The deconstruction period begins at the end of the road. That wooden block once held the headsail winch. November, 2022.
When I hauled Polaris Jack out of the water, I didn't yet know that I'd run charter sails. The idea had been splashing around down in the old mental bilge for several years, but I liked being a clam digger.
Then I woke up one day last fall, and I knew I'd do the charter thing; there was no outward decision process. I just opened my eyes at dawn and understood that I had a new plan. I suppose that's how all decisions should be made--with no doubt, debate, or hesitation.
The decision to charter meant abandoning the simplicity of clam digging (where all you need is hip waders, gloves and a small boat) and biting into not only a major boat project, but also--in this case simultaneously--I needed to get my captain's license, start a business, build a website, and fund all of it. Typical of me, I thought I could do all of that in a winter. Which is to say, I sentenced myself to a winter of way too much work.
The plan was to get the boat ready to go into the shop, and then I'd step away from the boat project and launch into the other tasks.
Understand this: there exists a strong emotional element to sailboats and the work that goes into them. A boat has to be, first and foremost, a safe creature. She's keeping you alive on the ocean, so not only does the boat need to be safe, the owner needs to know that the boat is safe, lest they spend all of their time on the water in a deep state of anxiety--instead of, as an anesthesiologist friend of mine says, being in the " deep state of wow" that comes with being in a boat on the ocean. Said anesthesiologist is also known to be seen playing a didgeridoo while naked aboard his catamaran. I found him this way once when I went to him for medical care in the Bahamas. He stuck a pair of forceps an inch deep into my infected foot and I nearly passed out.
Which is neither here nor there. But a guy here in Maine once told me that he didn't take his boat into waters deeper than his boat was tall: that is, if his boat were to sink, he wanted to be certain that he could stand atop her until help arrived. Fortunately, he had the sense to leave his boat in the shoal waters of Chesapeake Bay.
Not all boat owners are so thoughtful. Years ago, when returning to the States from the Bahamas, I spotted an upside down boat. We'd crossed the Gulf Stream, and were about 6 miles off the coast of Florida. A handful of people were clinging to the upside down hull. It was one of those center console fishing boats with an oversized outboard hanging off the stern. Darkness wasn't far off, and there were no other boats around.
There were perhaps a half dozen people. Several on the hull itself, and a few in the water, holding onto the boat. We approached and asked if they were all okay. They were dismissive to the point that I felt obliged to point out--but did not--that they were, in fact, in the ocean on an upside down boat with night coming quickly.
We stayed near them as we called the Coast Guard. They seemed oblivious to any sort of danger. I've witnessed similarly uncanny behavior while guiding in the mountains in Montana--elk hunters on pitch black nights deep in the backcountry with dead elk on the ground and blood on me and them and no notion whatsoever that the grizzly bear that just crashed through the timber might pose a threat that should be taken very seriously.
Soon enough, the Coast Guard arrived and pulled the people from the water and took them home. Probably no lesson learned. It's a bizarre thing about us humans: some of us see no danger anywhere, even when we're about to be destroyed by it, while others see it everywhere, even when its presence is nowhere tangible.
What's that all have to do with anything? Not much, perhaps. But you got to think about something while you're ripping a boat apart. Disassociate a bit, perhaps, to keep the dangers away.
A sea kindly boat is a beautiful boat.
Back to the emotional element of boats and their work... If it were just about safety, that would be one thing. But boats are about much more than that: those ships that sail are also creatures of beauty. The famous yacht designer OIin Stephens once said that sailboats are one of the few spaces where beauty and function must coexist--or, simply become one. To put it differently, a sea kindly boat is a beautiful boat. It has to be so. To find an ugly boat that behaves well on the water is a rare thing. The same goes for birds; take, for example, the harlequin duck, which hangs amidst breaking waves in mid-winter and is possibly the most beautiful of all sea ducks.
Added together, a boat is a beautiful creature that must function at a very high level in one of the most dangerous environs on this planet. That can mess with the head of whomsoever it is that decides to create or recreate one. In addition to it being a large scale endeavor, every little thing must be made tough, solid, useable, fixable, beautiful... it gets deep into your psyche, and, for me at least (and many sailors I know), obsession is the result. Thinking about it, talking about it, dreaming about it... and doing it. Day in and day out.
Since arriving home with the boat from South Carolina via the Bahamas, I hadn't done much to Polaris Jack. She'd hung on my mooring in the harbor, and I'd only sailed her a few times all summer and fall. Most of the stuff that was on board when I got the boat in Bluffton was still aboard, as was the stuff I'd accumulated on a six month trip. It's flat amazing how much can be stashed away on a boat.
I hauled several truckloads of gear off of Polaris. Sails, tools, line, cooking equipment...
Now, the nuts and bolts of de-constructing Polaris Jack.
I started the job with a saws-all and a mini-sledge. First to go were the winch stands, which had driven me crazy since I'd gotten the boat. The original owner, A.O., had had spina bifida, and was a pretty short guy (more on him later!). All I can figure is that he'd had the winch bases mounted at a severe angle so that he could work the jib sheets from a low position in the cockpit. For me, the angle meant I couldn't work them at all; either my knuckles raked against the deck or the sheets (i.e. ropes that adjust the forward sail) would tangle into a riding hitch, which was bad news.
So I was happy to cut those things out, violent as it felt since they had no shortage of hardware holding them into position--all of which needed to be cut or somehow broken. Next, I took all of stanchions and lifelines off. Stanchions are the bronze posts that hold the lines that surround the boat deck and keep you aboard the boat.
The green posts that I'm removing are the bronze stanchions that once held the lifelines. The teak rails are called bulwarks. They'll soon have to be removed as well. Serious surgery.
All of this was being done in order to access the joint between the hull and the deck of the boat--the place where the boat transitions from vertical to horizontal, essentially. Most boats are made in two pieces--hull and topsides. The topside is lowered onto the hull, then glued and bolted on. On Polaris Jack, the joint between the two was leaking, and it was buried beneath copious amounts of ornamental teak and bronze--not easy to get to.
I'll stop here. Next up is going down below, into the cabin, to cut the floor out so that I can access the fouled water tank.
In order to access the stanchion posts (bolted on from below), I had to gut a lot of the boat cabin, including the galley (center). One thing leads to another.