Spring Updates

Well, winter seems to be coming to an end, thankfully. It’s been a long one trying to keep up with two boats that are outside in the weather. Our goal is to enclose both Willobee and Fifer in a canvas cover during the fall and winter months, but that’s a lofty goal. It has been one of my things to do, learning how to sew canvas, but like everything else I am on a pretty tight schedule just keeping up with maintenance and renovation. I am researching and studying industrial sewing of canvas and have been for awhile. I am hoping to start measuring and creating patterns this summer. I think I will create mock-ups in a cheaper fabric like vinyl to start out with. I will definitely make sure I record how that learning process is going in the coming months.

We have been tackling some of the necessary refinishing of both Fifer and Willobee pieces this winter, including Willobee’s pilot house doors.

At the helm

Welcome Willobee G!

So an opportunity came to us this spring that we had to make a fairly quick decision about. Willobee G is a 1927 Hoffar-Beeching, built the year before Fifer and 20 ft smaller. Willobee had excellent stewards throughout her life, and her latest caretaker reached a point in his life where he was ready to pass her on to new stewards who would love her as much as he does…..it’s been an emotional journey for all of us. We’ll be in that position someday, needing to find someone to continue the journey of these incredible yachts. I definitely felt how difficult it was for David to pass the baton to us, and believe me when I say it was a huge responsibility looking at taking her on—in addition to Fifer. Fifer, if you have been watching our antics at all, is a MASSIVE project. Every year that goes by we make more progress, but it’s definitely been an uphill battle to get her stabilized and properly restored.

The different between Fifer and Willobee is obvious. Fifer was incredibly neglected and basic maintenance wasn’t done for decades before we found her. Her last owner pushed her right up to the brink, and pulling her back has been a hard journey for both of us. It tested us in ways I never saw coming, and it gave us a skill set that could only come about out of pure necessity. We both had to learn new skills, and in many ways that road with Fifer put us into the right position to take on Willobee G. I sometimes marvel at how much I have learned in the last decade, and how empowered I feel restoring and understanding these wooden ships. It’s a passion for us both, and I feel very grateful for the constant education I am getting everyday.

Willobee has been VERY loved throughout her life. She has been lovingly restored many times, and exceedingly well maintained. That’s the difference between Fifer and Willobee. It only took one terrible steward to put Fifer on the edge of being lost forever, and throughout Fifer’s life she had more than one bout with folks taking shortcuts to try and keep on top of major structural issues. Willobee had none of that, and it shows. That is why we took her on. She is in need of the basics, some of which we have already addressed.

We took her up to Port Townsend in late June/early July to haul her out and have our first look at her hull. We were pleasantly surprised with her condition, as much as everything else with Willobee she has been well maintained under the waterline. Some caulk, seam compound, a rudder overhaul, one new thru-hull for the raw water intake and new bottom paint and she was ready for some fun and basic maintenance over this summer. We took her to Harstine Island and tucked her into a slip at the Pointe, now she takes our family on pleasant South Sound journeys. This makes cruising with Vince’s parents possible, and we have been waiting years to share this with them. There’s something so alive and special in these classic wooden yachts, and experiencing that with people we love has been really incredible.

I have been terrible about updating the website for Fifer, but now with TWO incredible classic yachts I am really going to work harder to share more here. I will update the work on Fifer, and now Willobee G. I did set up a cover page that has an email request for a newsletter, and I am going to begin figuring that out. Lol.

Hope you are all having fun this summer, more on Willobee’s history and what’s happening with Fife

Ten Years on...

It’s hard to believe we have been at this restoration of Fifer for almost TEN YEARS….and we aren’t done yet. Work tends to quiet down in the winter a bit, but this winter we have been working hard on reconstructing the teak main salon walls. Working on the walls was one of those things where we could have left it all in place and worked around it instead of taking it on and completely refurbishing everything. When we replaced the roof entirely and saw that shortcomings and bad maintenance on the walls, well, why quit? That is the risk with any restoration. When do you stop? Where do you draw the line between what is necessary and what is pushing the project too far? This is an important question to ask yourself when you are taking on a momentous project like restoring a classic yacht. How large the scope of work is affects A.) Where you funnel your energy, and B.) Where you spend your money. I used to think that it wasn’t all that critical, project planning and management. Time and experience have proven me wrong on that account. It’s easy to take on far too much and become overwhelmed. Once that happens it’s like a domino fall. The cumulative effect of many seemingly small bad decisions on a large-scope project can cripple or kill.

Good questions to ask yourself along the journey are pretty simple. “Is this critical to the overall soundness of the boat? Is it a place and point to invest the time, energy and money at this particular point in the project? Is it possible to put this on the back-burner while we triage the more important critical issues, or will ignoring this make it more difficult to address at a later time?” This boils down to cost, both in energy and money—-and of course time.

This is why the approach to the scope of your project is so critical. Since we began the work on Fifer our approach has always been triage. Take care of the issues of the integrity of the vessel before we take on the less critical issues. Before we could fix Fifer’s main roof over the salon we needed to take care of the structural deficiencies in the main beam, carlings and beam clamps. There was no way to ignore those critical aspects of structure in order to replace the roof. Things need to happen in a certain order to move the project forward. One wrong decision can throw the project into complete chaos. Many poor decisions can ruin a boat entirely.

Since we acquired Fifer at what I consider to be the very bottom of multitudes of deferred maintenance decisions and poor choices of her overall restoration, it was important to have a good idea of what needed to be done to stabilize her in order to even have a chance of bringing her back. We knew it would take a very long time based on our budget, time constraints and level of labor we would be able to provide. We are two very capable people, but we are only two souls. We aren’t superheroes. We only have a certain amount of time measured in hours and days that we prepared to give. Knowing your limits is key. A realistic approach will save you in the end…..and a healthy dose of perseverance. Playing the “long-game” and planning for a giant restoration with patience is where we have been living with Fifer. We learned these lessons the hard way over the years, and I am really grateful for that.

As far as taking this time to replace the structure behind the walls when we replaced the roof and repairing the the walls themselves? It was the best time to do it. The structure underneath and above it now solid, and the rotten pieces behind the walls weren’t going to adequately hold the walls going into the future. It was time to tear it all out, replace and repair.