Sail Far Live Free

As you may recall from some posts late last summer, most of the teak on our sailboat's deck was severly rotted. Perhaps the most rotted of all were the teak railslides for the sliding companionway hatch. I was fortuntate enough to come acrossed a fellow Helms 25 owner who happened to have a spare set of used railslides for that fit my boat perfectly (Thanks Wayne!). I continue to be amazed at the level of support and information provided by other sailors whom I've met online at places like Sailnet and the Yahoo Helms forums. The railslides I received from Wayne were dirty and definately in need of some cosmetic work, but the teak wood was solid. I begin restoring the old railslides by sanding them. Next, I washed them in our shower much to the chagrin of my wife with a mixture of dish detergent, TSP and bleach. Then I carefully applied three coats of Minwax Helmsman Spar Urethane over the course of four days. I also used more epoxy to patch a couple of spots on the bottom of ...

This post will briefly highlight the cosmetic enhancements we made to our auxillary outboard. As previously mentioned, the motor cowling fell off on the highway while the previous owner was towing his boat. During the tumble down the highway, the cowling sustained cracks, scrapes and broken corners. I start the repairs by filling in the hollow spaces between the fiberglass outer-cowling and the foam insulation with styrofoam. Then I used hand moldable "metal" epoxy putty from PC Products (similar to the PC-11 marine epoxy used on the hull) to pactch the cracks and holes in the cowling. The epoxy sets really fast, so you need to be quick with shaping it. Unfortunately, this epoxy doesn't sand down very nicely, so you're mostly stuck with whatever shape the epoxy sets in. Next, I cleaned the cowling and sanded it with fine grit sanding sponges to remove grime and painted decals. I then used 3 coats of an exterior latex paint with ceramic additives to finish the job....

After a lot of research and much debate about how much of the overall restoration budget should be spent on an outboard motor, we finally made a purchase. We ended up spending well below our targeted price of $600 and picked up this little Johnson for $240. There are some old salts that will tell you a sailor doesn't need a motor at all. After all, sailing is about coming to balance with the forces of nature (wind, currents, waves, etc.) through a sailboat. However, we feel having auxillary power will be a huge blessing on those days when the wind doesn't blow. We also anticipate using the motor to move to and from our mooring as well as helping us navigate through busy channels and marinas without having to use our sails. And of course there's an argument that a motor on a sailboat can provide a bit of safety if your rigging gets damaged. Whatever the ultimate reason, we're happy to have an outboard. We spoke with several other Helms 25 owners as well as owners of ...

Tiller: A lever attached to a rudder post/stock of a boat in order to provide the leverage for the helmsman to turn the rudder. Yes, it is possible to steer a sailboat without a rudder and tiller by using only the sails and the wind. But this sailor prefers to have the smooth wood of a finely crafted tiller in his hand. So in order to have the "smooth wood of a finely crafted tiller" part of that preference applicable to our boat I decided to refinish our "tiller". I say "tiller" in quotation marks because our tiller is actually a wheelbarrel handle that replaces the original tiller. What started out as a dingy, gray, rough piece of equipment intended for work around the yard is now a "finely crafted tiller" with a nice smooth finish and a golden hue reminiscent of the summer sun. I started refinishing the wood by sanding it down. I then applied four coats of semi-gloss Minwax Helmsman spar urethane. Between coats I sanded the urethane f...

I spent a lot of laboriously joyful hours on the boat this summer and fall. I've made a lot of progress towards making her seaworthy for next season. She's also half-way presentable now, after 4 months of TLC. Even though our Helms 25 was never in the water during the 2007 season, it's still a sorrowful day when she has to be wrapped and stored, not to be uncovered again until spring of the new year. But don't shed a tear for me. I've got plenty of sailboat related activities to take care of over the winter. Here's a partial list: patch the sails, clean the sails, cover the foam cushions, begin sorting/organizing gear into bins, learn knot tying skills, and on and on and on. I'm actually looking forward to the sailing off-season and all of the things I'll learn, read, build and restore.

I was messing around with MS Paint and decided to see what color combination we might want to use when we paint the hull next spring. The line drawing in this post is something similar to what we're thinking of. Ideally, the blue would be a darker color, but you get the idea. The gelcoat is beyond repair and my several epoxy patch jobs have left the hull looking rather dull. So we'll definately be painting it early next spring before the splash day!

For this week's quote, I'll borrow from the 19th century writer/poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes. This is another quote about taking whatever life brings in stride, said with sailing metaphors, of course. To achieve, we must take the first step and keep moving! "I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."  - Oliver Wendel Holmes

This post is all about the cabin of our Helms 25. Just like the rest of the boat, the interior needs a lot of work. I wish I had taken picture of the cabin on the day we brought her home. I'm sure the parental controls on many of your computers would have kept you from seeing the pictures...that's how dirty she was! But now the interior has a had a thorough bath of bleach and Comet, along with two coats of paint on most surfaces. The ceiling and the floor still need to be painted. However, I'm still working on sealing the ceiling (tongue twister!) and will in all likelyhood use something like DriDeck flooring in the cabin sole. Most interior teak has also had one coat of MinWax Tung Oil applied. At least one more coat will be added before winter. I also need to build a dinnette table that will convert to a bed for one of the girls, resurface the cushions (Erin's goal for the winter!), and add a few things like a handheld-VHF holder, oil lamps, etc. The idea is to ke...

(Note: This blog post appeared in Latitudes & Attitudes - The Seafaring Lifestyle magazine on page 46 of the April 2008 edition) A clean, well-kept bilge says a lot about a boat's overall condition in my book. Clean bilges let you know that the ship's captain doesn't live by the philosophy of "Out of sight, out of mind". Sure, bilges inherently get dirty and wet quickly and easily. But if you start with a good foundation, they are easier to keep clean and much more hospitable during those claustrophobic moments when you have to cram yourself deep into the bowels of the vessel for maintenance and repair. I began restoring our boat's bilge by first removing any debris and lost hardware that had fallen in over the years. Then I scrubbed mightily with a solution of Comet, bleach and warm water. Next, I used my shop-vac to suck up smaller particles and make certain the entire bilge was dry. Luckily, about 99% of the bilge is fairly accessible on a Helms 25...

Today I started filling in the chipped areas of the gelcoat on the boat's hull. Most of the chips appear to be purely cosmetic, but there are a couple that are deep enough to expose the fiberglass matte underneath. I used two-part expoxy paste to fill in the chips. The paste goes on fairly easily with a disposable putty knife. Later, I'll sand the hardened epoxy smooth so that the hull is ready for a couple layers of new urethene paint in the spring.