Kai O'hana
07/10/06 - And She is in the Water
-A word from Captain Bach
The Kai Ohana was “splashed” on Thursday, July 6, 2006 13:52:47 after a re-christened ceremony performed by Gregg Buyskes, the foreman of the hull restoration, a Captain of his own vessel, Providence, and the most spiritual person we know on the Island. The purpose of the ceremony was to change the name of the vessel from Saudade to Kai Ohana (“Ocean Family” in Hawaiian). You’d think that it’d be as easy as painting the new name on the transom and you’re done with it, but no, we’re talking about boats and sailing and all the superstition and lore that has evolved from the thousands of years man has been navigating the oceans of the world, you don’t just paint a new name on a boat.
As outlined in a document provided by family friends and fellow yachtsmen, Vic Manning and his wife, Patricia, a vessel that plies the oceans of the world must be re-christened in way to appease the forces that manage those seas. In other words, it is “ancient belief that the name of every vessel is recorded in The Ledger of the Deep, and renaming of a boat must be accomplished in such a way to purge the memory of the old name. It requires the “removal and obliteration of every trace of the vessel’s previous identity” (committing said items to The Deep) prior to the new name being applied to her transom, and a prayer requesting the “Almighty Navigator of the Universe” to look upon her Captain and crew with favor and grant them divine mercy as they re-christen their boat, and as they re-dedicate their lives of the land to those of the sea.
The push to get her in the water was no different than every construction project with a deadline I’ve built. Once again, my experience in the industry was invaluable as I managed the family and what was left of the crew (Beenie, Shawn, Eyes and Daniel – I let all the carpenters go and gave Gregg a well-deserved rest). Lists were reviewed with the workers every morning and re-written every night for the next day. One by one the items were scratched off until we were all standing, exhausted and numb, watching in disbelief as the lift slowly raised her off the stands she’d sat on for six months.
JC, the yard manager, had been pushing to get us out of the hard since May, but the weather wasn’t cooperating – the rainy season had kicked in with a vengeance. Boatyards have opposite seasons than do boats and their owners – in the winter the boats are on the water, but during hurricane season, they’re usually parked on the hard in a yard while their owners are back in the States or Europe or Canada. JC and the yard crew had been packing boats onto every square meter of available dirt. In fact, it got so tight that JC got to the point that whenever anyone wanted to get into the yard he would tell them, “You see that big wooden boat over there, when she goes in the water, you can come in the yard.” Then I would get a visit by said owner and I’d have to tell them, “We are putting in as many hours as daylight will allow, we are working as fast as we can, and if they could do anything to get it to stop raining, we’d be outta here that much quicker,” at which point they would usually stomp back toward the water, mumbling something under their breath.
I’ve learned much of boat building in the last six months, but most recently I’ve learned two very important things, 1) a 75 ft boat is a big boat! and 2) it’s virtually impossible to paint a boat in the rain. At first we rolled the paint on her topsides (above the water-line yet below the deck-shelf), but I didn’t like the “stippled” effect the roller created, so I made the guys sand it all down and Eyes sprayed her (well, tried to spray her). As we started the refinishing process, we got rained on 3 days that each time ended up closing down the job. We’d tape, sand, and prepare all the surfaces, and as Eyes would start to spray, it would rain just enough to ruin the paint and make all the tape and plastic fall. Then we’d have to start all over the next day only to have it rain again so we could do it all over again the next day. The family and crew got pretty good at taping and sanding, however, because once we got 2 days of clear weather, we put in 14 hours a day and had the boat completely painted – all sixty feet of her (below the deck).
So once we broke the bottle of champagne on her bow and got her in the water, we literally flopped our spent bodies on whatever we could find to sit on and the party commenced. The guys in the yard had been so good to us during our stay that we invited them to have some champagne and a few beers after the launch to celebrate. We were scheduled to immediately move the boat out of the launch slip to her permanent mooring (backed against the seawall and tied off), but again, the guys knowing how exhausted we were, insisted we relax and move her in the morning. Lloyd, the unofficial spokesman of the group, did have a condition however. He said beer and champagne weren’t going to cut it for such a celebration, so he specified the acquisition of a particular type of rum that I didn’t recognize. I asked him if he liked brandy and he said that would do just fine so I opened a bottle of St. Remy XO that was given to me by a German fellow that I helped get some work done on his boat. Needless to say, we had quite a good bash that I paid dearly for at 7:00 the next morning as we moved the Kai Ohana in the morning’s stiff trades. Chad, on the other hand, let us all cut loose and have a good time while he remained clear-headed and responsible to the extent of sleeping on the boat the first night to make sure she was still floating when I arrived the next morning. Now if that’s not a loyal crewman, there never was…
So where do we go from here? Though we’ve accomplished so much, everyone “in the know” is telling us we are about half way to the ultimate goal. The immediate objectives are to get the engine, steering and anchorage fully operational, finish the registration process in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles (requiring the decks to be finished among a long list of other minor projects), and get her a slip leased in Port De Lonvilliers Marina, Anse Marcel, Saint Martin, French West Indies (same Island) – the Island’s only hurricane hole. Then we finish the interior, the electric and plumbing, then onto the rig. So yes, we’ve got a ways to go, but at least we are on the water and out of that dirty and mosquito infested boatyard!
