A Better Mouse Trap?

I guess I'm as into reading maritime literature as any man alive. I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I read certain salty works like Melville's Moby Dick, Raphael Sabatini's Captain Blood, London's Sea Wolf, and Conrad's Lord Jim. Lots of times I was onboard a vessel of some description at the time, either one I owned or one I was working on, stealing a few hours away from life's routine to go a'yondering, as Louis L'Amour (who wrote more than a few yarns of the sea) once described the practice of simply going someplace, whether in physical reality or a properly imagined one, for no particular reason other than to see what you might see. Heck, I remember reading my first Clive Cussler ditty (Raise The Titanic) by candle light on an old Seabird yawl I owned for a while. I was tied up at a rough-and-tumble marina in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. Right on the edge of the ICW. I can almost feel the pages today and smell the perfume of outboard-motor (for docking purposes), mildew, brackish water, and melted wax.

So, considering how smitten I've always been with the pure, tactile romance of books and reading, would you ever think I'd buy a freakin ' electronic book? Well, let's just say the part of me that digs technology prevailed upon the romantic part and here I am with am Amazon Kindle in my hands.

And I gotta say--what a wonderful device. Recently, I decided to re-read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and, while laying in the V-berth of the Betty Jane, on the spur of the moment, I downloaded (it took about a minute) not only Treasure Island but all of Stevenson's works for about $5 and began reading right away. Books for sale on Kindle are both fast and CHEAP!!!!!!!!!

Moreover, when I used to travel to do boat tests in the pre-Kindle days, I typically carried along a few inspirational books that I regularly enjoy reading each morning. Only trouble was the darn things had a tendency to weigh me down whilst I pulled my roller through airports en route to the tests.

But guess what! Just about all of these books are in the Kindle library so I've downloaded what I could and substituted a couple of others. So these days, instead of packing a passel of physical books around with me, I just drop the Kindle into the Filson computer bag I've been carrying to tests for about 15 years now and I'm good to go. Figure I save myself about five pounds of extra weight.

By the way. If you buy a Kindle of your own, remember to also buy a slip-on sock to protect it from wear. I got one that matches my Filson and is padded for extra protection. As I recall, I bought it off the Kindle website.

The (Actual) Great Beautification

Well, as you may have guessed from the photo here, the plans for the Great Beautification had to be changed slightly. I went to work with the ensemble of products mentioned in previous entries and the result was none to spiffy.

The main problem? As usual, tackling the job with a hint of know-it-all arrogance. I mean, how difficult could it be to develop a wondrous sheen with a buffer, a little rubbing compound (of the exceptionally mild variety) and a little wax. And aren't the pages and pages of advice on detailing available on the internet enough to help a guy transform a scruffy boat (or only slightly scruffy boat, in Betty's case) into a veritable show piece?

Hmmmmm. Well, lemme tellya...detailing ain't exactly easy, even after watching a whole pile of internet clips purporting to offer the inside track. Hey! Although the little devils look much the same, there's a major difference between operating a power grinder (as I used to do while working as a deckhand on commercial steel boats in my younger days) and operating a power buffer or polisher. And also, detailing boats and cars are two largely different tasks as well. The six-inch Porter-Cable polisher I started out with was not nearly as effective as the Porter-Cable nine-incher I wound up using.

To read what I specifically did to produce a knock-down-drag-out finish on Betty Jane please refer to the upcoming portion of the Shipyard column in the June issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine--it's entitled Wax On, Wax Off. In the pieced, you'll notice I had to change my wax slightly (check out the above photo to see what I substituted for Collinite's paste wax) and I also had to skip the Finess-It II. Ah well!

In case you're interested in what's going on in the photo here, it's pretty simple. I am removing dried rubbing compound from a polishing pad with a tool created for the purpose. You gotta do this ever so often to keep the pad working well. Actually, a screw driver works just as well as the tool shown here and, if you've got a few spares kickin' around that aren't gonna cost anything, is a heck of a lot cheaper.

The Start Of The Great Beautification II

Boring picture, right? Well, not exactly. At least for a guy like me who's a hard-bitten do-it-yourselfer and has been since birth.

As noted in a previous post (The Start Of The Great Beautification), I have decided to hit the ol' Betty Jane with the ultimate wax job, an extravaganza propounded by my friend Milt Baker, the proud owner of a Grand Banks 32 who's now switched over to a Nordhavn passagemaker. In a missive to the Grand Banks web site some while ago Milt spent some words on a relatively simple, yet succinct, method for achieving a very high level of cosmetic finish on a fiberglass boat. He seemed pretty confident of the system he'd fallen upon and the products that put the pizazzzzzzzz in it.

So anyway, having taken a tip from Milt, I have now assembled most of the tools and products I need for the job. These include a 5-inch buffing plate and a bunch of six-inch foam-wool buffing pads (shown in my hand above), a Porter Cable 7424 orbital polisher/sander (not shown), a pile of green microfiber towels (shown above), a quart of a 3M product called Finess-It , and, for the application of the primo wax I am going to use--an old-fashioned paste type (No. 885) from the Collinite Company of Utica, New York (not shown)--a six-and-a-half-inch gray-foam finishing pad (it's behind the plate/buffing pad combo in my hand).

Note that I got most of this stuff from Autogeek.net, an excellent outfit that charges reasonable prices, is prompt, and offers genuinely useful product support. The Porter Cable 7424 (reportedly one of the best polishers on the market) I already owned, as luck would have it. Bought the darn thing years ago from Lowe's and never really used it.

Unfortunately, the winter weather in North Florida has been wintry in the extreme, especially on weekends. So I am continuing to hang fire, waiting for temperatures above 50 degrees. But I'll tell ya--I'm gettin' antsy. Stay tuned.

The Importance of Nonchalance In Boating

My wife BJ snapped this photo recently--I was backing Betty Jane into her slip, a process that typically requires several maneuvering changeups. Without going into the whole deal too deeply, let's just say there's quite a lot of backing down that goes on, but also a fair amount of going ahead.

Moreover, none of the backing down stuff or going ahead stuff occurs in anything like a simple form. For example, you'll have some backing down for a while...then a shot of going ahead for a while (to reposition the stern in, say, a misapprehended cross-current situation)...then some more backing down for a while...then a shot of going ahead (accompanied by a rapid rotation of the steering wheel to put the opposite rudder on)...then goofy mixes and matches of these iterations for, oh, maybe a solid three or four minutes.

Confused? Heck, that's okay. So am I. Always have been.

Besides, boathandling's not the subject of this entry anyway. What I'm getting at here has to do with appearances and, more to the point, the appearance of myself (above) while working through a typically complicated and lengthy scenario of back-downs, go-aheads, and steering wheel spins.

Hey...do I look like I was just about to fall asleep or what? Even though my nerves are writhingly tense and I am big-time worried that several of my friends on the dock (who seem to enjoy watching Betty return to her home even when they've probably got better things to do) will see me sweat or even screw up. And even though one of my buddies is crowing to the other, "Watch this...bet he scrapes a piling...ha, ha, ha."

Well guess what, folks...I did NOT scrape a piling or even come close on this particular day. And I maintained such an aura of nonchalance while teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown that I should have been given an award that Sunday evening...perhaps an Oscar.

After all, nonchalance (or the appearance of nonchalance) during seriously or even seemingly dicey times onboard is important. If nothing else, it keeps your crew from freakin' out and jumpin' ship, a development it's tough to be even a little bit nonchalant about.

The Start Of The Great Beautification

Take a close look at this image of Betty Jane. Does she look just a tad lackluster to you? A little pale, perhaps even a little chalky? If so, the reason's as simple and straightforward as the juxtaposition of apple pie and Blue Bell Home Made vanilla ice cream.

Betty's not had any kind of wax applied to her lovely (but somewhat aged) skin for pretty close to a year now. Why? Who knows exactly why, although lack of time and energy is part of the dilemma. But hey, I am preparing to do a super-duper wax extravaganza on Betty pretty soon, by which I mean as soon as I can get a weekend free and the mercury inches into the 60s or higher. I mean, son, it's been cold down here in northern Florida lately. And I mean COLD!!!!!!

My tools, I think, are gonna be few. I've got a few extra polishing pads for my 6-inch Porter-Cable orbital power sander on hand, a couple of admittedly old bottles of 3M Finess-It (to remove the matrices of millions of dark dots that cover many flat surfaces...I'm praying these babies are air-pollution-related, not fabric ridges peeking through gel coat) , and a big ol' bottle of collagen-type wax to protect Betty's pristine fiberglass...once it's rendered pristine via the hellish Porter-Cable/Finess-It combo.

I'll let you know how it all comes out. Or more to the point, I'll show you a picture of how things come out and give you a rundown on what to do for success and what not to do. One way or the other, the whole project should be fun. Heck, it's been worth fantasizing about for months now.

Are You Shocked?

To be quite frank, my life-long love affair with boats is not wholly centered on the Betty Jane. I also love sailboats (I've owned several), ships, tugboats, gheenoes, rowboats, inflatables, schooners, pushboats, belly boats, ferries, rafts, barges, oil-field supply vessels, sportfishing battlewagons, speedboats, and, last but not least, canoes. And every year, for the past few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed this last objet trouve by doing a canoe-camping trip to northern Ontario with my brother Mike.

The venue is always the same for reasons I guess you'll begin to appreciate by briefly perusing this photo of one of our most recent campsites. The photo was taken by yours truly toward the middle of last September and, if the truth be told, leaves out a couple of important details. Like the fact that this particular spot was so remote that packs of wolves howled every night nearby (and sometimes during the day) and bears swam a slough just a few miles from camp. And like the fact that this particular spot was suffused with an energizing aura of sweet, clean air and cool sun-spangled evergreen.

We usually do a little fishing on these canoe-inspired excursions. I take a fly rod and Mike tends to go with spinning tackle. This past September we caught zilch...never even got a bite. This was probably due to the coldness of the water in the myriad lakes within the huge provincial park we favor. We didn't have the right gear for the conditions, I guess.

Did I ever think of my ol' Betty while snoozing the evenings away in our tent? Or sitting around the campfire staring into the flames while listening to the wolfy music? Or paddling down the immense lakes in the Old Town? Or lugging our entire kit across the sloggy portages?

Heck yes. After all:

I love canoes and all the rest, but Betty Jane I love the best!

Favorite Places

This is an oddball subject, I guess. But I have special little spots onboard Betty Jane that mean way more to me than just the function they serve. Just the other day, for example, I hung up my red-hot GB baseball cap--I rarely wear a hat these days unless it's on Betty's flying bridge--on the lamp by the door that opens from the saloon into the cockpit.

And this was the oddball part. I experienced a subtle but highly positive feeling from the act of merely hanging up the dang cap, primarily because the spot where I hung it was rife with memories that feature a heck of a lot of my dearest friends. Like my buddy Chuck who stuck with Betty and I through the wintry vicissitudes of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina as we all came down the ICW to Florida some years back.

Or like by friend Don who once sat behind the table in the saloon with his lovely wife and proclaimed with a grand smile and a sweepingly knowledgeable hand gesture, "This is simply such a nice space to be in right now, Bill--it's like living inside a work of art."

Or like my good buddy Bill who used to hang his hat on the lamp after he'd come back from one adventure or another ashore and then forget where he'd put the darn thing.

Funny. But I gotta ask myself sometimes. Do such places and things as lamps, V-berth book shelves, and coffee cup hooks solidify into little bits of geography onboard boats? Little states with their own histories, famous personages, poetry, and boundaries? And if so, why seemingly more so boats than cars, planes, or houses?