S/V Ripple

Prospective trip legs above Powell River The heavy lifting is done -- painting, varnishing, upgrades to the galley, storage, a new wood-burning heating stove, a rain fly for the cockpit, bronze tiller pilot stanchion, anchor chain deck plate, and a hundred minor tweaks. Ripple is a demanding mistress, greedy for every attention you might lavish upon her.  But the dividends are commensurately great, and the privilege of her company is endlessly rewarding.   These last few days before departure are a blissful alloy of satisfaction and anticipation.  I wish I had gotten the topsides repainted, I wish I were a better varnisher, but for all that, Ripple is a well-found vessel in excellent condition, and she is ready for the trip. We will depart Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, bound for Port Townsend, Bedwell Harbour, Nanaimo, Jedediah Island, and a rendezvous with Terry Noreault in Powell River before pushing north towards the Hakai Preservation Area.

In preparation for this summer's cruise, I finally got my checklists together, printed, and laminated.

I was out on Lake Washington this past week, enjoying some unseasonably warm sunshine and Jason of YachtVid.com cruised up and chatted me up about Ripple.  He had been shooting a video of a large yacht, asked if he could take some shots of Ripple. I was happy to agree.   The result is this video .  Jason got one detail wrong... my trip to Alaska was not alone, but rather with 5 crew, one at a time. Thank you, Jason, for a very nice video hommage!

The Firing With the deck iron in place, it is time to work out the details of setting the stove in place and fitting the flue pipes.  The enclosure from the original kerosene heater is lined in asbestos and requires some modification to make it more effective. Basically, the floor of the enclosure needed to be raised and leveled, and the space below converted to a short term fuel storage spot.  A simple carpentry effort made short work of that. I've re-used the asbestos sheets that lined the space.  Asbestos is very dangerous as dust, but as long as it is stable, it presents no health hazard.  Reusing it involved making a few cuts (dust), but also keeps the material out of the landfill,  so the tradeoff seems reasonable to me. The alternative to asbestos is to create a heat shield which is comprised of sheet metal (typically copper or stainless steel) offset from combustible surfaces by an air barrier (1 inch is the standard recommendation).  In...

Cutting a hole in a perfectly good house top is daunting business, but it has to be done.  Fitting a deck iron (which is bronze) is less daunting, but a lot of work.  The deck iron wants to be level and the house top is not, so it is necessary to make a donut that supports the deck iron and levels it. Taking the angle is simple enough.  Cutting the angle in a 9 inch square block of hardwood 3 inches thick requires multiple angled cuts on the table saw, and finishing with a hand saw.  The only hardwood I had that was thick enough was a slab of walnut.  Walnut is suboptimal for nautical uses (it is not particularly rot resistant), but painted well and properly maintained, it will do the job nicely. The interior of the donut need not be cut precisely -- it just need to accept the bronze deck iron without leaving excessive space around the walls of the casting.  I wasted the interior of the donut with a drill bit, and then chucked a drum sander in the dri...

Many of my 88 days on the Inside Passage found me layered up in wool and foulies, but with one exception, being cold just wasn't a problem. What was a problem was keeping the cabin dry. Humans respire about a quart of water while sleeping, and Ripple has rudimentary rain protection in the cockpit, so inevitably a good deal of water comes into the cockpit via wet gear and crew. Testimony regarding the virtues of wood burning stoves in boats is widespread, and the appeal of a cozy fire on a blustery day is self evident. Finding a suitable unit for Ripple rose to the top of my upgrade program. It is a complicated proposition. Having  made the decision to go with a wood-burner, one still has a potentially vast array of options. My own were severely constrained by space availability. The Force 10 kerosene burner was designed into the boat, leaving the choice of reworking cabinet work or finding a stove to fit within the 12" by 13" by 16" space. The stove I most co...

disconnecting fuel, mechanical, and electrical connections to the engine  in preparation for removing the gearbox June 15 Monday is the Day that Mathias leaves, heading back to New York, then on to Europe to continue his post-discharge walk-about year. The problems with Ripple have distracted from the passing of the torch from my oldest son to my closest friend, but the three of us will have a couple of hours together in any case. Wes arrived fairly early in the morning. We arranged to meet him on the town-side of the ferry that connects Ketchikan with the airport, which is across the channel.  Bar Harbor Marina is perhaps a half mile from the ferry dock, so Mathias and I walked up to meet him. We got back to the boat, fixed some breakfast, and the three of us reminisced about previous trips we've shared, a rich collection of the best experiences of my role as a parent. The highlight of the year for many years in our family was an expedition of some sort that in...