Making The Break

Well I have finally made the break and moved to Hawaii to live.

1983 was the first time I came thru here and fell in love with the place and I've been hoping to move here ever since. Twenty-eight years later I've finally done it!

I left Idaho happy to be heading for Hawaii, but with the sadness of leaving loved ones in Idaho.

Every once in a while we meet someone that goes above-and-beyond and really makes a difference in our lives. In Idaho that person was Gary Dawes.

I immigrated from Canada and when I got my work visa Gary's company Expert Marine Technology was the first place I applied for a job. He hired me and over the last ten years I had the privilege of working for him. I had never worked for a company that put so much effort into looking after employees. Gary often said his employees were family, and he meant it.

His rules were easy to follow; "if you make a mistake say so, a person will never be fired for making a mistake no matter how bad it is. No one comes to work intending to break sh**."

If you asked for a day off you got it, no matter how badly he may need you that day, he always found a way to make it work for his employees. We got a lot of three day weekends when we needed them.

My first month working for him he heard of a sailboat going for a really good price and told me about it. As a new immigrant money was tight, the immigration attorneys had taken it all "helping" us through the process. He bought the boat for me and told me to make payments on it as I could and if I sold it for a profit we'd split the profit. When I finally sold that boat I had made a couple of grand profit and handed him his half. He refused it and told me to put it down on the house we were trying to move into, we had outgrown the apartment we were in.

We got the house and Gary rented a moving van and he and his son told me to stay outta the way as they moved all our furniture. My boss rented a truck and personally moved my furniture for me!

Eventually I became the General Manager of his business and was privy to the financial end of things. Our Business is seasonal and in the dead of winter, with the crew laid off for the season, I have seen him give his last hundred bucks to an employee who needed it.

I could go on and on as there was seldom a day that Gary didn't do something above and beyond for somebody.

If it was not for him I would not have this boat, I would not have had the house, the previous boat, etc etc etc. He's a great man and I really miss him.

Thank you Gary for all you've done.

Arrived Hilo

We arrived at Hilo March 23rd at nine-thirty pm.

The Seas had been running extremely high and blowing strong for the last ten days with no letting up.

We got twenty miles from Hilo and it died to light airs then no airs as we neared the bay.

We go from a triple reefed main (equivalent rolled up) only to full main and genny in less than an hour.

We had been on only the shortened main for the last three days.

I had been in Hilo before so entered in the dark, ghosting eerily thru the inky blackness at four knots with no wake in no waves on the inside of the mile long breakwater.

We sailed right into the gap at Radio bay then dropped sails, and payed out the stern anchor and used a little burst of electric power right at the end to set the anchor and put the bow on the sea-wall. ......we arrived!

Our neighbors were surprised to see us in the morning.....its fun being electric, we sneak in silently in the darkness.


The trip was fantastic!

We sailed off Mexico, between the Coronado islands, beating south with the wind on the nose.

Ran into a gale day three and four off the Guadeloupe Island and got hammered good in forty plus knots and 18 foot seas (according to the radio).

Every-time we went on deck we got soaked and hammered in the rain and spray and waves washing the foredeck.

We had the main down to nothin and the jib up managing kinda a beam / close reach doing a neat climb up the wave and pivot at the top and down the other side with the wind vane steering well thru it even though the waves tried hard to pound her off course often.

She was quite comfortable and I knew she would do well.

At some point well into the night the jib blew out.

I turned west in the morning and headed for the high and more settled weather.

The winds abated slowly all that day and the next day we found the high and were coasting along at three and four knots in calm seas under sunny skies.

At night the stars came out and we darkened the boat and sat in the cockpit for some stargazing.

The stars are amazing at night under the high..,...billions and billions of em! right down to the horizon.

I took the boat hook and made figure eights in the calm water and it trailed green sparks in the bio-luminescence. It was stunningly beautiful.

After a few days we turned south to seek the trades.

We found strong winds from then on and reduced the main to our "triple" reef and left it there for the remainder of the voyage until we reached Hilo.

After a day we dropped the main and sailed under a poled out Genny for almost the rest of the trip and that was all she needed.

The odd day that was lighter airs and she dropped to three knots I put up the second Genny I had brought from the salvaged O-day. I sewed the hanks from the destroyed jib onto it and put it on the same fore-stay with the A-30 genny and sailed wing and wing.

The pole was to light and dipped the water and bent, we splinted it and sailed on.

Six days out from Hilo it failed in a new place, we retired the pole and used the boom as a reaching pole.

Five days out from Hilo the wind vane failed, the whole rudder assembly let go. The bottom pin had sheared.

It had done better than any vane I had ever owned, sigh.

I hauled the mess aboard and we steered for the last five days.

Four days out the tiller snapped off with a loud crack as the boat was pushed off course by a very large wave. I hove too for the night so we could sleep.

In the morning I installed the spare original tiller I had brought along and we sailed on.

Five days later here we are in Hilo! YAY!!!!!

We caught five mahi Mahi on the trip and had a great run.

26 days 15 hours to sail 2,776 nautical mile.

I spent a week in Hilo resting and repairing.

My stepson flew down and sailed the boat to Oahu with me in light to moderate airs.

We had a great show leaving Hilo when several Humpback wales entered the bay and started spy-hopping and slapping the surface with their fins.
The boat is safely moored in Honolulu now in one of the few slips in our marina that was not washed away and destroyed by the tsunami.

Here we go

Well the day is finally here! Its five am and we are getting ready to sail for hawaii. Within the hour. Sorry for not including pictures....I am writing this from my droid phone and it will only let me write the blog in HTML mode so its a little tough.
The windvane we made is working well and sea trails went incredibly well, this boat likes to sail!
We have to head south for five or six hundred miles to drop below the high before turning west for hawaii.
We will see how the fishing is off mexico!
Thanks again to you all for the help, advise, and support.....it made the project go so much more smoothly.

The crew is ready and Kolohe Is tugging gently on her dock lines wanting to be set free .......

Wrapped and rolling

The mast was wrapped with thin foam and the rigging secured to it and then wrapped with plastic stretch wrap.

Then it was loaded atop the boat and the vessel was shrink wrapped for the long haul to San Diego.

It was an uneventful three day run down to San Diego though she did draw a quite a few looks and she rolled onwards dwarfing the truck. She looked huge shrink wrapped.

The following day the boatyard lifted her gently off the trailer and lowered her into the water.

Four years building and she was finally floating! It was an incredible day and an amazing four years!

There are so many people that helped along the way and I am forever grateful for the  help and encouragement to git-er-done! I could not have done it without you all! Thank you thank you thank you!!

Rigging

We took down the wall and moved the boat to the middle of the shop for loading.

The trailer was backed in and the yardarm jacks were used to lift the cradle onto the trailer.

We pulled the boat outside for the first time in several years and rented a lift to put the mast up and rig her.

It was the coldest and windiest day of the winter thus far. We froze and tried to keep our fingers moving as we hung on to the freezing stainless wire and fittings. It took us all day with a few breaks to get warmed up but we got her rigged with all new 316 wire and stayloc compression fittings. Then we took it all down and moved her back inside the heated shop.

Dodger

With the launch date drawing near I put the hard dodger project on hold and asked Jerry at Mariners Canvas if he could put together a temporary cover over the companionway hatch.....nothing fancy, just something temporary. He and his assistant Justin came by to have a look and Jerry said he could put something together for me that would make do.

He suggested a temporary cover would probably be aluminum with plastic fittings to keep the cost down for me.

They stopped by while I was out fetching parts and put up the frame for it. When I got back I was amazed to see a beautiful frame out of one inch stainless with robust stainless fittings instead of plastic. Jerry smiled "Justin and I got talking about the conditions you may encounter and felt we should use one inch tubing and all stainless fittings. Its such a small dodger we have some offcuts we can use to keep the cost in line"

I was so damn happy! She was getting a stout dodger after all.

Jerry said it would be strong enough to sleep on and we tested it by anchoring a hammock to it and it didn't mind it one bit.

Thank you Jerry and Justin for a job above and beyond what I had asked for!

12/14/2011
Many folks have emailed and asked how to get in touch with Jerry, here is his contact info;
Jerry Holmes
Mariners Canvas
(208) 667-1903
 715 E Harrison Ave,
Coeur D'Alene, ID 83814

motor

For an engine we decided to go electric.

After doing some homework online we contacted Thunderstruck electric and ordered their brushless electric motor kit for sailboats.

The folks at thunderstruck were fantastic to deal with. They spent a lot of time explaining the system and what was best for our application. Their after sales service was first class and I was very impressed with this company.

The installation was very straightforward and went very smoothly.

Gary fabricated a custom motor mount out of half inch thick aluminum plate and mounted the motor to it at the top and two bearings at the bottom to prevent side loads on the drive-line.

A two to one gear ratio and idler was used along with a toothed drive belt.

The motor controller was installed behind the engine on the bulkhead and a drip-less coupler on the propeller shaft completed the installation.