does not need replacing every X years like polysulfide. I've removed a lot of 20 year old butyl rubber from Aeolus and the stuff is like brand new.
3. It goes on, and comes off, without mess. NO mess. Polysulfide stinks and is a major mess.
4. It stores indefinitely and unlike tubes of polysulfide or silicone or polyurethane, doesn't go bad.
5. Last and least, it is fun to play with!

Note on plywood core rebedding

Just a note to say that all the books I read about rebedding hardware in cored fiberglass must assume the wood is balsa, because they always show using a bent nail to eat out the wood core to leave a doughnut of empty space that you fill with epoxy. Well, let me tell you, that on my Gulf 32 they used some high grade plywood as the wood core, and unless it is rotten, that stuff is as hard and solid as you would ever hope. There is no way you can chip it away with a bent nail, I've tried. I've even tried to eat it away with my Dremel tool but it's a pain and not very successful. It's just not worth trying. My solution has just been to drill the hole out big enough that when filled with epoxy, and redrilled at a smaller size for the bolt, a rim of hardened epoxy is left around the bolt to serve the purpose of preventing water intrusion into the wood.

Can't follow the books on this one!