Yarns From the Yard - November 2019

by Chris Barritt, Shoreside Support Manager

The end of the sailing season means the beginning of winter maintenance and we find ourselves filling every spare inch of shop space with another boat part. We unloaded the ships spars at Point Hope Shipyard and trailered them to the shop to be scraped, sanded, inspected, and refinished as needed.


The first big project of the winter has been dealing with some hull planks on the Swift’s starboard quarter that were showing signs of deterioration. As is usually the case, the project grew a little beyond what was first planned but it’s very enjoyable work and it will feel good to see the new planking in place.


Repairs sometimes mean assembling things in a different order than they were first built; it makes for some good three-dimensional puzzles to solve.


I particularly enjoy finding little measurements, labels, arrows, and other pencil marks left over from original construction that have been hidden since the boat was built. It makes me think of the ship having done the work it was built for serving young people, and now getting a little refurbishment so it can head back to sea for more adventures.