I'm within a data cable of getting internet on my boat through my new cellphone. Once I find or make one that will fit my phone I'll be able to post pictures and have full internet functionality from the boat. I'm thinking the vinyl on the side is in need of replacing to get any kind of finished look. I've tried wax and it just turned white. Tried armor all, and it doesn't look good still, so I think I'm going to just put new vinyl. I'm still getting better at driving. Anyway that's all I have to type about from the library today.

First Voyage

I'm still doing some painting and fixing up, but I took her out yesterday, and it was great. I stayed close to the marina because I don't have much gas or money, although things may be better on that count very soon. It's kinda tricky to steer a single inboard if you expect to do it with the wheel, but once you figure out how to do the engine it gets a lot easier. Reverse causes the stern to turn left, and forward will swing it back the other way if you keep the wheel hard over. It's kind of non-intuitive, but once you get the feel for it it is fairly easy.

She Floats

My Owens has been in the water for almost a day and a half. She floats. There is a little leakage, but I'm getting by well with a 500 gph bilge pump, although I have a 2000 gph ready to install if needed. They say these old wooden boats expand and tighten up after a couple of days in the water, so she should leak even less in the near future.

No worries now. The engine is good to go, and the only thing that kept me from taking her out this morning was having a job interview to go to, and other errands to run. I did rewire some stuff between the batteries, the coil, and the ignition, but the intermittent fail on the ignition key (which I may or may not have mentioned before remains). My theory is that it is in the starter, and that if it stops at a certain place it doesn't brush or whatever to get the ignition voltage.

Anyway, I still have a ton of cosmetic stuff to do above the waterline. She looks a little rough with my spread it with your finger caulk job, but the rain has mostly stopped coming in, and the rest can be tackled bit by bit for as long as I own the boat.

Moved In

I am now living on this boat. It is going in the water for the first time tomorrow, and as soon as possible I am getting a phone for dail up, or maybe cable internet, so I don;t have to go the library every other day or so. I got the motor running with a little help from some friends. It wasn't pumping fuel the way it was supposed to through the carbuerator, so I took that apart on a wing and a prayer, and managed to get it working right by some miracle all by myself.

There are tons of small jobs still needing doing, but I'm anxious to get out on the water Not enough time to type about it right now. But things are still coming along.

Toe Rail Moulding On

The toe rail is on, that was an all day job yesterday. I'm going out there today with my camara. I'll get some pictures, then paint it in. It'll have to dry about a day before I go for the second coat because its oil paint, so while that's drying I'm going inside to put some braces underneath my decks, and then caulk all the way around one more time. If there's time left I will work on finishing my interior vinyl work, buffing the exterior vinyl and brightwork, and maybe building some storage shelves for the front of the V-berth. I need to build some holds below decks to make all the space down there useable for storage, but I'll have to buy some more plywood for that, and probably will wait until I see how much she is going to leak on first going into the water. I've cut and pieced scrap so much for my decks and kitchen I dream of little bitty pieces of plywood butted and lapped with tons of screws in them growing into a ship the size of an oil tanker. I'm getting an early start this morning so I can beat the heat. It had to be close to 100 yesterday, but I must be getting used to it, because I just kept right on going.

More Picture of My Owens

Here is a picture of the whole boat with the roof on. Only thing lacking exterior is to get the toe rail moulding back on. I wussed out and bought some cheap wood because to get the mahogany cut and milled to match what was there was $275, and cash is tight. The wood I bought cost under $25. It's treated, and I'm going to paint it green like the rest of the boat losing the mahogany accent I was picturing, but it has an aluminum strip that goes on it so that will be enough accent for now, maybe I'll redo it when I get the cash.

The before picture of the headliner is just where I pulled the insulation I put in back so you can kind of see what it looked like before. The after is what it looks like now, the stuff you see hanging down in the back is insulation in the places where I did not have enough vinyl (the store did not have enough, they're ordering some).

The windows were just bare wood. I have some of the curtains done. I'm not all that happy with the pirate print, but it was cheap, and it looks ok.

Getting the last of the wood on the outside is my current goal. I figure I will have plenty of time to get the inside finished once I move in (one more week). God willing I will get the motor running soon without any huge expense, and I'll have a full fledged operational cabin cruiser instead of just a floating apartment. Here are the pics.

Working Inside the Cabin

I've spent the last several days working on the inside of the cabin. I also got the external roof back on her, and screwed down. I have about half of my headliner up, with some foam insulation under that to hopefully keep out the heat of the sun. I bought some blue cloth with a print of pirate ships and treasure chests on it to make curtains out of, and a bunch of rivets and a hammer jig to assemble them with. This should be a fun way to get the curtains done without having to sew, and might add a little more shiny metallic highlight to the interior. I wanted brass rivets to match everything else, but the craft store only had chrome, oh well, it'll do.

I'm not happy with my kitchen counter, and I have a sheet of white plastic laminate to try to put over it. If I can manage to cut it, and get it glued in without breaking it I think I will go with that over the plywood because it didn't take a finish like I wanted it to. Still need to do some interior painting in the V-berth, and a little more cleanup if I can remember to take this little vacuum I have out there. Also need to take the camera and get some new pictures so I can share this part on this blog if anybody is reading it anyway. Lots to do, no clue about my future, might have to sell the boat so I can move unless I get a job like I want somewhere around here, or the engine running so I can get the boat to where I am going and come back by train or bus for the car.

So much to do and so few funds left. Oh well, there's always day labor and temp work.

Still Going

I'm like the enegizer bunny when I get out to the marina. I have a lot of other stuff to do including looking for a new job, but the work on my Owens continues. People tell me if I wanted to do this much work I should have bought a Chris Craft, and then the restoration would really be worth the money. But I have actually had a lot of fun and it relaxes me to have something to do with my hands. This project is coming together.

I stained the rest of the wood topside to match what I had already done to the upper brightwork along the side of the cabin. It looks a little better all matching, but I may eventually sand it all off and try to get back to the yellow orange color it started out. I do have a picture of that which I will post here.

The inside of the cabin looked like a wreck, I wish I had taken a picture. It looks a lot better now, and I built a new kicthen countertop for the galley out of plywood. I may laminate some white plastic laminate over that, I haven't decided yet. I'm planning on buying some white vinyl and upolstery tacks and rigging up a headliner of sorts, but consistent with the love for wood this project is all about I am going to install it between the cabin roof rafters leaving wood showing every 18 inches or so. I think the white vinyl withshiny brass tacks will give me a good look consistent with the overall existing design.

Then I'm going to build some storage behind the kitchen counter, and move the original shelf up high so that I canget into that space. I really should rip the original cabinets out since their doors don't close right, and they are not long on storage space, but I'm leaving them as is for now.

I'm going to look for some material for curtains, and maybe rig them with brass rivets or something so I don't have to sew. I always poke myself with the needle when I try to sew, and I'm never happy with the results, so I'm looking for options to get curtains made.

THE ENGINE- it still hasn't started. I've had a copuple of shade tree mechanics look at it, and at this point buying a new battery seems to be the most common advice. I've had battery chargers running for serveral nights without accomplishing anything. Nobody seems to think there is much obviously wrong with it, just that either the battery or the starter is very weak. I'm still holding onto the funds to buy the last of the wood because I feel like the motor has to start before I go there, or it is all pointless.

I'm actually being lazy and taking today to catch up on my writing and send off some internet applications. This was the worst possible time for me to end up out of a job. I'm still not sure what happened. I guess I just didn't make myself enough a part of the clique. I should have made them fire me so that I could at least get unemployment, but I have never really liked being unemployed. I'd rather have a bad job and something to do than be unemployed and sit home depressed watching TV. Despite having invested a lot of time and effort in Degrees, at this point I'd almost rather go back to working with my hands where your job performance is a noticeable tangible real sort of thing, because I did a great job for those people, and they didn't notice, or maybe they just didn't care.

You can't see it in the picture, but there are two coats of epoxy and three coats of white paint on the decks and the top of the cabin. It's not as perfect as I might have liked, and I'll have to do a little caulking where and there to be absolutely certain it is all water-tight, a few of my repairs settled or gave a little. The original decks were put in before the cabin, and if you cut the wood the right size it will not fit into place, so rather than decontructing the whole cabin I just trimmed it and rigged it, and like any rigged up operation I missed some problem spots until they became evident from walking on them.

Decks in and Epoxy on

I finally got all the new plywood installed for my deck. Working on my old plywood Owens has been a lot easier than working on an old lapstrake hulled boat would have been. The decks are now solid all the way around, and there is a coat of epoxy over the top of that. I may get another coat of epoxy on today, and after that I will paint the whole deck white. Between waiting for the caulk to dry and waiting for the epoxy to set I got the back rail risers rebuilt and in. The last two things carpentry/constructionwise that need doing are putting in windows, and replacing the molding all the way around the outside upper edge of the hull just beneath the gunwhales. Oh yeah, I also have to find somebody to help me lift the roof into place after I get a couple more coats of paint on it.

Then the big worry will be getting the motor to run. Once I get those three things done she could go in the water, although ideally I should get the bungs back in the gunwhales and all that wood sanded and finished to the right color first. Once she's in the water I just plan to build up a strong oil finish over time on all the brightwork, and to fool around inside the cabin trying to make it feel like home. If I had the money all this could be easily finished before my July 31st move in deadline, but since I was asked to resign from my job due to unfortunate personal animosities and some misunderstandings intentionally inspired by some underhanded backstabbing coworkers funding this last stage may be a little problem. Oh well life goes on, and it was a low paying job anyway. I don't have any new pictures today, but I'm going to work on her right now, and I will take my camera.

A Hard Day's Work

Here are some pictures of my Owens I took today, one shows the staining I did the other day and am not tremendously happy with. The other shows before on the decks, but I haven't done the after shot yet. The decks down the starboard side were soft to walk on down most of the length of the boat, but towards the cabin there was a lot of good wood where it had only rotted a few inches in from the outside edge. It was almost 100 degrees today, and hotter than that inside the cabin. Getting the old wood out took about twice as long as I had expected it to, and was hot, hard, dirty work mostly with a chisel after I used both the circular saw and a hand saw to cut away as much as I could get to. Laying on your back and working several feet overhead with a chsel in 120 degrees or so with bits of rotten wood falling in your face is not my idea of fun, which is why this job got put off so long. I left it with the new wood cut but only partially installed, and in a lot of ways I don't think I did a great job today. I took a lot of breaks, my heart really wasn't in it, and my concemtration was lagging. Most of what I cut is not a perfect fit, and some of it is downright bad. However, if I buy some epoxy and fill the gaps, she should be watertight. I was planning to avoid buying more epoxy if I could because it is expensive, but it will fill even these gaps, and will be the best way to waterproof the topside, so it looks like the expense is justified. Of course that will take several days to get all together, and, of course, it is supposed to rain tomorrow. I promised the old girl this should be the last time she tastes the rain below decks. Anyway, I'm tired, and I need to get these pictures posted and go to bed. I have to work in the morning. Oh well the deck pictures didn't come out too good, that will have to wait.

Tenative Plan for this Week

My schedule for this week has me one day on and one day off at work, so I'll have every other day to work on finishing this boat project. First two things to do are to replywood the deck on the starboard side, and rebuild the risers for the decorative wooden back rail. I'm probably going to have to piece the risers together from mahogany scrap although the idea of buying extra thick stock from the lumber yard has kept me from taking this step so far. I'm just going to go on and do it with the wood that I have because keeping costs as low as possible has become a real priority on this job. Of course, these are tenative plans because what actually gets done depends upon where the shade is, how hot it is, how I feel, and what catches my interest while I am actually there. I also have to buy some more paint and paint the decks in after they are finished, paint the top of the cabin, and finish painting the top roof. Those jobs should take a couple of days, and then I will try cutting glass and replacing the windows, and also finish the wood around the windows. I put stain on the top brightwork I was sanding which may have been a mistake. A natural color oil finish might have hidden the imperfections an old boat like this naturally has, but it doesn't look too bad, and maybe the sun will fade the dark spots a little bit if I hold off oiling it anymore for a week or two. I felt like one coat of oil was mandatory just to protect the wood. The stain may all get sanded off eventually, thats one of the great things about working with wood is it gets prettier as you sand off your mistakes. I'll try to remember to take the camera and get some new pictures.

Explaining the pictures

The pictures I just posted show the whole boat, the before and after on the roof, and the before and after on the bottom paint. I'm not going to say much about the bottom paint, because like I said it has secret recipe additives, and is kind of experimental. The roof was in real bad shape. I made it about 6 inches shorter in the middle, and scrounged a curved piece of wood to frame it in. I then cut 3 pieces of scrounged mahogany into shape and screwed them over the inside of the curve lapping over the "rafters" to hold them in place, and with the vinyl or canvas between the two layers of framing. I had to plane two of the pieces I'm calling rafters, for lack of a better term, to get the middle piece to screw down. I then free form sanded all three pieces with my big sander to make it look like it belonged there, and finish sanded it with my little orbital sander which broke about halfway through (I bought a cheap one 2 days ago, maybe the store will take it back). I settled for half sanded and slapped some mahogany stain and a little oil on it, and called it done for now, it might get a better finish one day.

4 Days Work

I had 4 days in a row off work and spent large parts of all of them working on my boat. My Owens Flagship was built out of Honduras mahogany and mahogany plywood in 1963, and she was obviously well taken care of in her early years. She has a lot of problems now, but I'm getting her squared away slowly but surely.

I got the green paint on two coats, and bought the paint to do a third just for looks and gloss. I got one coat of bottom paint with some special additives of my own on. It's a secret recipe. I have the piant for at least one more coat on the bottom.

I rebuilt the roof, it still needs some epoxy (which I'm out of right now) to firm up some soft wood I left on the front. Hopefully I killed the rot, there was an actual capped mushroom, probably shitake, growing out of the aft end of the roof. It ate the whole back crosspiece, and softened a lot of the plywood. I'm probably going to paint the wood side with linseed oil and black copper oxide which I hope will stop anything the bleach didn't kill.

I rebuilt the side decking on the port side by the cabin, it required climbing in and out of the head about 50 times, and I'm not as happy with it as I had hoped, but I can walk on it without falling through, and I weigh about 190 lbs.

I tried to crank her up with no luck, the gas is really old, and I don't have a siphon or want to cut my only garden hose to drain the tank. I scrounged two batteries which the guy who gave them to me said were working just a couple weeks ago. I scrounged some glass for the windows. I got two coats of paint on the removable roof it needs about 4 more because it was really cracked. I looked at the cabin roof its in about the same shape, but I didn't get to it yet. I scrounged some mahogany I hope I can cut to put on my back rail risers. I scrounged the plywood to do the starboard decks. If you're wondering why I am doing so much scrounging it is because I am about broke, but that's another whole story.

I have so many irons in the fire at this point on this project it would be hard to name them all. I have the sanding about half done on the brightwork. I have tried to clean the vinyl that is on the middle part of the side of the cabin. I found a dowel below decks that will fit the holes, but it's not mahogany and it is straight grained instead of cross grained like a bung plug should be. I'm going to ask around at the lumber yard and see if they sell or can make the bungs I need.

I'm really tired out, and "down in my back", as some of the old folks in my family might say. It takes me about an hour of working to loosen up and be able to walk normally. Going to work is actually a rest break for me, and I haven't had to do that for several days. Anyway, here are some pictures of what is going on with the old girl.

The Problem Areas

Ongoing work on my Owens Baroness includes painting the hull, sanding the mahogany brightwork, painting the bottom, repairing the runnels just below the deck, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting, oh yeah getting dowell pins back into the gunwhale and the brightwork to port. All that is underway and under control, but there are problem areas I have not yet addressed.

My biggest worry is the engine which I have still not attempted to start. Lucky for me, since I am not a great mechanic, I have a friend who has offered to come and help me with that.

Another problem I have not yet addressed is the point of the bow. There was some rot there, and it had previously been filled with bondo or wood filler or something, but there are cavities, and it really should be reworked. That would be a huge job requiring massive disassembly to put it ship shape, so I am planning at this point to pump it full of silicone caulk and top that with some latex wood filler.

The decks above the gunwhale on both sides of the cabin are soft, and need to be replaced. That's do-able without too much disassembly, but requires chiselling more dowell pins, buying more plywood, and working precariously on a high narrow space, I expect I can do it in about a day and a half, but it will be a hard day, so I am putting it off.

Three other projects require buying mahogany at $10 per board foot. All the molding just below the gunwhales, approximately 70 feet of it has to be replaced, it fell apart on disassembly, although it looked mostly intact before that. It was obviously original making it over 40 years old, that's pretty good service for thin exterior wood in a damp environment. The back rail risers had been replaced with pine that didn't hold up, and need to be rebuilt with mahogany, that's probably only about a half day's work if I buy a router, and less than that if I pay the lumber yard to mill the mahogany, but it's nagging at my mind every time I grab that rail, so it will probably be the first problem area addressed. Third is the roof, this was built on a mahogany frame that is rotted away almost completely, and is a real two day custom carpentry job barely within my skills (and I'm a good carpenter) with the tools I have on hand, once again, I might get it milled, but it could cost me and I'm about out of money.

The last problem, I almost forgot, is the windows, about half of them are broken out. Luckily, a boat at the yard that is being destroyed has a lot of really big windows, and I think I can get enough glass for free, and cut it myself (or more probably cut myself), and sand the edges round. (Note to self: wear the leather gloves when fooling with the glass)

2 Coats of Primer On

After a little hunting and turning down some insane paint salesmen's suggestions I found some white primer I could afford. I painted 2 coats onto the plywood hull of my Owens which had already been sanded for surface preparation. It might not be the ideal marine primer, but I think it should hold up fairly well, and actually appears to be very much like what was on her for texture and feel. I got some funny looks, because it is actally a latex paint which is water based, but once the water evaporates the latex bonds into a plastic envelope. The only real worry with going this way is adhesion to the old surface, because the oil paint I am putting over the top is frequently painted over latex with no problems. It said "oil fortified universal primer" on the can. Maybe I'll regret it, maybe it will be the best thing I did on the whole project, time will tell, and I'll try to do an update six months after I get her back in the water. I brushed the old surface free of dirt before the first application, and hand sanded between coats, and will hand sand again before putting the green back on. Her are a couple pictures of her primed out. Blogging about it, just like doing it, I forgot about cutting the air vent back in. I just grabbed the circular saw, and whacked it out from the outside and then cleaned up the corners with a chisel from the inside. Then I put the rail back on the starboard side (I think this all happened between the first and second coat of primer). Naturally, it was about an eight of an inch too small, and I had to trim it some after I thought I was finished. Here's a picture of that too.

Soaking the Keel

This step that I plan is also somewhat out of line with the conventioanl wisdom, but but I got the idea from reading a book by a professional sailboat builder. He says that in initial construction he always soaks his keel really well with linseed oil and kerosene to get it to expand to its full size to be built around. the kerosene is really just a thinner to get better oil penetration, and should evaporate pretty quickly. My fungus research led me to the information that black copper oxide powder (unlike the red used for anti-fouling) is deadly to most fungi. I bought some to experiment with for a couple bucks, and I think I'm going to add that to my thinned linseed oil. I'm having a surprising amount of trouble finding kerosene, the filling stations that have pumps for it around here are telling me they are out. Probably not high profit enough for todays price gouging gas stations to carry. I might just thin with paint thinner which I already have on hand. If this concoction does not react and bubble up or explode when I mix it I am going to paint it onto the keel. The copper should keep this important member that is almost always wet from rotting for a long long time, and the linseed oil will hopefully expand the wood meaning less time in the cradle and less sweating over whether or not she will float when that critical day comes. I plan to do this while I am busy painting above the waterline to give it a couple days to soak in and dry before moving on to painting the bottom. After which time I can continue applying it periodically from the inside until she goes into the water. Once I get her in the water I am going to just throw the rest of the black copper oxide into the bilge to float around and hopefully kill any organism that has plans of causing rot in my boat. Some people pour bleach in the bilge which does kill fungi, but is also reactive with the copper wood treatment already on most of my wood, not to mention caustic if it is undiluted or somehow concentrated, so the bleach I've already used in the deconstruction is as much as I want to use.

Contemplating the Bottom

I have sanded the bottom of my Owens, and done a little patching, screwing down the corner of an old pacth that was loose, and screwing silicone and plywood inside to cover a small crack made by the bunk trailer she came down here on. I'm going to get some more epoxy and make sure that patch is watertight from the outside. I've wire brushed and picked old caulk from the 4 joints that run the length of the boat, and somewhat hapazardly smeared caulk over the joints in the plywood running across the beam. I didn't pick them because they seem to be relatively good, and I'd have to wreck too much of the old paint surface including a few patches that appear to be epoxy or something almost as hard. I've sanded the entire bottom surface in an effort to assure adhesion of the new paint.

My original thought was to go with what they call the west system, and epoxy her inside and out to be watertight, but after a little research and evaluation of the funds on hand I have just about decided that replacing the paint similar to the way I found it will be the best bet. Some experts say the epoxy although it will make her tougher and tighter for the short term may eventually trap water inside the wood leading to irreversible decay. This school of thought says a boat should breathe and be able to release any trapped moisture. Seeing as both points of view make sense, and the later one fits my budget a little better I'm probably just going to paint her bottom.

The next question is what paint to use. I have some wood sealer with a wood preservative ingredient that was actually made for exterior decks that I scrounged in the bent can and color mistake section of Wal-mart for a really good price. I haven't decided yet if that is a good compromise basecoat a little less intense than the epoxy but hopefully providing a decent seal and some additional rot protection. I have some good oil base paint which is what I'm definitely going with above the waterline, and probably as the second coat on the bottom and maybe even the first. A cool guy from Romania at the marina named Mike gave me some genuine antifouling bottom paint which will be the final outter coat. Judging from the labels on the cans, and how rusty they are this paint has been around since like 1980 or so, but it is the real thing, and still liquid when you take the lid off. At the moment, although still undecided I think these three paints, with maybe two good coats of the oil will be my bottom finish. I may skip the wood preservative step, I feel a little funny about it, but I can't find any good information one way or the other as to what to really expect to happen if I use it.

Plywood On

Work continues on my 1963 Owens Baroness Flagship. This was a really nice single inboard motor yacht cabin cruiser when it was new. Mine has seen a little neglect, but retains a lot of original features, and will be restored as far as my motivation and pocketbook will allow.

I spent $60 on one sheet of plywood, and I didn't even get the mahogany like was originally on her. The closest I could come at a local lumber yard was okume for $90, and not getting what I wanted, I opted a little cheaper for douglas fir marine plywood. The hull is 3/8 inch plywood, and getting the patches cut and installed took a couple of days. Bending the big patch to starboard changed its shape and required several trims and even a little cussing to get it to fit, but even then I'd probably still be fighting it without the help of the guys working on the next boat over to push and prod it into place.

I epoxied the edges before installing, and where it wasn't trimmed it was already edge sealed before installation. I then epoxied inside and out with two coats of real marine grade two part epoxy at the low price of $58 per 1/2 gallon off of e-bay. So basically for about $120 and a lot of hard work I now have a sound hull. If I had gotten the mahogany and treated it with a copper wood preservative like the original manufaturer used I might could have dispensed with the epoxy, but with the fir's well known tendency to check when damp, especially when bent I felt like the epoxy was the right way to go.

Once the new plywood was bent and sealed I built up the few places where I decided patching with epoxy would be smarter than cutting out anymore plywood. Naturally, my half gallon of epoxy wasn't up to the task, and I ran out with some cavities below a smooth surface. A little hemming and hawing convinced me it was sealed and structurally strong enough that two little $2 tubs of latex wood filler from K'Mart would finish the repair. I slappedthat on and smoothed it roughly flat with my putty knife assuming it would be relatively easy to sand. Epoxy and microfibre is really hard to sand, and I figured this route would give me a better finish. It wasn't as hard as the epoxy, but I gave up before obtaining a perfect surface. I think the paint will cover what I left, and I sanded as much as I could stand that particular morning.

Anyway, above are pictures with the plywood in, and then with the patching done.

Overview at the end of June

I should probably take a minute to make the plan for this boat project clear. I am rebuilding her in three stages. Step one is to rework the hull and make sure she is sound. Step two will be to get the engine running. Step three will be to cosmetically rework the topside exterior. And, step four will be to work on the interior of the cabin to make her livable. The timeframe plan at the moment is to have a sound hull and a running motor by the end of July, and to then move in an live aboard spending spare time finishing the job topside. So far things are going well. I actually have the plywood installed for the hull patches, and am ready to start sealing with epoxy, sanding, and repainting. But, I was so tired when I finished bending the plywood into shape and screwing it in that I forgot to take the pictures. I hope I remember to do that first thing tomorrow before I get too far to capture images of this step. Above is the picture I promised you of the starboard side with everything removed and ready for repairs.

Removing the Bad Plywood to Port

The plywood on the port side aft was actually in a little better shape. I got most of what was bad out with no tools at all, and only had to unscrew about 5 screws in the rub rail which remained in place. The lower part was able to be saved, so it looked at first like a small patch job about halfway down the side and about 3 feet from the stern. I got out the circular saw and squared everything up to take a patch. Of course, it turned out to be more complicated than that since the stretcher the plywood screws to turned out to be rotten about 6 feet forward of the stern. With a lot of careful work, chiseling dowel pins out of the top gunwhale it was possible to remove it and replace it with about $20 worth of solid mahogany. This is what she looked like at the end of this work on the port side.

Removing the Starboard Aft Plywood

It took a couple of days fighting stripped screws and old caulk, but the soft plywood section on the starboard aft is now removed. There are a few small areas where the plywood of the next sheet were a little soft, but for the most part I have a good straight line to butt the new sheet onto. The remainder has been treated with bleach and water to stop rot, and I should be able to rebuild it with epoxy and sawdust or maybe mircofibre which a friend at the marina has offered to provide for free. I may go with a little more antifungal before I go to build her in. I have some black copper oxide powder which is supposed to be absolute death to any fungus, but I haven't figured out yet how to apply it where it will stay put, but not be encased and nullified by the epoxy without being in contact with the wood. Maybe if it does its job just before the epoxy goes on maybe it won't have to stay put, and the epoxy will go over wood that is clean of rot dangers.

The disassembly went like this.

1. Grab obviously bad plywood with hand and pull, probably 50% of what needed to come off was this easy.

2. Look for screws holding what was left, remove screws and pull off.

3. Remove molding (solid mahogahny still good at bottom but needing replacement at top) This was the longest step because you have to dig a lot of caulk to get to the screw heads, and then about half of them were already in bad shape from a previous repair. It took about a half of day but I got everything apart without destroying anything that could have been saved, and have the parts ready to go back together.

Here is a picture of her at this stage. I apologize for the soda bottle in the middle, but hey, this is thirsty work, and I had to work the next morning. This picture is actually just before removing the bottom "molding" and you can still see a little of the olf plywood in place at the bottom right. I'll try to remember to take my camera and replace this shot with one after it was finished. The center of this butt joint is actually an added piece of plywood from a previous repair, but it is servicable and I will rebuild on it.

Finally Arrived

Well after some begging and some money spent I found a hauling company that would bring my old Owens to her new home. What I didn't know when I was arranging the hauling was that marinas were going to be about as hard to convince to store a wooden boat as the trucking companies were to tow her. I had to call dozens of marinas and eventually offer to pay 6 months storage, lift fees, and a disposal deposit all up front. That all came to about two thousand, and so with a lighter pocket book, but fewer month by month worries I have her blocked in a good yard and ready to start work on.

Even after going through all this the marina owner, who is a really nice guy, had serious reservations. He offered to give me a much newer fiberglass boat, and dispose of this one. It was a very good offer, but what can I say, I am in love with this old girl, and me and her are going to see this project through to the end. Here is a photo of her in her new home.

Shipping all set

Well, I finally got the shipping all set. It's going to cost about $700, and she'll be here next Wednesday. I have two part epoxy, sanders, rollers, linseed oil, paint, and a bunch of other stuff ready here and waiting. I'm kind of disappointed to not have gotten this done quicker, but I did save $250. I also have a lot of research and a full plan of action for getting it done.

Still not down here.

The Owens is still not here. It's about 3 hours north of Yorktown (where I live now) to where she is. She weighs 5800 lbs, and isn't on a trailer. Getting her moved is proving to be quite a project. Looks like it's going to cost about $950, although I've got feelers out to try and get it done for less. Luckily, I have a sale I was starting to think I would never close bringing me in about 2 grand. That should be enough to get the boat down here, and take care of dry dock, supplies, and leave a little left over for beer to coax friends into coming over to sand and paint. As soon as I get her up on blocks I'm going to take some before pictures to post here, and you can check back every once in awhile to see how it is progressing. This is a classic 1963 28ft motor yacht, single inboard, Honduras mahogany frame, and plywood hull. She's got great bones, but she's been out of the water for about 3 years, and the cover didn't cover one corner of the stern, so there's rot in that one spot, but it can be stopped and rebuilt fairly easily. I'm going to spend all my free time for the next couple of months giving her some badly needed TLC.

My Owens

I just bought a 1963 Owens Baroness Flagship. I fell in love with her on first sight. She needs a lot of TLC, but she's a great boat. I'm going to put her into shape, and then I may sell her. I mean there is something absolutely beautiful about an old wooden boat, but my interests are already shifting. Once I get her to live aboard condition I will enjoy the low cost of not having to keep an apartment for awhile, and try to start saving for what I now feel is the project of my future. I want to build a solar/sail hybrid cutting edge submerged hull design. I see pictures in my dreams. Submerged hulls are so much more hydrodynamically efficient that either solar or small sail would drive them, and both would give 2 earth friendly options for motive power and also provide for onboard electric power. I have not yet researched stabilty for a tall mast on this kind of hull, but what I saw in my dream had low extended sails like a bird's wings slanted downward in front from horizontal and steered/course optimized by pulling down on the tips. Most tall masted conventional sailboats have a deep keel for stability. How stable would a HARTH design be under conventional sail, or under my dreamed design? This is just one of a thousand questions, and my dream is not yet on a timetable. When I put it on a timetable maybe God will provide the funds. I've pulled out of stocks, invested in e-bay trading, done fairly well, invested in a boat as living quarters to cut expenses. Conceived, but not yet executed the next phase of my business plan, all part time of course, while trudging along the college educated everyday job rat track towards a "middle class" future which I may or may not have the temperment to ever achieve.

I'm reaching a point in my life where I am starting to envision what I really want. Money is great for making your dreams come true, but putting it in the bank doesn't excite me anymore. Maybe one day soon I will meet a woman who sees my dreams, and understands my hard thought out goals. The main idea is to invest in those things which will make me happy and be better than what "the Joneses" have from my point of view without tying me inextricably to a desk in an office doing tedious work to pay the money I already spent to companies that raise the rates and tell me "It's in the contract." Although 7.9% was in a huge font at the top while 29.99% default rate was not even on the front page and not legible without a magnifying glass, and even if they are there the things that make them able to raise the rate are too mystical for my mind. I think it is almost certainly tied to the fact that the banks charge you more when you can least afford to pay, and only give you more credit when they know you don't need it. The brilliant logic of the banking industry is that the guy who never missed a single payment will start missing payments when his debt to income ratio crosses point X on the chart, and that the guy who misses payments, but has the money deserves a lower rate and an increased line.

Anyway, sorry, this isn't about the rat race this is about escaping into something far more satisfying. Somplace where spending money makes you feel good and hard work is rewarded palpably. Where even if you overspent a little the feeling of the sun and the wind on your face cleanses your soul and erases all those silly worries. It's about going to a place where the beauty of the world as God made it is there for enjoying. It's about letting go and knowing you'll stay afloat. It's about sitting on the aft deck and dreaming of that someone special who would sail off into the sunset with you without asking what will we do for money? You already know you'll ebay drop ship, and make enough for the celluar broadband global internet, satellite cable, and unlimited cellphone. Stuff like food is incidental, gas, you don't need it. There are places you can sail where food is there for the picking. Places where you can fill the freezers and cabinets for 6 months on 50 bucks. There's no rent to pay, there's no utility bill, heck, you don't even need gas, just the sun and the wind, and a new horizon to see.

It's still just a dream, but this page is dedicated to getting me there, and if you can see the dream, come along for the ride. First things first, put the Owens in pristine condition. Sell her and clear about 10 grand. Use the ten grand for materials and build the dream boat by hand from scratch. Launch the dream and exit the rat race stage left. Don't know if birdwing sails are pratical, or just a dream metaphor for freedom, but I'll find out.