Teething troubles

 We managed to get back to Greece in early June, on the first available flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. It was interesting: masks all the way, a coronavirus test in Athens airport, two nights in isolation in a quarantine hotel (at public expense and with meals delivered in paper bags) until the tests came back negative, then off to our island for another five days of self-quarantine. By the end of June I had bought a trailer and a two-stroke air-cooled 2.5 hp outboard (basically a weed whacker with a propeller at the end) and registered trailer and engine. On the 4th of July the good vessel Sophia-Andreas was launched. She is very stable and tracks straight, and I love her lines.

However, the problems started immediately. The gas controller on the outboard broke (it was installed backwards, high was low and vice versa, we were lucky not to get hurt) and I ordered the part and replaced it. Also she was taking on water. I found that one of the trailer rollers exerted too much pressure on the bottom and cracked the second chine plywood. I fixed and strengthened the chine and tested for other leaks. After two rounds of waterproofing, the leak persisted with the second and third launches.

Meanwhile the rig needed adjusting. The breeze can get very stiff quickly in the Mediterranean and I found that a plain piece of line for a sheet was too hard to handle. I rigged a traveler system with blocks and it became manageable, but the boat would not tack. I asked for advice on the Wooden Boat forum, and people blamed the full-length narrow external keel and attached skeg. I ignored the advice to take a chainsaw to it but shortened the traveler and prepared for other small adjustments. Then our daughter and grandson came for three weeks and I put everything on hold to spend time with them. 

The rig is a single sprit sail with a brailing line. I found that brailing depowers the sail almost instantly, but in a stiff wind the clew flaps and creates serious wind resistance. I figured out a way to secure the clew by tying it to the mast with the end of the brailing line. The boat, having a bit less freeboard than Aerie and a generous skeg, is very efficient at rowing. 

Just as I was preparing to do another launch, there was a doozy of a thunderstorm that poured enough water on to tear the cover and fill the bottom to a sizeable depth. It took this rainwater to show me the most serious source of leakage: the pressure of the roller had also cracked the epoxy fillet at the seam between garboard and second chine.

I am having some people come over to take the boat off the trailer and flip it again. I will repair the seam, and equally importantly, will replace the rollers with cradle boards to distribute the weight. I think I know why the damage happened (the winch was attached too high on the stem and exerted too much downward pressure, something I have fixed) but I am not taking any more chances.

At it again

It’s been years since I posted on this blog, and lots of things have happened. I considered shipping Aerie to Greece, but it was way too expensive, enough to pay for the materials for two or three new boats. Plus the paperwork for getting it through customs and registering according to European Union regulations would have been a nightmare. So I decided to build another one in Greece instead, which is not surprising since I love to build things.

Meanwhile, I retired in April 2016. The plan to stay in Greece full time was put aside, on account of our children and their hoped-for offspring. We planned to move to California to be near our younger daughter, and spend up to half the year in Greece. I considered selling or giving Aerie away, but was talked out of it by members of the Wooden Boat forum that live in the Sacramento area. So we dragged the boat and its trailer over the Rockies, with a nasty incident in Albuquerque where the rear window of the SUV was smashed and random stuff taken. I could blame Aerie for it, since the length of the car plus trailer forced us to park in the one area not covered by security cameras and right next to the fence to boot. But I don’t blame the boat really; thieves are mean idiots who will steal anything they can, causing $500 worth of damage (not to mention the replacement cost of what they stole) for a duffel bag of clothes and such, with a street value of maybe $30. Breaking Bad was right, Albuquerque must be full of meth-heads drugged out of their minds!

Anyway, Aerie made to Sacramento, where she spent a while in storage and now sits in the back yard, without much opportunity for outings since we spend summers in Greece. But she is still beautiful and works just as well. But now, one grandbaby later, it was time to build one in Greece. It’s cutting into my bagpipes practice (that's another story), but you can’t have everything.

Back from Greece

The last two weeks I was in Greece, mostly on vacation but taking care of some family business too (as usual).  So I didn't do any work on the boat but heck, I needed the vacation and the inspiration to continue, since the plan is to take the boat there when I retire (eventually).  It will obviously cost far more to ship it than to build it, but if it's part of a half-containerload of stuff we may be moving anyway I'll be able to justify it.

There was plenty of inspiration from the beautiful beaches and the sea, which ranges in color from the purest, palest aquamarine to the deepest indigo, depending on depth, weather and what's on the bottom.  When crossing on the ferry I am always reminded of Homer's frequent reference to sailing "on the wine-dark sea" (epi oinopa ponton).  This is very appropriate since the island has had a reputation since early antiquity for superlative wine.  The house we built for our retirement sits on what used to be a vineyard for three generations, up to my grandfather who passed away in 1963.  He was a Greek Orthodox priest and my strongest memories of him are olfactory: a mixture of incense, sweat (from toiling in the fields in a black cassock) and ouzo, which he distilled in copious quantities and partook of in moderation.

While swimming at a different beach every day, I was always aware of wind and wave and made mental calculations of  what it would be like to hop from beach to beach.  The island's circumference is about 60 miles, with dozens of beaches, many more-or-less inaccessible by car.  However, I didn't get much inspiration from other sailors.  I am in my fifties but I do not remember seeing a single traditional boat with sails when I was young: motors had already eclipsed sails.  The occasional sailing yacht makes an appearance but none seem to be from the island.  What I did see was perhaps the sorriest spectacle of lubberly incompetence I had ever seen, in what is arguably the most stunning cove and beach on the island.  A group of tourists (from some Balkan country by the sound of them) had rented a sweet little catamaran built on inflatable pontoons.  Using a large outboard they moved it from its mooring, through the swimmers (I almost called the police for the brazen breach of safety) to the beach.  There they proceeded to hoist the mainsail (a tall, narrow, fully-battened Mylar affair) and unfurl the jib.  Then they used the outboard to move part way up the cove, cut the motor and started sailing straight for the rocks.  Clearly they had no more than a vague idea about how to tack, and I suspect that they hadn't even deployed the very small centerboard.  They brought the jib over but did not put the helm to the lee, or the helm did not obey.  In the nick of time they fired up the outboard and managed to exit the bay.  Then they spent the next hour or two making approximately 20 feet of headway, until they ran out of patience and motored back in.  All in all, a waste of boat, wind, water and beautiful scenery.


Hopefully my boat will do better in that setting.  BTW, I thought of calling it Aerie (every one of the four vowels is pronounced separately in Greek), after a Homeric name for the island which means airy or breezy.  I may be mixing Ionic and Attic dialects of ancient Greek in spelling it thus, but I like the sound, look and concept of the name.  We'll see.

This coming weekend I'll be resuming my work, so keep checking 176inches.

boatbuilder