Rikka AKA Scooter AKA the sea-fearingest-sailor

This last week we took a long land-voyage and had one of the busiest 2-week stretches in a while, and I was not able to get an email update out. My sincerest apologies.

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Before our great western loop, my sister Rikka flew into San Diego for a weekend of sailing and merriment. She was a more enthused sailor than most guests and I suspect it had something to do with her not trusting her dumb little brother could pull off the whole sailing thing. She was convinced we’d die off the coast of Oregon so she wanted us to prove that we knew what we were doing. We spent her first day in town cruising up and down the San Diego bay seeing the sights and ships. After that, she kindly insisted we do another day sailing outside of the bay to see the open pacific and some better wind and swell.

We spent super bowl Sunday with Chuck and Kitsy and as always at their house ate like kings.

We also made two attempts at the Cabrillo monument national park hoping for the combination of low tide, and low popularity so we could experience the tide pools. This was a highlight. We spent hours wandering the slippery rocks looking at all manner of sea creatures: Rainbow Sea Stars, Sea hares, fish, hermit crabs, snails, non-rainbow starfish, and dozens of un-identifiable-brightly-colored-oddly-shaped aliens.

We crammed in a beach day, long dinghy ride, found an ancestor’s grave at the Point Loma Military Cemetery, a fish taco night, and even some movies. I’d like to think we’re getting more efficient at hosting guests and stacking the days with festive, sea-related activities. We also scored the best oranges I’ve ever tasted willy nilly in a golf cart on the side of the road.

This visit nearly rounds out the last of our immediate family members to see & sail on scooter. Maria & Schmitz are the remaining outliers but they have a great excuse, hence the reason for our Wild-West-Winnie-(w)Road-Trip. Tales from the long drive coming soon. Aka tomorrow.

Throwback Time!

Frankly, this week was a little underwhelming. I even postponed the newsletter a couple of days hoping something exciting would happen. Here’s a brief recap:

Gale force winds kept us from leaving the San Diego Yacht Club as planned. We provisioned to leave the docks for a few weeks, but the wind angered the seas, and our Catalina plan was put back on hold.

The coast guard paperwork may be done soon, and with a special visitor planned (Aunt Scootie), we looked to hunker down in San Diego a while longer. It took a few days on the phone with every marina in town but we finally lucked out and found a slip. They were very gracious and allowed us a short term liveaboard contract.

We went to a birthday party! Shoutout to S/V Space Cowboy for inviting us and making us feel like we have local friends. We had a bunch of fun dinners with Chuck & Kitsy. I played golf with Dave, and Taylor hung out with our friends, Max & Matt Jones who were visiting from SF. Despite being pinned down, we had a ton of fun.

Anyway, in lieu of a more fascinating update, here’s a throwback tale to another pinned-down-by-wind story.

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Last summer, post-decision not to go South, we spent some time touring the San Juan Islands. This was Tay and my first time cruising just the two of us after Hannah and Joe returned to land.

We bit off more than we could chew one day. Passing between two narrow islands with a significant current rushing between them, we had full sails up, a fishing rod in the water, and while Taylor helmed I had an entire disassembled outboard sprawled about the cockpit. We hooked a fish, and chaos ensued. We traded off reeling and steering and trying to wrangle the sails, while every nut and bolt from the outboard tried to get lost.

It was a good marriage exercise while we yelled at each other trying to survive. The boat got close to the rocks on shore then close to the passing ferry, then close to the various sailboats, then back to the shore. Tay landed the whopper of a Salmon, and a flopping fish in the spare motor parts added another tier to our chaos cake.

We got the sails down, bonked the fish, stashed it in the cooler, and got the outboard cleaned up. We sailed into Friday Harbor as we calmed down and apologized to each other. As we rolled in, the sky on one side was violently dark while the other was clear blue. We got into a slip right as the wall hit. In the days pre-dodger, we had to set up a tarp over the cockpit.

The storm lasted 4 days which took a big hit out of our budget, Friday Harbor was one of the most expensive marinas at the time. But we were content. We watched all 5 Pirates of the Caribbean movies, ate ungodly amounts of salmon, and sat in the rain.

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Knock on wood we get pinned down in places this amazing from here on out.

A much needed break from projects.

Boat improvements are still at the forefront of our minds and always will be I suspect. But this week, we finally got out to explore.

Wednesday we motored up to the cute little town of Poulsbo. The bay was relatively warm and the day was hot so we dove in. It was refreshing and we seized the opportunity to scrub the hull of our dinghy ‘Scootie’. We later found out from a local that they ‘wouldn’t dip their feet in the gross bay’. Oh well.

Thursday it stormed. We were dedicated to plowing 25 miles north to Port Townsend so we sat in the wind, rain, and waves for 5 hours slogging along under diesel power. We could’ve sailed. Probably should’ve. But for a list of reasons, we chose not to. A tear in the sail (the reason for heading north) and the discomfort of beating into a 20 knot rainy wind were the top reasons. Eunice got sea-sick. Our first sea-induced barf on scooter goes to Captain Eunice.

We got to Port Townsend, dropped the hook, and enjoyed a beer with the other boat crew still signed up for the 2020 Coho Hoho (the rally to San Fran). Back at anchor, waves kept pounding us until about midnight when, mercifully, the sea returned to glass.

this picture was taken several days later when we weren’t getting tossed around.

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Rydell and Kyla, our college friends, pulled into the parking lot as we pulled up to the fuel dock as planned at 6:30 am. Side note, it’s been the biggest blessing in the world having Kyla & Rydell living nearby. Having generous people who love boats, boat projects and have tools and laundry machines has been incredible. If we make it south, it will be to the credit of the Reinbolds.

We shoved off and headed north for a Tour-de-San-Juan. The Straights of Juan de Fuca were calm, we didn’t catch any fish, but we did learn that ‘San Juan’ and ‘Juan de Fuca’ are not the same ‘Juan’.

We popped into our favorite anchorage, Watmough bay, and went for a hike. A rope swing and an astounding view of the bay awaited us.

We pulled the hook, continued to fish, and sailed north. The rain returned but we would not be deterred from breaking our single-day distance record.

We crossed the 60-mile line just east of Sucia Island, the “Jewel of the San Juans”.

En-route, Rydell spotted a washed away crab pot buoy. Hoping it would be attached to a lost crab pot, and maybe full of crabs, the girls took control of the boat, and Rydell and I took command of Scootie.

The 3 buoys were just connected to a severed line, but for what Westmarine charges, we were thrilled with our find. Ironically, Rydell had a crab pot but didn’t bring it for lack of a legal buoy.

Thankfully Saturday was dry for the hikes & dinghy rides.

the china caves on Sucia island, keeping us all entertained.

We returned to the water and waved at the Canadian gulf islands as we headed South. The port of Friday Harbor was packed too tightly for Scooter to find a safe anchorage so we pressed on. Thank goodness we did because the wind picked up and we were finally able to show Kyla & Rydell what all the hype was about. Sails filled, Scooter leaned, charcuterie spilled, but we were all so filled with joy.

The highlight of the weekend for me was the Saturday afternoon hike with Eunice.

She’s a lousy hiker but is pretty good at riding contently on our shoulders.

It was a treat to be hosting friends and under sail again.

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Now that we’re moving again, the next stop is to visit a sailmaker in Anacortes. Today we sailed 35 miles North and removed our Main Sail. Hopefully, they can help our aging sail without ruining the budget.

Scooter is Naked and docked next to a 150-foot megayacht but still manages to be our little proud ship.

Living right on a knife’s edge of being overwhelmed.

We got back to the boat last Wednesday and immediately got back to work. Taylor is taking on the spray dodger. Basically the windshield and roof of the cockpit. These are generally canvas and vinyl and professionally sewn are $2000-ish. Way outside the Scooter budget. She found a sewing machine on facebook marketplace for $80 and got all of the necessary materials for $400.

With the help of her vast Instagram following, some youtube videos, and a ton of hard work, she’s well on her way to having the dodger made.

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I got going on Scooter’s electronics.

Last week, we installed a new battery system. We upgraded Scooter’s house battery bank to a 200 amp-hour AGM battery, replaced the main switch to separate the battery banks, replaced the battery charger with something from our lifetime, and hooked up our charge controller for the solar panels. 12v DC systems are not my forte. Electricity isn’t really my forte. The extent of my knowledge comes from wiring subwoofers in my honda civic in high school. Needless to say, I barely squeaked passed circuits in college.

The boat looks like a catastrophe in project mode.

I ran the wires for solar and fitted the panels. This went mostly smoothly except our fiberglass top deck can (apparently) be almost an inch thick in places and no waterproof wire pass-through I found would work, so some industrial sealant (throwback to our window project) will have to do the trick.

Now Scooter has solar and we can move our projects off-shore and still have power!

This leads us to the last major electronic project scooter needs before her voyage. Our Autopilot. This has gotten me thoroughly whelmed. Our boat doesn’t have much of a binnacle so this requires some creativity. I got a 6”x6” electrical junction box for houses and started jigsawing.

This took the better part of a morning and I was so proud of my creation but so ashamed I didn’t take a better picture of the process, or mounting location. I have a lot to learn about documenting projects.

The housing didn’t fit between the top of the bar and the current compass mount. At this point, I was committed so I went after the compass mount with the trusty jigsaw. It was too large anyway. It turned out perfect, which is a relief cause I didn’t get permission from Hannah and Joe ahead of time. We’ll find out if they read their emails.

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Nothing is mounted yet, unfortunately. Raymarine sends a 1-meter cable to connect the electronic compass to the interface screen with the EXPLICIT instructions not to mount within a meter of your existing compass, as if everyone wasn’t mounting the instrument right next to their compass. Whoever made that decision ruined my weekend. So I have a 3-meter cable in the mail and hopefully can wrap this up later this week.

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The real fun started this weekend when Hannah and Joe were able to visit the boat. We got a little motoring in, a lot of laughs, and some key decisions made for the voyage.

Max and Eunice didn’t get along (to no one’s surprise), the crab pot drifted away in a hard current, the anchor got in a fight with the fiberglass dock box (Anchor won, security deposit lost), we gig’d some horse clams, and experienced the best bioluminescence to date. It was a blast having the original crew back together.

This was the first time we’ve seen them bright enough to capture on a camera. This 20-minute splashing session alone was worth every penny we spent on the boat.

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Big news on Scooter. We found a fourth crewmember for the passage to San Francisco. We were nervous about getting enough rest with only 3, as shifts at night would be 4 hours awake, 2 hours sleeping. Better sailors might only need one person awake, but in our novice state, that doesn’t seem entirely safe. So it’s my pleasure to introduce:

Nelson VanTassel.

Joe and Tay met Nelson years ago on a spring break trip gone awry. They were en route to Zion to meet me and some friends but pit-stopped in Colorado to do some Younglife-Backcountry-ministry-training. Their car broke down, and they were forced to spend the week at a Young Life camp and hang out with Nelson. Then a couple years later Joe ended up guiding for RMR together and became fast friends. His energy is unmatched (except maybe by Taylor). Nelson is a fly-fishing guide, ski patroller, and just really good at doing adventures. We’re so excited.

But if you were thinking about joining, we definitely have room for a fifth person!

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Finally, If you’ve seen Taylor or me in the last 11 months, you know we have lived in our Sea Peoples Co hoodies and beanies. They have fantastic designs and materials and have partnered with us on some gear this year. Our first run is an organic cotton long sleeve shirt.

They’re $28 and will be available in 2 weeks. If you’d like to pre-order, get ahold of me. We’ll have more products coming out closer to our departure to SF but everything is a limited run so don’t wait!

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P.S. Thanks for following along on the projects. I hope there aren’t going to be this many project-based weekly updates in a row in the future. I know boats are never-ending maintenance but I hope this weekend marks the beginning of the adventuring aspect. TBD.

My Uncle passed away last Wednesday morning. Thursday we drove the 9 hours to Montana, Friday was his memorial, and the weekend was dedicated to helping tidy my aunt’s property.

Jim Scott was an inspiration for this adventure. He was an example of non-traditional twenties turning into a storied and fruitful career. I knew my uncle as the classiest professor. He always wore a suit and tie and was the dean of classics at the University of Montana. Years later I learned his dress-shirt sleeves covered the tattoos of his rebellious days when he worked for a traveling circus as a carnie. Jim performed as a sword swallower with the circus in the summers while he finished his masters in Latin at the University of Michigan. He found the U of Montana while hopping a train from his hometown Chicago to Seattle where he was working on his Ph.D at UW. He continued to ride the rails even while acting as a suit-and-tie professor.

Jim was also the first adult to talk to a kid like an adult. He asked grown-up questions, cared about our answer, never patronized (even when we were certainly stupid kids) and genuinely engaged with us as early as I can remember.

This week I was excited to write about the re-wiring of Scooter, with a new battery, new battery charger, solar panels, improved switches, relays and the whole nine yards, but that update will be a few days delayed.

I’m sorry to the followers who were hyped for their Tuesday morning boat update, and it’ll be in your inbox shortly. In the meantime, here’s my favorite Jim story:

Jim Scott, fresh out of his Ph.D at the University of Washington applied for a teaching gig in Chicago, at Northwestern. After the day-long interview, the committee took the prospective hire out for drinks in downtown Chicago to a blues bar. Anyone who left before midnight was nixed from the list. Midnight to two a.m. had a good shot, and anyone who closed down the bar became the frontrunner. The idea was recognizing that they may be at the best jazz bar in the world that night, and going home to be well-rested for a flight was a huge disservice to themselves.

So years later, Jim implemented his version of the test at the U of M. He’d drive the prospective professor north from Missoula, through Arlee, toward Saint Ignatius, Montana. This gave him an hour each way to talk and vet the interviewee. Coming over the Arlee hill, the Mission Mountains erupt. Snow-covered and towering over the valley.

In Jim’s words “if their jaw didn’t hit the floorboard, the drive home didn’t matter.”

Also sorry for the wall of text, we brought the laptop but not the charger so here’s my attempt at a weekly update with the remaining 6% of Tay’s battery life.

-Hank

Troy, Hank’s best man, flew in at 9, and ubered straight to the boat. Weather predictions were a steady 12 kts from the SSW, and although anything above 10 knots leaves us with some rough water, we figured a downwind sail would be smooth, and comfortable couple hours to Seattle and the Elliott Bay Marina. We did safety briefings underway, and bobbed our way up to the city. It was a little rougher than we hoped but I (hank) was having a blast cause we had never gotten the boat to go this fast. 11 knots on the nav system. We were FLYING!

About a half mile out from our home for the night, we turn the motor on, turn the boat into the wind and get the sails slack in order to bring them down. Only problem is we kept turning. Our first thought was our motor wasn’t strong enough to overpower the wind and waves. The wind would hit the port side of the sails, and lean us over hard, we’d spin, have a second or two of slack, then the wind would hit the starboard side, flipping the lean. This made it very dangerous for Tay to bring down the sail, let alone stay standing on the deck. I was at the helm, furiously turning back and forth trying to get some control of Scooter, as we bobbed and spun. Taylor finally found a stragegy. One arm around the mast, one arm on the sail, pulling down hard to fight the on-and-off wind. Unfortunately, with only one hand available, the wind would pull the sail back up as she went for each higher handful of sail. So, for 10 minutes of hard work, 3 feet at a time, she pulled down the sail, grabbed the sail with her teeth, and steadied herself against the thrashing waves and spinning wind.

Meanwhile, I realized something was wrong. Scooter refused to respond to the steering wheel I was furiously spinning back and forth, and I realized I hadn’t hit the stopper in either direction in a few minutes. I decided to test it, and spun the wheel as hard as I could to the left. It spun like a pinwheel in a gale. We had no steering.

“Taylor come back” I hollered above the wind and waves. “I’m almost done, let me tie off” she replied.

“THATS NOT OUR FIRST PRIORITY”

That got her attention. Fortunately we had cleaned our storage lockers a dozen times in the previous two months and there was always a short, rusty pipe we knew to be an emergency tiller buried somewhere. The next 5 minutes were wild. We poured the contents of our ‘garage’ into the cabin, found the rusty pipe, removed the rudder post cover, and fitted the pipe to the top of the rudder. All while listing back and forth, and spinning wildly. We had control, albeit limited.

We called the marina and asked for a tow in. “sorry, not a service they offer, call TowBoatsUS. TowBoatsUS was based out of Tacoma, and said they’d be happy to, they’d be there in 2 hours and it would run us $2-3,000. Crap.

We called back the marina and said send all your spare bodies out to the slip and help us dock our wounded vessel.

My heart was in my throat as we maneuvered into the marina past the breakwall, and slipped, swerving and scared, past hundred million dollar yachts, while the wind did its best to provide us with an insurance nightmare.

I’m not good at docking. I’ll be the first to admit. In hairy situations, I had usually given the reigns to Joe, and helped with the docklines. But Joe was a couple hundred miles away. I’m proud to say, that day, by the grace of God was the best I’ve ever done parking ole Scooter. The marina employees who had offered themselves up as bumpers were impressed and un-needed.

It took a few hours for my heart rate to come back to earth, and my hands to stop shaking.

When I went to pay our nightly dues, the Harbormaster had an anemometer behind his desk, with a max gust readout exceeding 45 knots. Our previous limit had been around 10.

After 3 weeks on land, Scooter was finally dropped back where she belongs.

We couldn’t trust the boatyard about when we’d be back in, but now we’re at anchor and can conclude the saga of life on the hard.

We were so sick of being on land. It’s expensive, the walk to the bathroom is long, it constantly smells of either sea-undergrowth coming off our neighbor’s dinghy or diesel fumes. The worst part is they initially quoted us 5 days and $1900. 19 days and $3400 later, we’re done.

Let’s focus on the best of it.

We sanded our acrylic port side window. The results were fantastic.

This one was such a relief after living a year in the left-half-opaque-world.

Another one of our windows leaked all last summer. I guess the previous owner just kept squirting silicone caulk into the gaps and hoping. After some research, we found out that the best way to ensure a strong leak-free window was… TAPE. So we spent a ton of money on 3M VHB neoprene double-stick 5952 tape and went about taping our window on (there was also some sealant involved but pretty much just tape for structure).

Lots of old crap being used to seal/secure the window needed to be scraped off.

Tape now, ask structural questions later.

Sealant time! (and in the background our neighbor’s dinghy which (not pictured) is covered in 3 inches of mussels and barnacles baking in the hot summer sun).

Done! It actually felt really secure and although we haven’t experienced any 30-foot waves crashing over her, the window seems like she’ll hold water.

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The prop was in good shape, well-aligned, and sized appropriately (there were several doubters including the resident diesel mechanic), but it was in dire need of a barnacle barrier.

The batteries are in the mail but in the meantime, we’re doing everything we can to cut energy use. The cabin lights had to go LED.

Our hull was the focus of the haulout ‘week’ yet they neglected it for the first 2. When they finally did, the results were fun to see.

Mid-wash.

Post pressure wash, pre sanding. Lots of rust bubbles getting through the paint which apparently make us slow in the water and quick to deteriorate.

Post sanding, post epoxy. The keel should be smooth and protected now.

The first layer of iron sealant (I actually don’t know what the grey layer was but it apparently bonds with the iron keel best).

The first primer layer.

The second primer layer.

One coat of paint…finally.

Fin (keel).

Thanks for coming along for the slideshow of the last 3 weeks. I’m sick of this type of boat project and eager to get to the next round of wiring electrical systems, autopilot, fishing gear, sailing drills, and visitors.

It’s harder the second week

The first week on land was filled with urgency, progress, and success (as detailed in the previous post). The second was filled with less enthusiasm and more questions for the boatyard about when they’d actually start working on our hull and when we’d be back in the water.

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Since the day we moved onto the boat, Joe insisted on carrying an American flag the size of a football field (maybe not quite, we’ve never unfurled it) in the hopes that some 4th of July, the winds would be strong and we could fly ‘ol glory’ in all her glory, extending three lengths behind the boat, hovering just above the water by pure patriotism…but instead, Scooter was on land, with no inhabitants this year, and the flag remained in its dry-bag taking up most of our important storage locker.

I desperately hope I can reference this update in 363 days when Scooter is dwarfed by the flag next independence day… or when our sail rips and we have to use it as a spare head-sail to make it back to land.

Tay and I left briefly for Montana to see family. Hannah and Joe were stuck in portland with an anxious dog (fireworks have some drawbacks), and Scooter was stuck in a parking lot.

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Anyway, back to the important stuff: they have finally touched our boat (barely) and we think we’re within a week of being ‘splashed’.

Last week we made progress on our motor, waxing the hull, removing our propeller shaft, fixing our grill, step 1 of fixing our rudder, and a few other things.

This week is more cosmetic.

Boat windows are all acrylic (logically) but they scratch and oxidize badly. This is after a thorough cleaning.

sand sand sand

The big windows will be the most satisfying change, but we finished the first one after dark so the before/after pictures didn’t work out.

The ‘coote’ project was the best (our helm chair contains most of the ‘Scooter’ decal). This restoration made me so proud of Scooter. She must’ve been a looker in 1989.

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Also, we adopted a kitten…

Meet Captain Eunice. Taylor (and my aunt Anita) saved her from her un-interested barn-cat-mom. Bottle-fed her and her brothers. And after all that, we just happened to be back in Montana 8 weeks later which, I’m told, is prime adoption time.

I told Taylor in our vow’s that I’d take care of any pet she brought home. But, it felt like exploiting a loophole cause I had to help drive the dang cat home.

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If you’ve read this far, you care about the little things so this one is just for me. I found out its possible to operate a navigation system from a raspberry pi. It took me a few weeks of troubleshooting but our Chart Plotter is up! It’s basic right now but the possibilities are endless.

For someone used to this world, this isn’t impressive. But a marine navigation system could easily set back a budget $10,000 so doing it on a $40 computer is exciting. I hope there’s more to come on this topic.