Construction Log: Big Pink July 1981

One of Richard’s ongoing projects during construction of the new boat’s hull, deck, cabin and interior was to find a source for the spruce he would eventually need to build the new boat’s mast.  He tapped his network, asking anybody who might have a lead.  Where could he get some long, strong spruce?  Bill Modrell told him of a yard in Fife, where logs of Sitka Spruce were regularly sprinkled with water to keep them from drying too fast.  Richard never quite got around to visiting Fife. 

He did visit Guemes Island, where he asked Dave Hartford at Dog Island Boatworks if he knew a source for spruce.  Dave pointed to the painted mast, mounted on the outer wall of his workshop:  Big Pink – the mast he’d salvaged when his yacht, Vixen, was dropped from the tammy lift and destroyed in Port Townsend.   

Big Pink:  a rectangular box about 8” x 11” and 56 feet long.  Her spruce sides were 1 ¾” thick at the base.  Dave had his own new boat under construction; but he wanted round masts for his schooner, so Big Pink was for sale.  

Was this the right source for Abrazo’s mast?  Richard knew he’d have to cut the whole thing apart to make the smaller mast he wanted for his new boat.  He didn’t make the deal right away. 
But by July of 1981 he was ready to pay the price, and organize an expedition to tow Big Pink through the water to Bellingham. 

History

Richard “Dick” Baila on the schooner Sea Lark, and Dave Hartford on the sloop Vixen were part of the brotherhood of “hippie sailors” in Port Townsend in the early 1970s.  Along with Jim Daubenberger and his brother Joe on the Keely Bogus, Mike Logg, and several others, these men challenged each other, learned from each other, and sailed on each other’s boats to race in Port Townsend Bay or to cruise across the Strait of Juan de Fuca into the San Juan Islands.  All this, long before the first Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in 1978. 

Vixen had some history of her own:  She was # 17 (originally named Phryne) of the 18 “New York Thirties” designed by Nat Herreshoff in 1904; built in Bristol, Rhode island in 1905.  Herreshoff Catalog - Phryne

Phryne was owned for a time by finance magnate J.P. Morgan in the late twenties.  In 1927 Morgan changed the sloop’s gaff main to a Marconi rig that added to her speed as well as to her beauty, according to a 1929 article in Yachting magazine.    

The mast known as “Big Pink” was not Vixen’s original mast, and probably had been installed in the boat some time after the mast J.P. Morgan ordered. 

Dave had purchased Vixen from the son of Hans Van der Hoffen on Seattle’s Lake Union back in 1971, next door to Jensen’s Boatyard.  Not yet a shipwright at that time, Dave recognized that the boat needed some repairing before he could sail it away.  He took up his 16-pound hammer and a screwdriver, thinking he could cork some of those leaky planking seams. 
“A man came up behind me and said ‘Stop,’” Dave says.  The man told him that was too fine a boat to ruin with a hammer.  “Wait till tomorrow and I’ll be back with the right tools.”  The man spent two or three days with Dave, showing him how to use the mallet and irons, how to tuck in and tap home the cotton. 
When Dave fumbled for the rhythm of the mallet’s swing, this man counseled, “Don’t give up.  You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.” 

Who was that man?  He changed the course of Dave Hartford’s life.  Dave went on to sail his newly-corked boat, and to make a good part of his living corking wooden boats for others. 

In the spring of 1976 he had Vixen hauled out for annual maintenance.  A Port Townsend tammy lift accident caused the boat to be dropped to her destruction.  What a tragedy!  Hartford eventually got through the loss of his boat, salvaging a few things.  Richard remembers helping him remove the cabin, the lead keel, and some hatches.  Hartford borrowed a boat to tow the mast from Port Townsend to his shop on Guemes; and with help from a stalwart gang of shipwright friends, he mounted Big Pink on supports on the outer wall of his shop.  

From Dog Island Boat Works to Bag End Trading Company

Besides running Haines Tree and Spray Service, Richard’s long-time hunting partner Walden Haines owned a power boat called Calliope. Walden liked the idea of towing a mast from Guemes Island to Bellingham, as long as he could do some fishing on the way.  So on Saturday July 11, we joined Walden, Linda, and three-year old Levi Haines aboard Calliope, launching from the boat ramp at Squalicum Harbor at 4:30 in the morning.  We motored to Guemes, and drifted off the west side of the island trying to catch a halibut.  No luck fishing, so we went to shore.  Dave’s Island friend Larry had a truck, and his fisherman friend Bill helped us drag Big Pink from her repose among the jungle-growth of blackberries.  We slid her onto Larry’s truck for a slow, bouncing journey to the north end beach.  We rolled her to the briny brink and pushed her out to the concrete anchors Walden had set.   

There she lay for an hour or so while we went fishing again.  Soon enough, Walden gave up on the mysterious halibut, picked up the tow line, and steered for Bellingham, revving his engine for the long, sunburnt cruise to Bellingham. 

Linda with Big Pink in the wake.

Levi Nelson Haines on the adventure.

At the old Citizens’ Dock on Whatcom Waterway, Richard tied Big Pink to pilings where she floated in the shade along with some of Georgia Pacific’s logs.  We motored to Squalicum Harbor, hauled Calliope onto her trailer and hosed her down before roaming out for pizza and beer, since we had no fish to fry.  Home at last, Richard made calls to various able-bodied friends to help us with an early morning haul out.  

One of those friends was mathematics scholar, John Bennerstrom, who explained to Richard that a Datsun pick-up truck less than 15 feet long COULD NOT CARRY a 56 foot water-logged spruce box.  

John showed up anyway at 6 a.m., Sunday morning.  He met us along with Jay Taber, Cliff Christian and another guy who was maybe a friend of Cliff’s?, down on Citizen’s Dock where “the stick” was moored.  Our mighty heaving and ho-ing to get the mast out of the brine wakened a young man who had been sleeping aboard his own sailboat there.  He quickly dressed and joined our labors.  

Early early morning with one end of the stick on the dock.

That's me pointing up the ramp.  John B appears to be resting on Big Pink's scaly surface and you can see the crossbar beneath the mast there.  The rest of the crew are ... ?  admiring the dawning of the light?  

The tide was as low as it could be, of course, so we faced a steep dock.  But the wonders of physics can make these things easier:  Once one end of the stick was raised a little bit, and the heavy water drained out of the hollow mast, we could raise that end to a carefully positioned crossbar, and push-slide the mast up the ramp.  And then up onto the lumber rack on Richard’s truck. 

Richard had been thinking about John B’s mathematical warning.  He had in mind that he could lash a post to the back of the truck’s cab, and run a guy line over that post to support the ends of the mast, as if the mast was a bow, bent to the guy-line’s string.  Turned out that wasn’t necessary.  Richard drove the truck and the rest of us paired up along the overhanging lengths of mast to make our procession around the bend where Roeder Avenue turns into Chestnut Street … about 2 ½  blocks. 

Jay Taber takes the lead, guiding the heavy butt end.

Cliff and Company make light work of the top of the mast.

A tricky turn, a long slope down hill … and soon enough we made it to the Bag End Trading Company boat yard.  Our landlord, Doug Favro, of Bob’s Super Saw, joined us to help.  

Another round of heaving and ho-ing to get the mast off the lumber rack, and the boat yard’s supply of 55 gallon oil drums became the new resting place of Big Pink.  She'd rest there for some months before Richard was ready to begin work on the mast.  

We served sourdough pancakes with strawberry syrup to all our helpers after this old-fashioned “barn-raising” episode to get the job done.  Goddesses be praised for able-bodied friends! 

Meanwhile, Richard had plenty more immediate concerns, now that the spruce was secure.  The cabin top and boomkin were in the works.  Cabin sides needed to be sanded and varnished, coat after coat inside and out. 

It’s a good thing I was still enchanted by the look of a smoothly varnished piece of wood, because there were many, many hours of sanding and varnishing yet to go ... to be repeated over the course of many years! 

The photo below was taken in 2017 as we prepared to sell the boat.  I Include it here to show the varnish work on those Doug Fir cabin sides, and laminated cedar cabin top beams.  Labors of love.