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Haul Outs by Paul Andron

In the three years we have owned the Sea Heather we have pulled it out of the water twice. The first “haul-out” was on a grid. A grid is a system of supports that sit in the water. When there is a very high tide, it is possible to drive a boat up onto the grid and tie it up to support beams. Then when the tide goes out the boat will sit upon the supports and out of the water. This allows you to clean the bottom, paint and sometimes even leaves you enough time to make minor repairs.

In the summer 2004 we “Hauled-Out” Sea Heather for the first time on the Grid. This is a humbling experience and provides a whole new perspective for anyone (like us) who hasn’t seen their boat from this angle. We talked to the harbor master who provided us with a drawing of the grid layout. It is very important to line up the bents (the padded railroad ties that support the vessel) with strong and balanced points on the keel (I wouldn’t recommend attempting this with a fin keel!). We compared the bent spacing with the only drawings we had of Sea Heather and then used a healthy helping of guesswork.

A couple of important considerations before we go on:

Don’t line up a bent under the rudder. Make sure the boat will not roll forward or backwards off a bent (a good way to balance the boat is by filling or emptying water and fuel tanks, or by moving heavy objects like the anchor chain). Pad the gunwale or any other part of the boat that will lean against the vertical posts of the grid. Don’t plan on getting any sleep. How high and low […]

Paul has kindly given permission for us to use some of his stories and experiences here on the new website. We would like to thank Paul for his generosity. For those looking for a DE38, Pauls boat Sea Heather is currently for sale. Link here

Fiberglass Repairs

On June 23, 2005 the Sea Heather set off on the 500 mile journey from Kodiak to Juneau, AK. about a week later, shortly after our first sighting of land, we attempted to dock at a fuel pier in Elfin Cove, AK. Unknown to us, a link in our transmission had come loose during our sail across the gulf and rendered our neutral and reversing gears useless. We quickly figured this out as we ran into the pier (pictured below) doing almost 2 knots!

Don’t worry, the pier mostly already looked like that, the only damage we did is the little smashed on the front of the middle pier. It looks like freshly cut wood, if that helps!

However, our boat did not get off so easily…it sustained damage from the bowsprit all the way down to cracked fiberglass on the stem of the boat. The part that worried us the most was the chain plate that connected the bobstay to the stem had bent and cracked open the fiberglass just above the waterline. This section will explain how we fixed it.

First off, we had to get out of Elfin Cove, so we unanimously decided the best course of action was to go to the closest(and only) pub and get a brew. Then we temporarily sealed the crack with silicon sealant after determining to the best of our guessing ability that the crack, although clearly structural, was not so bad as to preclude sailing in light wind. Turns out we were […]