After a horrible 2-1/2 years of living on land, my family has decided to move back onto a boat. We spent a few months searching for the right boat, thinking that we learned from our mistakes on the Patriot. This time, we decided that we would get a smaller, faster, fiberglass yacht that would be easier to maneuver and maintain. Well, things usually don't go as planned, and we bought another big, mostly-rotten, 40 year old wooden trawler; the Misogi.
In order to restore our old rot-bucket to water-tight condition, we decided to move her into a boathouse. The boathouse was advertised as being 18 feet wide and 20-something feet tall, and Misogi has a beam of about 17 feet, so we were about 70% sure that we would fit. We didn't. The boathouse had a few beams and appendages in awkward places, and we got stuck. Luckily, my dad had his sawzall along, and he cut enough off of the Misogi's top deck that we were able to squeeze in.
We have now started the process of restoring the boat. This involves cutting out the rotten bits, soaking all of the surrounding wood in epoxy, and screwing new pieces of wood into the holes where the rotten wood used to be. In theory, it sounds quite easy, but in practice it is very demanding and time-consuming work that involves all kinds of annoying geometry. My dad hired a shipwright to repair the really curvy bits, but there is still plenty of work for us to do. Here's some pictures of the move and the start of Misogi's restoration:
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| Driving to Bellingham; Lummi ahead. |
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| Stuck in boathouse door. |
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| Rot damage. |
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| More rot damage. |
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