The Portside Restoration Begins!

Hello All!

This is Zach and I am going to try and post weekly updates on this blog and Facebook about our portside project. I am also hoping to get some of the other crew to post as well so you can hear different stories and perspectives!

The other maintenance volunteers involved in this process are Nora, Aleythea, and Adam. Our winter mate is Beth and Captain Korie is our fearless leader. We all met yesterday morning (Jan 4) and Korie gave us a great overview of the project and her hopes for the season.

After Korie's pep-talk, we launched into it. We're working with Haven Boatworks, and their shipwrights are cool fellows. Blaise and Leland seem to be our main shipwrights and they're great at pulling us aside and explaining what they're doing. Through their instruction I've learned what a "proud" board is--one that stands out from the ones around it and is generally newer--and also how to use a reefing tool and a brace.

Our first day we got the anchor and the 360 feet of chain off the ship, we got the liferaft off, the shipwrights started putting up the scaffolding, and our stairs were finished. That was nice because hauling gear up a ladder was a little unnerving! Adam also wrecked a few boards out of the engineers locker and, I think, removed a through-hole.

Today,we removed bungs from the port caprail, the shipwrights removed a plank from the portside, and the majority of the day was spent continuing construction of our shelter. Right now, it looks a lot like a whale's ribs covering our deck. Also, Edinsaw lumber delivered the purple-heart wood and it's beautiful.

That's all for now. Be looking for more posts in the future and there may be videos.

Until then, fair winds!
Zach
Pictures:
The lady here in orange is our winter mate, and I threw in this picture of the rudder and propeller because I don't think many people get to see it! I was really excited to see it for the first time.