Stripping apart a boat has a fine line that one doesn't want to cross; it's easy for inertia to take over, and to go too far. I have, in fact, never not crossed that line. My instinct is to rip it apart and deal with it later. There's something gratifying about taking things apart, especially when one is of the belief that it will be better when put back together. Similarly, it's easy to trick oneself into believing that it'll go back together as easily as it came apart.
I also tend to be cognizant of the fact that if I rip it apart, I am thereby bound to rebuild it, and rebuild it correctly. It's how I trick myself into doing something I may not want to do but feel must be done. As my Montana sawyer friend once said, "You have a knack for getting in way over your head then digging yourself out."
I'm not sure I'd call it a knack. People have knacks for making cookies or whistling. I have what a fellow South Addison sailor calls a disease.
So here I was with the boat: Polaris Jack, out of the water, on stands at the end of my road: I'd begun taking her apart in preparation for bringing the boat to a shop for fiberglass work.
After I'd removed the stanchions and their bases, and the bowsprit, the next thing to be removed was the Monitor windvane, reverently named Halsey, after the former owner of Polaris Jack, A.O. Halsey--and also, sometimes, a bit of a joking nod to Rear Admiral Halsey, who commanded the Pacific Fleet in WWII. I don't know anything else about that guy, but I do know that there are times that it doesn't hurt to have a Rear Admiral on board.
Perhaps I should have named the windvane George, or Heyward, because George Heyward--the previous owner of Polaris Jack--was the one who installed the unit, but Halsey just kept coming out of my mouth, and I like to think that George would agree with the name. I never met A.O., but he is said to have been quite the sailor, so it's nice to think of him steering.
For the non-sailors: A windvane is a self-steering system that steers the boat at an angle set in accordance with the wind. When the wind angle changes on the vane, a series of gears twists a paddle that hangs in the water just aft of the boat's rudder. The force of the water on the paddle then turns another gear which tugs, very powerfully, on the tiller handle. The idea is that if the boat changes course, the wind angle changes, and the mechanism corrects. Of course, if the wind itself changes direction, the boat will follow suit.
In the video below, the vane looks like a vertical line that's rocking back and forth. You can see the lines attached to the tiller handle, steering the boat as the vane shifts.
I unbolted Halsey, set it aside, then attacked the rudder and the boomkin. A boomkin is basically a bowsprit off the stern of the boat instead of the bow. Polaris Jack's is a wood V that extends a few feet aft of the transom; it allows the backstay (the wire cable that holds the mast up) to extend further aft, thus changing the boat's aspect and allowing more area for the mainsail.
The boomkin had a fair amount of rot in it, and the rudder cheeks were shot. Both were original equipment on the boat, and had endured well. The rudder cheeks--wood blocks that sandwich the rudder and hold the tiller--were made of ash, which does not fair well in the marine climate. My boat builder friend, Roger, down in South Carolina, helped sturdy the cheeks up with epoxy and carbon fiber cord in order to get the boat back to Maine. His fix held up perfectly.
But now, having arrived in Maine, it was a simple pleasure to wrestle the rudder off and rip those rotten cheeks apart. The bronze bolts that held both the rudder and the boomkin together were surprisingly corroded: bronze is known for its resistance to saltwater corrosion, but these bolts had spent their lives soaked in it and were goners.
Next up for removal was the engine--a two cylinder Yanmar diesel 2gm20f. It ran well, and it was a shame to take it out, but one of the mounts holding it into position had broken, and the shaft had to be pulled in order to replace the stuffing box (the gland which allows the shaft to pass through the hull without water coming into the hull). Plus, I figured that while I was refitting the boat, I may as well drop the engine at the local diesel boat mechanic and have him give it a once-over.
Again, things sometimes come out easier than they go in. I removed the wires and fuel hoses and cables and unbolted the engine in no time; these small diesels are pretty simple--according to those in the know, anyhow. Compared to a Tesla.
Stepping back, the boat was beginning to look like a serious project--it wasn't just a bunch of cool, simple, exciting ideas in my head anymore. It'd quickly become a major endeavor. Polaris Jack was stripped down to the the studs: anything that was tied or bolted down was either off or about to come off, and that realization is a big moment in any project. Because it's right then that you see not only the next year or two of your life unfolded in front of your face, but also more than all of the money that you own and will earn in that time period.
Put simply, right in front of me was where all of my energy, focus, and finances would go for perhaps two years. Was that what I wanted?
I was also in the middle of building my house; I don't know how I got these ideas past myself. I recall telling Chef Drage that it felt good to pour myself into the boat project; that sentiment seems to come and go with the tides, and perhaps it would have been steadier if I'd finished my cabin build first.
Perhaps. But probably not. Ultimately, I'm not a do-it-yourselfer; I'm just a guy that wants to write, sail, cook over fires, and paddle a canoe. The flipside is that I need to do the legwork to get myself there. The road is wandering, too, as either Basho or some bumper sticker said. Alternatively, Nobody rides for free.
The cabin is an unplumbed timber frame near the coast in downeast Maine. I'd cut all the trees for the frame, hauled them out of the woods with my old Toyota, and done the joinery, and raised the frame with a group of friends one weekend, but it still had a long way to go, and I was quite tired of living in a 100 square foot camp, so I didn't want to abandon that, either.
All of which is to say that Polaris and I were going deep together. Boats will do that to a person. George had once told me that he'd always wanted boats that needed him. I'd sworn that I was the opposite; that I wanted a boat that didn't need anything from me save for me to sail it--but here I was, shoulder deep again.
A friend here in Maine had once told me in a letter that in the end, we all do what we want. Which is reminiscent of Ikkyu having said, There's no way not to be who you are and where.
Onward, toward that elusive point... Once the engine was ready for removal, I called in my buddy Tim for some heavy lifting. He's a commercial airline pilot with a lust for sailboats and, apparently, not enough sense to ignore my pleas for help.
I'd taken the engine out of my old boat, Jade, a few times, and it hadn't been too big of a deal. One of those times was on the dock at DiMillo's Marina in Portland while I was living on the boat. We'd wheeled it down the dock in a cart and put it in a truck to tote to a friend's shop. There, though, I had fellow boater Chris living aboard nearby. He's not a huge guy, but he somehow managed to lift the 3 cylinder Westerbeke out by himself. That is, two of us lifted it up and he reached down from up above and hoisted it onto the deck. Amazing.
At the time, Chris was living on a Pearson 30 while working as a lineman. We became good friends while at the marina, and "buddy-boated" south to Florida together (he with his special lady friend, Sara). He swears rum to be his version of kryptonite, has fallen out of his skiff more times than I can count, and once gave me a huge anchor that was too big for his Pearson. I still carry it, use it during storms, and lovingly call it "Captain Chris" whenever I throw it overboard.
Without Captain Chris, Tim and I rigged a block and tackle system to lift the engine vertically up to the companionway hatch--but our vertical gain would stop there, since the mast wasn't on the boat to aid in the lifting.
Once the engine was hanging, we slid a set of 2x4s under it, and Tim held it from below while I went home for a beer and a few sandwiches.
Then I slid the engine forward and into the open air. From there, however, we still had to get it down the 8' into the back of a truck.
Luckily, my neighbor came to the rescue with his tractor, and set the bucket up alongside the boat's side deck. I climbed into the bucket, and together with my lobsterman friend, Jeremy, we were able to slide the engine across the 2x4s.
As soon as the engine reached the bucket, one of the 2x4s snapped. A second sooner and the engine and I both would've been in the hospital.
The end. Until next week, wherein something super exciting will happen. Yeehaw, as both Ikkyu and Basho used to say.