Staying a little bit longer

The sky has been overcast off and on the whole day. Winds have been from the North or Northeast for 5 days now and the cooler temperatures that go with those North winds, diminishes the water activities and promotes the indoor reading and talking activities. Such activities we have now. Kathy and I are awaiting Bob and Kathy V's arrival for a 4 day stay. We had expected them in the early afternoon, but, you know how things are in the travel industry for the retired folks, a little less schedule concious.

I called the Scottish Kilpatric boat repair guy with his worksheds South and East of Wiarton just off Grey County road 17, on the way to Owen Sound. He told me he had been building wooden boats for years both in Scotland and in Canada, but has been mostly in the fiberglass repair business recently. I told him about Bounty, its legacy, that I have been the original owner, that it was a 16 foot Lapstrate Thompson and he immediately identified with it. He apparently knows about Thompson wooden boats. He then inquired about how Bounty was wintered (indoors), who had taken care of it (myself) and how "picky" was I? I told him that I was pretty picky, and that seemed to be ok with him. He would go over the boat with me when I brought it down and he could then give me a price for its restoration. He said that he had a 40 foot boat in his heated shed that would not be finished until the Spring. He had a second non-heated shed that he could work on Bounty until it became cold.

Besides the exterior hull and copper bottom, I want the bright work topsides done, the windshield removed and restored and put back. I want the outside aluminum bumper bar to be removed and any dry rot "git rot" applied and then resturn the bumper. I want the inside to be done as well. I have had a tough time with the bow seat, moving it around while I worked on the interior hull and bilge. I want the interior hull to be wire brushed and then all the crud vacumned out and revarnished; floor boards returned to their original setting and the bow seat re-seated.

I know that I am picky, I view Bounty not only as a nostalgic treasure, but a practical solution to our need for a motor boat in the face of a continuing decline in the Great Lakes water levels. This last week, after Bill had suggested it, I tilted the engine up while it was riding on its mooring because in some of its swings around the standing anchor, the lower engine gear ( which draws about 15 inches of water and needs @18 to 20 inches for clearance as the boat is bobbing up and down), came perilously close to some rocks and shoals. With the engine out of the water, and Bounty now only drawing 6 inches of water, she can ride closer to those rocks and reefs, even if the standing anchor is dragged during a gale wind for 3 feet and resets (as has happened on rare occasions). By the way, we had a gale wind 3 days ago, sunny and 35 knots of wind. Whatever monies are used to restore Bounty and give her another decade or two of useful life, means that another boat does not have to be purchased. The relevance of not having to purchase a new boat resides in the fact that Bounty has proven herself capable of taking on the winds and seas of Lake Huron. Any new boat would likely have to be larger since the size and shape of Bounty's hull and its proportional weight are rather unique to the era during which it was built (1961), to be found now in larger boats like a Whaler 18 foot requiring a larger and heavier engine. A larger fiberglass boat, bigger engine means that Mare Nostrum would no longer accommodate such a creature, as evidence that Bill's Tarquin now hits bottom every time he leaves its dock, and the folks across the Bay, the ones who originally placed the red and green buoys for Bay entrance navigation as they went fishing, no longer have their boats on this side of the Peninsula because they can not get to their docks with the water so low. Therefore, my tenuous arguement for restoring Bounty, is that she was built during a time of smaller boats, and with some juditious seamanship, to navigate the Great Lakes waters. Any new boat to do the same thing, ie, navigate the Great Lakes, would of necessity be larger and heavier, and our present mooring location and system would not be adequate. For the time being at least, I still can move the standing anchor a little bit further out into Little Pike Bay each year as the water level receds, and still retain the protection of the rocky point extending from Bill's dock Northward from the pounding seas generated by the prevailing West and Northwest winds. So, restoration makes sense if there is not something terribly wrong with the wood.

By the way, if you google Thompson wooden boats, there is a description of their origin and the company that made them.

Anywho, it is no long afternoon, we still await Bob and Kathy, the sky is clouding up, and we have a fire in the fireplace. Time for a glass of wine.