Kai O'hana
6/20/06 "The beatings will continue until morale improves!"
-A word from Captain Bach
As most of our friends and family know by now, we are the proud owners of a 43-year-old, 60 ft. (on deck, 75 ft. overall) Italian designed and built wooden schooner. Just about everyone I know tried to steer me away from wooden boats, “too much maintenance” was the primary reason given. I on the other hand had a dream, to sail around the world in a classically designed, built and rigged schooner. It’s just one of those things, once you get a notion in your head, you just do what your heart tells you regardless of what all the pundits say. Besides, I don’t like plastic boats, and I don’t know much about steel or aluminum. But most importantly, I definitely don’t want to own a boat that I can’t find in my dinghy because my boat looks like every other boat in the moorage.
So by the close of 2005, the challenge was find a boat that met my aesthetic requirements, yet was strongly built and not “too far gone”. “Saudade” fit the bill. She’s tremendously “overbuilt” (with her double 8” x 3” oak frames spaced 8” apart), and she spent her whole life sailing in some of the most challenging seas in the world (the western Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope). The survey determined that she had been terribly neglected and had considerable freshwater damage to her deck and topsides (though only three frames had to be replaced), but most of the wood below the waterline had been spared most of the damage.
The other challenge was to find a “foreman” to locate, hire and manage a crew to do the bulk of the repairs on the hull. The broker who listed Saudade, a South African, knew a fellow South African boat builder, Gregg Buyskes, on the island who ended up helping me evaluate her during the survey process. We got on quite well, and when I made an offer on Saudade, it came with a condition, Gregg would come with the boat as the lead foreman until her hull reconstruction was complete. It was a good call, Gregg has turned out to be exactly as I read him – very well connected, knowledgeable, and honorable, and he’s into the project for the sake of the project. He loves the boat and, I think, is more interested in seeing her sailing again than I.
Since January, the project has been going great, but slower than I hoped (big surprise!). I am happy to have Gregg because I’m not used to the local workforce’s “laid-back” way of living/working (except for their driving of course -- I've never seen a population drive so fast only to reach their destination to do whatever it is they do so slowly), however, I like every member of the crew very much, and I am growing to appreciate their lifestyle – after all I better get used to slowing down – the sailing life is not exactly a “fast-paced.”
Except for the fact that I’m working with (primarily) Caribbeans as opposed to men from Latin America, its actually no different than when I was building big custom homes or unique commercial projects in Austin -- my job is to be there to meet with Gregg; make dozens of decisions daily; buy all the tools, supplies and materials the crew needs to do their jobs (that Gregg can’t get at his local chandler); review with Gregg all the design issues; and hand out wads of cash at the end of each week -- its totally the same, just a different widget we are building (I liken her to a huge piece of antique furniture that needs to be fixed up -- that’s what she looks like anyway).
Doing this refit in St. Maarten has actually turned out to be a very fortuitous endeavor. Jimmy Buffett calls the island the “Los Angeles of the Caribbean.” It is one of the mega-yacht centers of this hemisphere meaning it’s where all the big "stink pots" go to complete their annual maintenance/re-fit where its cheap, then they head back to the Mediterranean for summer. In fact, its so much so that when I walked into one of the major marine chandleries and asked to open a credit account, that “I’m going to be spending a whole lotta money here on my refit over the next four months,” the manager, when hearing the actual amount, said, "We have several clients here that spend that every week.” I guess my big project's not so big after all (it’s all relative I suppose).
By the end of June we should have both her hull and her decks pretty well closed up, fared and epoxy painted. The whole interior as well had been stripped, cleaned and epoxy painted a gloss white —the inside of her hull looks brand new. The several rotten planks we’d seen in the survey had to be replaced at the fore chain plates, but the part that caught me a little off guard was the whole skin (plywood) on the transom had to be completely replaced.
In fact, we discovered that the boat had been “t-boned” in Trinidad on the aft port quarter (the owner who was sleeping in the captain’s quarters’ bunk in that location nearly missed being crushed to death in the collision), and the insurance-fix caused more damage than it fixed because it leaked. I am actually glad that I got to see the most intricate part of the boat get replaced. Under the direction of the Gregg, Kaya had layered strips of plywood over the transom in a herringbone fashion over the multiple-angled and curved stern frames of the boat -- an incredibly strong and watertight repair compared to what was there.
Modern materials, tools and technologies have certainly helped this old gal's renovation along. We’ve completely “splined” (epoxied long, tapered, strips of wood into the gaps between the planking) the whole hull from the keel to the deck shelf, the prow to the transom, and she’s as solid as any boat I’ve ever seen. We’ve taken some criticism from some of the old boat building “Euros” on the island for not taking her back the way she was -- caulked ("wood boats should be caulked in the traditional manner, not splined with epoxy"), but my thought is, if these modern technologies and materials that are available today were available back then, would they have chosen to build boats the way they did? I think not. Again, this is a "renovation" to get us on the water as quickly as possible in a very sturdy boat, not a "restoration", to get her to what she once was, something that would have placed in the London classic boat show.
I had many plans to change the layout and lines of the boat, and Gregg always said, "yes we can do that," but he told me the story of his last project, a barge renovation for a Dutch couple -- it took 2 years (18 months over schedule) because they kept changing their minds and the plans. I’ve done enough home and commercial renovation projects for clients to know that changing what you have is a money and time eater. We’ve decided to go with the basic boat design and then maybe later, take some time off from the trip and make any design changes in exotic ports as we are traveling the world after we’ve lived with her awhile.
Regarding everything else, we’ve pretty much removed everything from the boat including all the water tanks (we will be able to re-use 7 of the 11) and the plumbing and the electric systems including the generator. We’ve kept the 330 hp V-10 Mercedes engine on the advise of a local mechanic who has worked on this exact type of engine in trucks all over the world. He said the parts are available pretty much everywhere as well as qualified Mercedes mechanics. We’ve also kept some miscellaneous items such as the rudder, the drive train, the windlass, the autopilot and the hydraulic steering.
Chad Adams, my eldest daughters' boyfriend has really gotten into his role on the boat as the ship’s engineer. He’s redesigned all the electric and plumbing systems with a lot of help from several books I brought with me and a little help from some consultants I’ve retained. The installation of those systems will commence as soon as we have made all the decisions and we get further along on the wood portion of the boat, frankly there are currently as many people working on the boat, as space will allow.
So the current goal is to get her into the water. My arrangement with the boatyard is to get off the hard and into the water soon as possible or they will block me in until November. The rest of the work can get done on her as she’s tied to the bulkhead stern-to with the container/shop on the hard backed in to her stern as well. Once there the work will commence – the rest of the interior woodworking projects, the plumbing and electrical and the rigging.
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