There is a world renown boat designer that lives in the NW named Bob Perry. Mr Perry has designed all kinds of capable boats over the decades he has been drawing them. Some of the most charming of which are his boats that show a very strong influence by the Scandinavian designer Collin Archer. I have written about these Collin Archer designs and their influence before in the piece on the delivery of an Atkin Eric.
“Is that a Baba?” Came the question from a random runner on the path along the waterway we floating on waiting for the Fremont Bridge to open. “Yes, it is” the boat’s new proud owner responded. “Beautiful boat” came back from that landlocked dog walker. She was a beautiful boat. Her bright ultramarine hull, contrasting red canvas, and tastefully varnished sheer spoke of a land far away and long ago when hobbits plied the seas of yore. If her sturdy and graceful exterior didn’t beguile the passing commuters her interior would. Curves of every kind hewn out of tropical wood from the far side of the world wrap around plush cushions in a glossy warm and cozy saloon.
Unfortunately, there is more to a boat than sweet lines and endangered timber. A boat, even a sailboat, has an engine and this one was on its last legs. Tucked away in such a way that you might have thought the boat was built around it lived a sad four-cylinder Yanmar engine (diesel for those with the dumb questions). Oil seeped from every old seal and the fact that the oil pressure alarm was not working and an aftermarket automotive oil pressure gauge was zip-tied to the top was not reassuring. I had been hired to bring the boat north 70 miles to a yard for the boat’s repowering and this would be the engine’s swan song. The owner who had asked to join me on the short delivery had a service company (Achievement Marine) service the engine before we committed to the passage. They had sent two techs down to check fluids and run the engine to be sure everything worked. The green light was given and I believe the words were “I’d run it up there no problem”. Upon my arrival, I guided the owner through the initial start-up inspection. Belt tension and oil checks were performed after the huge dog house covering the engine was hoisted up to the galley counter being that there was no access door designed for dipstick access. The oil level was fine and the only thing that concerned me was the stuffing box, infamously challenging to access on these Perry boats. On the Baba 30 the water pump is also very hard to access. One has to open the lazeratte (storage under the cockpit seats) and remove the lazeratte floor to crawl under the cockpit. This Baba 35 had an autopilot that the new owner had removed to allow any access at all to the back of the engine to Hobbit or man.
Pro Tip. The bridges in Seattle are under federal regulation to not lift for marine traffic between 16 to 18:00
Through the bridges, locks, and out on the sound we began the 30 mile trip to Port Townsend. A first night passage for the new owner made for some fun quizzing him on the lights and to see if he could see the traffic without the AIS. We didn’t have a hard wired AIS aboard but did have one of the new ICOM handheld AIS radios and I was curious to see how it worked. Myself having finally bit the bullet last year on a handheld with GPS had been quite pissed to learn that the first AIS handheld would come out the year later and be around the same price.
The evening was very calm with only a few large commercial vessels to avoid. About 9 pm a brightly lit ferry was coming up behind us. Outside a shipping lane and any ferry route, its intentions were unclear until the tugboat pushing it came into view shining us with its spotlight. My green crew had thought that the locks would be the scariest part of the delivery.
When we arrived in Port Townsend we tied up to the north side of a finger and jumped into our respective bunks at midnight. I set the alarm for 6 am when the wind was supposed to fill in. I’m not sure it was a good idea to wait to have some coffee and breakfast at the dock but as it turned out the boat’s new owner had just bought a 120 volt AC coffeemaker so not only did we need to turn on the inverter to make coffee we would have had a hard time not breaking the new percolator. (Pro tip: the only boat Mr. Coffee should be on the bridge of is a river dredge.)
35 knots and heeled with only a little jib rolled out.
By 7 am it was blowing 15 to 20 from the south in the marina and as we were on the north side of the slip we were being blown off the lines were straining. Untying the lines and simply stepping on would have found us scraping our way down the side of our neighbor to leeward. I passed my crew the bowline back through the big bronze hawsepipe in the bulwark and stepped on holding the bitter end of the stern line. I put the engine in reverse and pushed the throttle up to 2500 RPM. The boat pulled out of the slip as fast as a 13,000-pound boat could but the wind on the beam pushed the bow downwind by the time we were clear of the boat next door. Now our stern was facing the exit of the marina and our maneuvering practice on the lake had shown us that the boat did not steer straight backward. Once the bow was straight downwind I put it in forward and brought the revs back up to 2300 and hugging the left side of the marina I threw the helm over to spin us in what I knew would be a painfully wide button-hook knowing as well that any attempt to back and fill would allow the wind to catch the bowsprit and furled sail and force it downwind again. The boat made the turn and when I opened my eyes again the only other person in the marina that was checking his lines waved in a knowing way at our successful exit.
Out into the fray
The forecast was calling for the wind to build from the south by southeast. We were leaving just before max ebb and were doing 10 knots over the ground as we passed through Admiralty Inlet and the tidal gates of the south Puget Sound. We set our course for the lee of Whidbey Island and a few hours later we shot by Deception Pass with six feet of jib rolled out. Even the little jib we had out we were heeling 15 degrees and things were beginning to settle down below.
We hugged the island and left Anderson Island to port and worked our way up the shore to Guemes Channel. When we arrived at the channel we got our first break from the high wind alarm on the B&G plotter. It had been alerting us that the wind was over 35 knots since we passed Admiralty. But pay the piper all sailors one day must and as we rounded into Fidalgo Bay our speed slowed to 2 knots as spray from the bow waves came over the dodger and down my back.
Make it or beach it
The boat was being repowered by Pacific Marine and they don’t use a conventional travel lift to lift boats but rather a truck trailer-looking thing with articulated bunks that they drive down a big (not so big) boat ramp. My job was going to be to land the boat perfectly between the bunks with a 30-knot breeze on my stern quarter. I put the engine in neutral and saw that the transmission was very stiff. It had not been that way in the lake when we had been doing our maneuvering lessons. There were about 50 feet of dock space at the end of a long finger inhabited with 60 and 70-foot powerboats and I made the split decision to tie up instead of drive the boat onto the awaiting trailer. The 35-knot wind and chop going into the little fairway tried to slam the boat into the dock to leeward. The boat’s big fenders took the weight of the 13,000 point boat swishing down to a few inches of air between the dock and the boats rubbing strake. At this time a tall man walked out the heaving dock waves splashing up between the dock’s grating and behind the big boats swim steps. The shop’s manager asked us what the problem was to which I told him about the transmission and that I wanted to figure out what was wrong before I took the boat into a spot we couldn’t get out of. We checked the transmission fluid levels and found that there was no fluid and our friends at “Achievement” Marine had not checked all the fluids in the engine when they “serviced” it. The owner ran down the street to get some ATF and I impulsively checked the weather. It was noon and the wind was supposed to taper to 15 knots by one. After the fluid was back in the engine the transmission and tested I spoke to the manager asking if we should wait another half hour for things to mellow out. He pushed back saying that it was an easy landing and shouldn’t be any trouble. To which I asked if he wanted to do it. Backing away he told us he was a powerboater and would leave that to a sailor. I told him as someone who handles both that it was a very unmaneuverable boat and that if things went wrong we would likely damage the boat. He countered by saying that they needed to get it out to pressure wash the bottom so we said we didn’t need that done if it would buy 30 minutes. Then he’s said that was not the only issue and that his guys were only there until 2.
We waited 15 minutes and went for it.
The wind had died by almost half since we landed and it went fine but the whole exchange represented another example of how sometimes you have to dig your heels in with service personal. It is always a good idea to check after someone says they have done something like top fluids or otherwise.
