A Day in the Life

Of DoryMan

Here in the Pacific Northwest one must make the best of every sunny moment.


Two years or more have passed since the dory cruiser Mistral was hauled out and painted. So, it's off to the boatyard for Doryman.










Just look at the barnacles on that rudder! Get a good mental picture of the rudder design because it is about to be scrapped.







With the radical angle of the transom on this boat a wide rudder such as this will lift nearly out of the water when the boat is heeled-over. As a result, the boat stalls when turning to windward and can go into irons during a tack.







To maintain the shoal draft of this hull, Doryman took his trusty power saw to the fin and redesigned it as a swing-up rudder, thus moving the power of the spade deeper. There is a ten pound plug of lead in there to hold it down and a wire lanyard attached to a block on the stern pulpit.










You remember the Teak Lady, Che Hon? This petite yacht is a diamond in the rough.






She was very dry from being stored in a shed for seven years so it's been a cork and caulk challenge.
Several weeks of soaking brought the teak planks back to shape and closed the seams enough for new cotton. Some Slick Seal compound and new bottom paint sealed her up pretty well. There's four coats of fresh spar varnish on her topsides.



We dropped her in the water lashed to the Travel Lift straps, just in case she tried to sink to the bottom. Two hours later she had less than a liter of water in her bilge.
As the tide rises and falls this weekend, she will soak four more times before we let her loose early Monday morning. Then she will float on her own to the dock for some finish-sanding on those decks and treatment with Deks Olje. We have about two hundred hours into this restoration so far and it is worth every minute to see a seventy-two year old boat looking so good.





There is no time to lose!

The seventh annual Toldeo Wooden Boat Show is next weekend.










All in all, a very good day.
Now - back to work DoryMan!...