Central Puget Sound
April 3-4th, 2006
There are many delights one can unexpectedly find when traveling on the pristine waters of the Puget Sound. Granted, the perpetual bombardment of harbor seals will eventually become sin ominous with the coastline. However, it is still heart warming to see nature living so closely with the people of the west coast in some form of harmony, although I would not be able to classify it exactly. Irrelevant, every time we have departed from Olympia headed North, we have felt this inexplicable calm sweep over us – this feeling of complete freedom I think you can only achieve from being in complete control of your own destiny, which is something commanding your own vessel provides in some form or another. This sense of freedom, multiplied by the effects of the views provided by the Puget Sound waters, cities, and coastline, have made sailing here perhaps the highlight of our entire assignment to Fort Lewis, WA. I would not have traded a single minute of my time on the waters here for anything in the world, particularly because everything we did here was done as a complete family. This is my unexpected delight, then… freedom. Freedom from a regime of a work place which perpetually demands timeliness and punctuality. We found our joy in arriving late to each marina (partly the winds fault, and admitted partly our own), and taking as much time as we wanted in each once we were there.
Well, our vacation to the Central Puget Sound Area started with placing the Nesaru, our 25 foot (36 with the sprit) gaff rigged Jarvis Newman Sloop on the hard at the Schurtz Marina Boat Works (www.shurtzmarine.com) located adjacent to the Swanton Marina in Olympia, WA. Russ, the co-owner and senior manager, has proven to be more use to my wife and I then any other piece of reference material or book written. His staff has always been more then fair and kind with our boat, and I know she appreciates it. We had a choir list with demanded way more time then we had allotted for the work, with always seems to be the case. We were optimistic we could accomplish all the listed tasks, however, and so with earnest begin immediately on the Morning of the April 3.
We sanded and repainted the bottom paint, and buffed the green gel coat sides. We also had decided to place another coat of varnish on all of the teak on the topsides and deck, as well as strip and place the first two coats of varnish on all of the remaining teak we had failed to hit on the previous season. We had decided to use Cetal last year in order to save us some time and money, and have been very pleased with the results. Knowing that many people complain of the orange glow this material leaves, we decided to use the CETAL LIGHT version of it. Additionally, we have noted that if one places a coat of THOMSANS WATER SEALER on before the first coat of CETAL LIGHT, the teak takes on a very darker hew, and is very pleasing to the eye. In actuality, it is almost indistinguishable from other teak products. While I worked on the teak and gel coat, a close friend of mine, Chris Baker, had been enlisted to assist with some carpentry which needed to be completed. With great care and diligence he created two new lazerate covers for the cockpit, replacing the old fiberglass covers. He also tore out the old instruments, and placed a teak “plug,” or cover there which will later be decorated with a bronze statute of a mermaid and Sea Horse, which corresponds to the gimbaled compass cover with the Bronze Sea Shell Cover. Once he had completed these projects, he went to work on a new Hailing Board and Name Plate for the transom of the boat, which I am sad to say, was the only project we were unable to complete prior to her launch.
In addition to the teak and gelcoat work, we had to service the engine for the next coming year. Two of Russ’s employ’s, Lenny and Jason (We love them both and just had to mention their names) replaced all three fuel filters in the engine, as well as the oil filter, and then followed it up with a complete oil change and check over. Our most challenging enigma soon became the engine throttle. We had noted that the throttle seemed to only push Nesaru to a mere 3-5 knots. While trouble shooting the system, Jason noted that the system had been jerry rigged by the previous owner, and that the entire system would need to be replaced. Both he and Russ attempted for several hours on the throttle in a desperate attempt to fix the system, or at least jerry rig it so that we could still leave on our vacation, all of which we were not charged for and was executed purely because Russ had given me his word we would still be able to go on our trip. In the end, they were unable to fix the throttle. However, they did show me how to manually increase the speed of the engine, and placed the necessary parts on order to fix it. We were now able to push our 1977 13 H.P. Westerbeak to an intense 7 knots! – at least until the engine temperature reached 290 degrees! Ahhh, the wows of being a boat owner.
