Even in Kyoto

Temperatures cooled off overnight, to the point where I put on a long-sleeve shirt this morning for the drive over to the boathouse. The water was utterly beautiful and it felt like fall.



With the water still quite warm but low air temperatures, fog started to rise off the surface just as the sun came up.





Pretty magical out there; a good reminder of why we do this thing day in and day out.



After practice, a teammate loaned me her roof rack and we loaded up one of the club boats that has sustained more damage than I can easily repair:



I drove up to the boat repair shop in Saratoga Springs, taking back roads, to drop off the boat and chat for a few minutes with B about boatbuilding and boat repair.

The current project in his shop is a small sailing dinghy that belongs to a friend who lives down the road:



The boat is a Thistle. Originally the friend down the road had just asked B to repaint it, but B took one look at it and realized it would need a ton of fairing work before it would be anywhere near ready to paint.

It was really useful to learn more from B about the fairing process.

He said he has been using a comb to apply the fairing compound, because overall that method uses less material and requires less effort to sand, when trying to fair out really bad low spots.



Once the low spots have been sanded down with a torture board, whatever grooves are left can be filled in with another round of filling compound.

He also introduced me to a couple different types of fairing/filling compound, talked me through how to make repairs to paint chips, and showed me his paint collection.

I'm so grateful to people who are willing to talk shop with me about this stuff!

I *do* need to find someone to discuss oar blade repair with, one of these days. Maybe at the Head of the Charles, if I go to spectate again.

The drive home was mercifully uneventful. Now, back to work. If I can concentrate with the sound of the air-polluting noise bazookas running outside. Sigh.

Drilling the mounting holes for the rowing units yesterday afternoon was stressful, and did not go entirely according to plan. I had to adjust one of the holes in the wood brace to get the bolts to align properly. The whole process also took enough time that I decided against drilling the second set of holes for re-rigging the boat as a single. I'll just have to get to that later.

But! That was enough progress to get the boat prepped for transport down to the boat ramp.



The straps do have signs of wear after the cross-country haul in December.



Some rowing friends met me at the boat ramp this morning to help finish the rigging and then get the boat launched.

Aside from the chilly temperature, the water was beautiful!


We just did a couple of very short laps to test out the boat.




It was a pleasure to row! It rows much faster than it paddled, heh.

Now Petrichor will stay down in the boat yard, where hopefully she will see lots and lots of water time this year.

Eventually I need to finish varnishing her, heh. Once it's slightly warmer and I have slightly more free time. Soon.

Amazing.

Backstory: there's one small company that makes the drop-in rowing units recommended by Chesapeake Light Craft for the Annapolis Wherry. I only learned I needed to order the units separately when I showed up for the class last September. At that moment, they showed as "out of stock" through CLC's website. So, thinking that I'm a clever person, I figured I'd try and look up the source directly to place an order.

I placed an order, and had a bit of back-and-forth, and then...silence. The last time I heard back was early November. And I am not hounding them. I've been waiting at least 2 weeks - 1 month between check-ins. I've tried calling in the past, but never managed to get through to a person.

But today, I finally spoke directly with the man himself!

I won't consider this done until the units arrive. But it was such a relief to finally get a human being on the line.

Anyway, if I ever do this sort of thing again in the future, I'll just work through Chesapeake Light Craft. They know what they're doing and have the staffing and structure to be able to respond to inquiries as needed. A lot of boatbuilding operations really don't - the person who answers the phone is also the person up to his elbows in epoxy. I was reaching the point where I was starting to wonder whether the person who builds these units had suffered some sort of major health setback.

I can hardly wait for the ill-advised misadventures to continue!

It felt like a surprisingly busy weekend. On Saturday, scrottie and I ran a series of errands in the morning, including visiting multiple garden shops to see if any of them had the correct sort of decorative wrought-iron hook for sytharin's kitchen broom (answer: nope).

I always enjoy ogling plants and garden wares, anyway. This particular shop has an impressive collection of expensive but twee things for sale.



In the afternoon, a couple friends came over and we walked to a nearby park to see if the recent rain had translated to any changes in stream flow through the park. It hadn't, but RAC did spot a stick with a pleasing fungus on it, which is apparently known as "Crystal Brain Fungus."



I've been on a mission to help RAC use up some of the awkward ingredients that have been languishing in her cupboards, so Saturday's dinner was another round of this roasted root vegetable and wheat berry salad. I accidentally overcooked the wheat berries, but even so this salad tastes like wonderful comfort food.

S brought George and Martha back for the weekend as well. The cats haven't all become one magical big happy family yet, but in general they are handling things pretty well. It's amusing how RAC and slydevil's cats never cared for this wool cat cave, but George and Martha both approve of it.



I'm also amused by how Cassie tolerates being held in a way that makes her look like a Nyan Cat.


The weather was finally clear enough on Sunday afternoon for me to get another coat of varnish on Petrichor. I'm pleased to report that the trick of sticking the foam brush in the freezer totally worked.





Then we had a delicious fondue feast for dinner, but I haven't uploaded any photos of that yet.

This morning it was raining again, as forecast, so we got the boat turned back over so it won't fill completely with water. S and I then went shopping for more varnish, as it looks like the ultra-clear pint will run out before all the coats are on. From that we learned that the Svendsen's Bay Marine location in Richmond is more of a boatyard than a store (though they do have a chandlery!), but Whale Point Marine did at least have the more traditionally-hued Pettit Captain's varnish. So I think the outside of the boat will now wind up with more of an amber tint. But that is fine.

Varnish Count:
Interior: 2 of 5 coats
Exterior: 2 of 5 coats

When I went to Sea-Mar to get more epoxy, I discovered that they had bags of upcycled rags for sale. I'd been eyeing various shop towels and such, but upcycled rags are a far more appealing product.

When I finally opened up the bag to start using them, this is the first thing I pulled out:



Yesterday, when covering the boat back up, I wanted to also cover up a gap at the end of the tarp, so I pulled another rag out that also spoke to me:



Most of the rags in the bag are fabric scraps without words or patterns on them.

Whoever assembled this bag of rags...thank you.

I really didn't manage to post much while out at scrottie's boat, in large part because there were a number of other things to attend to. For example, seeing how well the cats would adjust to boat life. Martha started to make forays out to the cockpit and onto the deck by Tuesday, while George's main strategy seems to be "try to sleep it all off like it's a bad dream." On Wednesday morning, while Martha was out, I set him out in the cockpit and he didn't instantly dive back into the boat.

I think the cats' ears kind of tell the whole story.




Based on how the cats have been doing so far, they're going to stay with S on the boat for at least the next week or so while I'm in El Cerrito hanging out with R and L's cats, chickens, betta fish, and garden. We're hoping at some point to figure out a way for S to come over to El Cerrito as well, but it seems best to manage any associated cat diplomatic negotiations in stages, as R and L's cats are far less boisterous than George and Martha.

I spent much of the day on Tuesday driving to and from El Cerrito, for the sake of route-testing, figuring out logistics at my sister's house, and getting the ants situated. I'm pleased to report the ants are now situated, although I didn't take any pictures. For my return route I tested out the "avoid highways" recommendation. There were some sections that seemed like they would have been really fun to ride on a bicycle, but mostly that route was a lot of suburban traffic lights. So, better just suck it up and deal with the highways.

Tuesday night and Wednesday morning were rather windy, so I postponed my return to El Cerrito until midafternoon, which wound up going as well as it could. I am going to continue to wish that California drivers would remember how to use their turn signals. And I'm just going to avoid driving here as much as I can.

But I made it.

And my sister and slydevil are right, the boat and trailer *do* fit in their second driveway, with even a little room to spare:


However, their neighborhood isn't the most secure place ever, so with slydevil's help I spent the rest of the afternoon moving the boat and trailer onto their side patio:



The wet spot is where I bumped into an ageing bucket of pebbles and caused it to crack (sorry, R!).

To move the trailer, I disassembled it into the front and rear sections, which made it easier but not exactly easy to maneuver it through the gate. That also let me finally get the spare tire carrier installed, so the spare tire no longer needs to ride along inside the car, yay. This morning I put additional grommets into the tarp cover and reinstalled the tarps, so now the boat is protected from sunlight again.

We tried out putting the boat on top of the sawhorses that L and R have, but L and I were both a little concerned that the boat was rather high off the ground, given the wind and general stability of the sawhorses. So the trailer seems like the best parking spot for the time being. That means that when I get more settled here, I'll plan to resume my work on the inside, rather than working to finish the outside. At this point the interior work will consist of sanding everything with 220-grit, a thorough cleanup, and then varnish varnish and more varnish. It *can* be done.

But before any of that happens, I've accumulated a half-dozen errands to attend to. And so, without further ado (or maybe with it, heh), I shall.

As I'd hoped, sanding the outside of the boat with the 220-grit was, mercifully, so much faster than the 120-grit sanding. I got the entire hull sanded in about 4 hours. By comparison, I'm estimating I spent about 28 hours just on sanding the interior of the boat with the 120-grit.





It's still not perfect, but it's definitely better.

The only problem is, even with using only the 220-grit and trying to be careful and take my time with a delicate touch, I sanded back through about half of the places where I'd applied epoxy patches.

This isn't especially surprising, but confirms that a proper epoxy patch job requires multiple coats of epoxy, plus the waiting and cure time and more extensive follow-up sanding. It also confirms that the edges of my chines are too pointy.

In spite of that, I am going to forge ahead with varnishing. From what I read in the two-part article about how these boats age, my sense is that the boat isn't going to instantly deteriorate and fall apart after three uses - unlike the paper rowing shells that were manufactured for a period in Troy, NY back in the day (so lightweight! So ephemeral!). Instead, I'll eventually need to haul the boat out for a round of refinishing, and that day will arrive sooner rather than later because of these blemishes. At that point hopefully I'll have more space and more time and more energy to attend to the details. Hopefully. Or more money to pay someone else to do it for me, heh. I do happen to know a guy. But in the meantime, there are multiple good reasons to keep working.

So I got underway with the deep-vacuuming of the garage to prep for varnishing, which led to some questions for my mother: how thorough would she like me to actually get with the garage cleaning? There's a lot of stuff stored in the garage, and several decades' worth of cobwebs, too. Much of the dust is glued in place by decades of grime.

After consultation, the conclusion is I don't need to get too meticulous, overall. We eventually identified one shelf in particular as the spot containing things where we weren't entirely sure what they are or what to do with them, so that shelf deserved a bit more attention. It looks like a shelf that mostly contained stuff that my dad used or was accumulating, half car-related, half "other."



Lingering recycling and disposal questions:

-My dad accumulated different metals in different piles/containers, as can be seen on the bottom shelf - e.g. aluminum items like toothpaste tubes and baking pans and bike suicide levers, vs. almost an entire disintegrating milk jug full of steel nails and staples and whatnot (so heavy, so pokey!). How to get these to the appropriate scrap metal destinations?

-Steel cans: there's an empty steel gas can and an empty steel camp fuel can. Do these recycle somehow?

-Old Coleman Camp Stove: My mom attempted to replace the generator on this stove, but when she tried to test it out, it started leaking fuel at other points, which freaked her out and caused her to abandon the project. My sense is that someone who knows more about what they're doing could finish the repair and then there's a nice, working campstove. But I already have a campstove of this style, so I really don't need another one, and my mom currently has a small backpacking stove she knows how to operate, so she isn't inclined to keep or work on this one further. So, what to do with this one?

I kind of wish I had a Sanding Coach. Instead I have to self-coach by reading all kinds of articles and watching all kinds of videos about epoxy and sanding on the internet, only occasionally encountering useful information.

A Sanding Coach would go, "No, that's not *quite* the right technique, try this instead." Or, "That's overkill for that part of the boat. Move on." And definitely, "Change out your sandpaper again already! That paper isn't cutting anymore!" And, "That isn't the right tool for that part. Use this other tool."

This past weekend my rowing teammates were at a regatta in Saratoga Springs, New York. I've been at that regatta for years when it has been cold, windy, and raining or sleeting. It sounds like they got lucky this year and had great fall weather, sunny and not too cold.

It was cold and rainy while I sanded.

https://youtube.com/shorts/3oZ6veojvF8?si=WFaImPBS7-0Y3Dfk

I've been using all of the scrapers more, especially under the bulkheads where the epoxy is particularly lumpy due to the way the fiberglass fabric got overlapped. Of course, you can't tell any of this from photos taken from a couple feet away. It is so easy to lie with photos.



I'm claiming the inside is now about 64% complete with the 120-grit. I still have 3.5 more half-compartments to sand on the port side, plus the rails and part of the stern. Then I can think about patching, flipping the boat over, sanding the outside patches, sanding the outside with 220-grit, cleaning the whole garage top to bottom, and varnishing. Maybe. If I can get to it.



None of this is going to be anywhere close to perfect. But I'd like it to at least be reasonably uniform, and not look like it has leprosy. Mostly. I'm pretty confident it will still look like it has leprosy in some spots, and that more than one place will have unsightly scratches. I'm not in a position to be a perfectionist about this.

So the sanding will continue this afternoon.

I'd estimate I got about 1/8 of the interior prepped fairly well today, after about 3 hours of scraping and sanding.

It's going to be slow going again.

Time for some motivation.

Here's a link to photos of boats where the epoxy wasn't properly patched after sanding, or other water incursion issues arose over time:

https://clcboats.com/life-of-boats-blog/what-happens-when-stitch-and-glue-boats-age.html#pram1

Also motivation to definitely patch all the places where I've sanded through.

More sanding tomorrow.

I will say that two things are memorable from the recent novel about trees. One is the comment about how the word bewilderment has that other word, wild, right in the middle of it.

The other is where a character at one point essentially blurts out, "If you're going to sacrifice the life of a tree, at least make something even better out of it!" (badly paraphrased here)

On Sunday morning, while waiting for annikusrex to arrive for our bike ride, I sat at the end of the driveway, beneath one of the trees.

These are the driveway trees, as best I can show you from underneath them.



I couldn't quite remember what kind they all are, so I took another photo, closer up, and used the app Seek to remind me:



Western redcedar.

I used to know my Pacific Northwest trees far better than I do now.

I also counted trunks, and I think there are 11 redcedar in total, of various sizes. For many years, 3 of them supported a 3-story treehouse.

Behind the redcedar, there are also 3 Douglas fir trees, although by now one is a snag. For a time, there was also a treehouse platform suspended from cables on one of the Doug firs, plus two suspended ramps connecting the platform to the 3-story unit. The more elaborate treehouse elements were all constructed as part of a youth activity program called Coyote Junior High. We had some of the coolest treehouses you'd see anywhere.

I am reading from Wikipedia that Western redcedar can live to be over 1000 years old, and have trunks up to 7 m in diameter. They are considered a climax species because they are shade-tolerant to the point where they can become established and grow even in mature forests.



So the driveway trees may still be somewhat young, or middle-aged. If the next occupants of the house recognize the importance of the trees, they could continue to live and grow for a long while yet.



If I'm remembering correctly, the tree that fell on our house when I was in high school was also a western redcedar, a larger one.

The tree wasn't on our property. It was on the property of the neighbors behind our house, up above our house near the edge of a 2.5-foot cement retaining wall. The retaining wall was badly cracked near the base of the tree, so during inclement weather there was a constant worry that the tree might fall down onto our house.

As it turned out, the father of those neighbors came over and did some yardwork at one point, and severed a bunch of the roots, which are relatively shallow for these big trees. So it didn't actually take all that much extra wind to knock the tree over, after all. We were fortunate that it landed on a solid corner of the house, not the corner with a big, glass greenhouse window. I was reading a book in the living room one evening when it hit, and the whole house SHOOK. The shaking was different from the way earthquakes shake a house. Eventually we figured out it was the tree.

For a while, we didn't really have a backyard because it was completely full of tree. Eventually, my parents found a company that would come and harvest the lumber, and after that it became possible for my mom to have a vegetable garden in the backyard because there was finally enough sun back there.

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At some point, my dad developed the habit of noticing when the driveway redcedars successfully produced offspring. He would extract them from the soil and grow them in pots. Once he had some certainty that they would survive, he would take them over to nearby Interlaken Park and would plant them. In fact, when he died, there were still several trees remaining to be planted, so we did, in a part of the park near where there is a grove of introduced California redwoods, but also some sunny and more open spots.

Over the years, my parents spent a lot of time volunteering in Interlaken Park, with a group that set out to tear down as much viney clematis and English ivy as they could.

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George Pocock, the master boatbuilder who contributed to the 1936 victory of the American Boys in the Boat at the Berlin Olympics by building them an excellent rowing shell, credited some of his success to the fact that he was working with western redcedar for the skin of the shells.

This is written about more extensively on this website on rowing history: https://heartheboatsing.com/2015/01/07/where-boats-grow-on-trees/

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Even evergreen trees shed leaves sometimes. Right now the redcedar are busy doing exactly that.



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Hopefully the boat I am building, which is NOT made of redcedar but instead mostly of plantation wood grown in other parts of the globe, will sufficiently honor the trees harvested to make it. I will not make light of my use of wood.

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I was grateful to get to see multiple examples of Makah traditional canoes when we visited the Museum and Cultural Center. Everything I've ever learned about Northwest Coast native boatbuilding says that a lot of work goes into finding and selecting the right tree. The dugout canoes the Makah made needed to be fully seaworthy to enable them to go out and successfully hunt whales. They are typically made of redcedar. That's how Pocock got the idea. Redcedar bark is also used extensively for making woven goods - waterproof hats, mats, bags, and baskets.

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There is a man carrying out a long-term demonstration project at the Center for Wooden Boats, of the construction of a dugout canoe.