2008 Week 32 in Review

The Catalyst is sticking to her Wilderness Discoveries cruises this August, running seven-day, six-night trips that “provide the best of Southeast Alaska.” Each trip is one way from Juneau to Petersburg, or from Petersburg back to Juneau, touring through some of the most beautiful and rugged land in the world. The boat has been booked solid all summer, with ten to twelve passengers each trip.

This week was a Juneau to Petersburg trip:

Sunday, August 3 – Juneau to Limestone Inlet: first paddle, fishing boats in Inlet, lots of fish in river (overcast)
Monday, August 4 – Limestone Inlet to Ford’s Terror: hike up Ford’s Terror, paddle narrows, skiff to head of inlet (cloudy)
Tuesday, August 5 – Ford’s Terror to Wood Spit: skiff to head of inlet, glacier hike, bear in stream, fishing, set crab pots (sunny)
Wednesday, August 6 – Wood Spit to Brother’s Island: swimming, fishing (not catching), skiff ride to sea lions (sunny)
Thursday, August 7 – Brothers Island to Portage Bay: meet Norio, whale watching, fishing x2 (w/catching!), (cloud then sun)
Friday, August 8 – Portage Bay to Scenery Cove: paddle in Portage Bay, skiff and hike to Baird Glacier, slide show (fog/sun)
Saturday, August 9 – Scenery Cove to Petersburg: pack, last run together (this year), return to “civilization” (heavy rain)

Here’s the crew:

And here’re the passengers:

I began my “eat Alaska” campaign that I am known for, in which I enthusiastically harvest whatever I can for meals like salmon, halibut, bull kelp, limpets, blueberries, crab, and shrimps. I also kayaked in some of my favorite places, like Fords Terror, named after a navy guy who spent six hours trapped in its tidal surges back in 1899. The passage is part of the Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness area, and is an amazing place:

We also had a few very sunny days to watching the glacier calve huge pieces of ice, see whales up close, and take a very short swim call with all the guests. I was very torn over which pictures to post in this blog, but you can see lots more at Lia’s online album or the official Catalyst slideshow. Check it out for some amazing pictures of Alaska at its best – and me doing silly things.

Characters of Southeast Alaska

Part of the fun of cruising Southeast is running into some of the regular characters of the area. We met up with Norio Matsumoto, an amazing whale and nature photographer. His online portfolio is here, and is well worth a look.

We also met up with Doug Leen when we got to Petersburg. He owns the Katahdin, a beautiful old tug powered by a six-cylinder Washington:

The boat is beautifully restored, but the paint has been taking a beating from the Petersburg winters. Doug ran the engine for a show a few months ago, but he hasn’t taken her out for a cruise recently. He did take us to his house, right across the channel from town. We got the grand tour of what I think is the most amazing property: about 10 acres with lots of waterfront and many old buildings restored by Doug and Martina. Thanks for showing us around, Doug – and it was great to see the Katahdin again.

Business as usual

Catalyst‘s Washington diesel (awarded the “best geared six-cylinder” at the Classic Workboat Show last October) sounds great, though I noticed that at the “normal” cruising speed, the pyrometers read well off the 550 degree gauge. Bill has been working to cure the overload problems that Catalyst has had for years, but I don’t think we’ve sat and really thought these changes through. I’ll install new pyrometers soon, keep learning more on the subject, and stay hard at work — when I’m not oiling:

The expansion tank also spit out some water, but the temperatures were okay. I think that maybe air was allowed to go from the air compressor into the water system. I just rebuilt the air compressor and replaced the gasket with asbestos, but maybe it requires a sandwich gasket with a copper ring. This might the problem, since the only thing different was that the air compressor was running hard. It settled down when I unloaded it.

One of the things that I like about shipping out as engineer for a while is that I have time to monitor and adjust an engine and really see what’s going on with it when it’s warmed up and at full speed. When I’m working to fix something on the dock or in my shop, I have to just get the job done by the time the boat leaves, and don’t usually get to watch it run for a while. I hope that by September, I’ve had time to make a lot of little adjustments to get it running perfectly.

Missing Lynden

I missed the Puget Sound Antique Tractor & Machinery Association‘s annual show in Lynden, Washington, since it was the day before we left town and I just couldn’t squeeze it in. I was really hoping to go but this call out caused such a shake-up that I could not find the time.

Several spies (thanks, spies) say it was the same great show that the PSATMA is known for (see pictures from last year here. They report that the Atlas-Imperial was running well, but the Washington had its injectors removed. There was also rumor of a bad rod bearing. I’ll try to learn more when I get back – they’re great engines and the PSATMA is doing great things with them.

Trends in luxury and disposable income

Did I miss the window for classy old diesel engines being luxury items?

I’ve heard that Model-T Fords have gone down in value because the new generation of “renewed youth” wants the GTOs, mustangs, and Harleys that were cool when they were kids. Now that they have the disposable income to make “luxury” purchases, they’re buying muscle cars and telling their mechanics to make them “just like 1967.” I’m worried about how everything else is thrown out the window in favor of the childhood fantasy of driving a muscle car with the wind in your hair. What about the classic yachts from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s? What about all the other neat old stuff that the Beach Boys never sang about?

At least there’s a bit of hope for the next generation. Theodore Tugboat and World’s Deadliest Catch are at least getting old workboats on TV for future midlife-crisis children. Maybe 40 years from now, we’ll see characters in the Sopranos or Sex in the City buying converted tugs and big old engines, rather than cigarette boats and handbags.

This may be Old Tacoma Marine Inc’s next big project, so stay tuned.

OTM Inc Weekly eBay Auction

This week’s prize from the OTM Inc shop is an air intake manifold for a two-cylinder Washington Iron Works diesel engine:

2008 Week 31 in Review

Sobre las Olas on display

I finished up most of the work on the Sobre las Olas just in time for the “Old-Fashioned Day in the Park” in Marina del rey. It’s a free annual event at Chace Park , right near where the Sobre is moored. Lots of different “vintage” clubs – yachts, cars, motorcycles, etc – come to the park with their neat old stuff for enthusiasts to drool over:

Leading up to the show, I had to split my time between getting the engines running well and making the engine room shine, but it all went well and we had a good time. The engine room tours were only for those who really wanted to see it, as the dangerous ladder, small spaces and running equipment kept the engine room off limits for the masses. I gave about a dozen tours that went really well – but it’s hard not to be dazzled by two beautiful Atlas-Imperial diesels running at the same time:

After the show, I finished up work on the Sobre, and ran the engines many times at the dock. Everything is working really well, the engines are holding water just fine, and I added some antifreeze and rust inhibitor.

an Update from the Maris Pearl

I heard from Jay on the Maris Pearl. The summer went great and the brothers islands were a favorite of course. Jay then single-handed the boat for some of the trip back down from Alaska to Seattle. I think that’s awesome, because I dream of doing that with some of the boats I’ve run. It sounds like a lot of fun.

An Update from the Briana Marin

Ron Lopez is in town, so everyone thinking about owning the perfect little tug boat can visit the Briana Marin in Ballard.

Surprise news from the Catalyst

After I got back to Seattle, I thought I could sleep in and get caught up on my paperwork, but I got a call from Bill on the Catalyst. His engineer was sick and he needed a relief for six weeks starting Saturday. It was a hard choice: spend August in my shop, or keep the prettiest Washington diesel clean and running while leading glacier tours on the side… plus, Lia’s already signed on as the naturalist and nature guide for the month.

I had to scramble to get everything in order before I flew out Saturday.

Off to Alaska!

We were ready by Saturday morning, but we missed our scheduled plane and had to catch the next one. We arrived in Juneau hungry. Since we knew that the captain would put us right to work once we got to the Catalyst, we stopped for lunch on the way and blamed our lateness on luggage problems. As predicted, we were rushed into meetings, training, cleaning, and preparing for the next trip without a pause for lunch.

By evening, we were very glad we ate the big lunch, but the sleep deprivation set in and we began making bad decisions like drinking and dancing in the Alaskan bar all night. We were very surprised by seeing some good friends we knew were up here but didn’t expect to cross paths with. We closed the bar and oozed back to the boat like jellyfish on the beach at low tide.

Memories of the Mist Cove

The Mist Cove, another charter boat, is moored next door to the Catalyst in Juneau. I dropped by for a visit and to check out her Cleveland diesels. The boat has a very nice engine room with lots of space, and the stainless steel engines shine. Her Clevelands are 1,200 horsepower two-cycle engines from 1955. I’ve heard that they’re only running one engine at a time to save fuel since they burn about 50 gallons an hour each at full. Whether or not that’s true, she’s still keeping her summer schedule of week-long cruises between Sitka and Juneau:

I spent three years working for The Boat Company as the Mist Cove‘s engineer, starting just after her first season out. The engine room was very cluttered and the boat, being brand new, lacked the attention to detail and comfort that I wrote about back in Week 28. One of my favorite projects was when I moved all sorts of equipment and gear away from the main engines. The Clevelands are historically significant and pretty interesting to look at, so I made them into showpieces and made the engine room look bigger and more inviting as a result. Now, you can roller skate around the engines, and every week, I polished every thing to give our twenty-four guests an amazing engine room tour.

I also reduced the electrical load so that an entire trip can be done without splitting the bus. This was a lot of work to gain no flickering lights with only one generator running at a time, but this continuing attention to detail is what makes a boat comfortable.

My three years aboard allowed me to fine-tune the engine room and all the boat’s systems. I felt like it was dialed in really well, until the boat had to be prepared for Costa Rica. Outfitting a boat purpose-built for Alaska charter work for a company who has 25+ years in giving a great Alaska vacation to operate in completely different waters was very difficult. We had to install air-conditioning and a third generator, which cost a fortune and created a lot of problems to work out. In the end, the Costa Rica program was cut after only one season. I’m glad to see her back in Alaska, an area she’s perfect for.

The tyranny of poorly-planned insurance requirements that are killing small businesses

Before I begin the Alaska trip, I need to get this off my chest.

My shop partner (an excellent shipwright who I’ve worked with for a long time) and I have discussed insurance many times this week under the rollup door. We determined that the insurance requirements are killing everyone—small business owners, yacht owners, and the workers in all maritime trades. We also decided that a small business is the best business model for maintaining yachts and workboats-turned-yachts. In addition to being self-sufficient, available when needed, and having a closer customer-to-contractor relationship than the big yards, the small businesses have cheaper rates. This is great for both the owners and the workers, but when it comes to insurance we get screwed. To make it worse, our customers have less money to pay us, because the insurance companies are screwing them, too. It’s a double whammy.

I really believe that insurance is the foundation to good financial well-being. I also believe in only insuring that which you have, so if you do not have anything, spend your money first on getting stuff worth insuring. Start with health insurance if you’re healthy and you are required to stay healthy to work. The self-employed already know that no one—corporation or yacht owner—cares about their health. Employees should understand the same is true for them no matter what “benefits” they get with a job. Everyone is responsible for themself and should get their own health insurance (and make sure to read the fine print! Adjust the options often to be sure cost of the benefits is fair).

As you acquire more stuff, you need more protection, which is when you should start insuring your stuff. Some small businesses choose to incorporate, so that their personal assets are protected from business decisions. This turns an “owner” into an officer and an employee (when Old Tacoma Marine Inc incorporated, I became the president as well as the lead mechanic, and I stopped being the owner). While this protects the people in the small business, it changes the insurance requirements. All employees must be insured by Labor and Industries, but state L & I will not insure anyone working on boats over 65 feet. Instead, a business must carry industrial insurance at the very high price of 25% of payroll. An employee making $48,000 per year in wages costs a small business an additional $12,000 per year in industrial insurance alone. It would cost even more, but the federal government subsidizes a small business pool that one underwriter carries, which lowers the premium down to the “reasonable level” of 25%, which is still very high for small businesses. (Incidentally, my rate as a mechanic is the same as those who work on nuclear submarines)

Now, I fully understand that boats can be dangerous, but I work mainly on yachts or charter boats—all with a much higher standard for safety than workboats. To me, the 65-foot insurance limit does a huge disservice to the contractors who work on them—especially small business. How does the length of the boat change the risk when you’re working dockside in the engine room? Furthermore, the premiums are also based on payroll. I would think that this means the higher-paid workers are more experienced and more careful, making then expensive to insure, but the way the regs are written it means that a higher-paid employee needs more insurance.

These regulations keep me and other small businesses from hiring any other employees. With the rates that I work at, I can’t afford to, even though the work is there and going unfinished!

A small business owner has still more woes, though. A normal wharf rat making $40,000 to $90,000 by working on old boats over 65 feet needs legal liability insurance in addition; to the industrial insurance discussed above. The minimum liability premium is $2,000 a year. Those on the $40,000 side feel that—ouch! This type of insurance is required for all types of businesses except sole proprietorship.

A final nail in the coffin for small businesses is that they’re required to hold shop space leases in most marinas and shipyards. These costs add up to way beyond the actual costs (labor, materials, tools), and cause a chain reaction that undermines the small-business model ideal for yacht maintenance:

• Some businesses insure themselves and others do not
• Those who do insure themselves are in a small pool, so their rates are high
• The insured can’t always compete with the uninsured rates, so they lose work
• The insured often can’t hire help, so they try to do the work alone, which causes more claims
• More claims from one-person businesses raise the rates
• It severely punishes those who try to follow the rules and leaves the others afraid for their lives

And these are just the issues for the wharf rats and contractors doing the work. Owners of old boats are also taking a beating across the board. Old boats are too often sold at a low price. This allows people to buy a boat way outside their means. Many new boat owners don’t realize the significant ongoing maintenance required to keep these boats going, and then seem surprised when the boat sinks (see Living the Tugboat Dream from Week 11). This information, which show old boats to be a major risk, is used by the insurance company to determine rates, which leads to an even greater downside.

Due to this statistical risk, many insurance companies will not consider underwriting an old wooden boat, regardless of its actual condition. This could turn off a potential buyer with everything it takes to maintain an old boat.

How do we beat the system and keep boat maintenance and ownership costs down? Well, it takes teamwork, but here’s what I think:

Owners: ask your workers to get insurance and show proof. This will increase the pool of insured workers, which will bring the price of labor down. Insist your workers keep good safety practices while on your boat (which will reduce claims), and pay the slightly higher price for your insured (and legal!) worker. Then, tell you congressional representatives to change the insurance requirements so pleasure boats and museum boats over 65 feet can be insured by the much more reasonable Labor and Industries program than the industrial insurance carriers. Last, be a safe boater, strive to meet Coast Guard requirements (even if not required), and constantly show your insurance company how safe you are by the classes you take and the systems you maintain.

Workers: get insurance. Learn the requirements, keep good records, and charge more for the peace of mind you offer the owner. If they do not want to pay for you to be insured, then don’t work for them. Also be safe and minimize claims. It is very important to be insured, as it protects what you have earned.

Last but not least, Insurance Companies: you are the enemy. Your need to provide quarterly dividends and show growth is what is killing us. That is why I want to use the government’s L & I program instead of the industrial insurance: it’s not-for-profit. You profit by breaking our backs, so don’t ever think that my pushing for compliance is to favor your “services.”

I urge all of you to contact your congressional representatives to ask them to change the L&I 65-foot limit to a boat designation (yacht, supply boat, charter boat), and allow more small businesses to utilize the government’s insurance programs that do not need to show growth and offer dividends.

OTM Inc Weekly eBay Auction

This week’s prize from the OTM Inc shop is two El-o-matic Pneumatic Actuators for ¾” valves:

2008 Week 21 in Review

Cruising on the Maris Pearl, Continued

The next day, we pulled into Prince Rupert and toured the Town of Nothing. I napped, played darts with Craig, then tried to encourage the wait staff at Breakers to join us for a tugboat party. They declined. Next time I’ll say “Mega-Yacht Party,” no mater what type of boat I’m on.

We stayed overnight in Prince Rupert. I worked in the engine room for most of the day, then we all watched movies.

The next morning, we got underway early, bound for Ketchikan. We passed the Songhee, a retired Army tug powered by an Atlas diesel that now operates as a Southeast Alaska charter boat:

When we pulled into Ketchikan, we had to squeeze the Pearl into a tight marina between two giant cruise boats. After mooring, we toured all the bars in Ketchikan with Brian and Roger. It was sunny for once, but there were five cruiseships in port and that made the whole town kind of crazy. It quieted down after the cruiseships left, and the locals were fun to chat with.

We spent the next day in K-Town, and took a day trip to Metlakatla, a small native village south of Ketchikan. On the way there, we passed this waterfall with an old powerstation at its base:

I also saw a home overlooking the water with “Leask” carved in the door. I thought it might be Irv’s house, or one of his family member’s house (that’s Irv from the Velero IV. Back in Ketchikan, we toasted Brian and Craig before their departure, and had dinner at Annabelle’s again.

On Thursday, I spent all day in the engine room again, cleaning and taking care of small things. I flew out Friday morning, back to Seattle and “real” work. The trip was a lot of fun, but I’m definitely glad that the Pearl is done for another season.

Reader-Submitted Heavy-Duty Stories

I’ve received several interesting stories from readers in the past few weeks.

First, a man from the Netherlands emailed to report a crane-barge powered by a 1944 Atlas-Imperial. The crane barge is reportedly run several times a week, showing that the heavy-duties are still doing what they were designed to do. We posted the full story on the discussion board here.

Later, fireman Robert from New York emailed about the city’s two fireboats powered by Enterprise diesels, the John D. McKean and the Alfred E. Smith. We posted Robert’s full email on the discussion board here. I’m also making plans to drop by and visit when I’m in New York later this month. I’ll write all about it here when I get back.

Finally, we received an email and later a phone call from Dirk about his days on the Arthur Foss in the early 1970s, just after Foss donated the boat to Northwest Seaport. Dirk was one of the first volunteers to help get the tug running as a heritage vessel. He was helping with a program called North by Northwest that got city kids out on boats, which ended up using the Arthur for some of their programs (an early maritime heritage partnership!).

We posted his full story over at the discussion board here. It’s a great read, and shows another piece of heavy-duty history.

Dirk is also interested in the Cooper-Bessemer for sale I heard about a while back. I just checked and it’s still posted on Craigslist. [posting since expired]

2008 Week 20 in Review

I began the week by spending two days breaking down the party equipment from Old Tacoma Marine’s co-sponsored event over the weekend, then went straight back to the Maris Pearl.

The Maris Pearl, Finished and Cruising

This year’s maintenance and projects are done and Jay asked me to help bring the boat up to Ketchikan for some early summer cruising. It was me, Jay, Jay’s best friend from high school, and two of Jay’s fraternity brothers.

I had one long day to get ready to help bring the Maris Pearl for the trip up the Inside Passage, and it was a real workout schlepping oil, tools, spares, and supplies down the 800-foot dock. I got everything on-board by midnight and then got up at 4 am to get underway.

We had a great first day, making about 110 miles – which was actually too fast because we had to wait at Dodd Narrows for two hours before we could go through. That was a good time for a steak dinner while drifting. After making the narrows, we put into Nanaimo and picked up a box of Canada beer (Molson’s). After a few of those I was done:

This trip has really been a chance to learn about the Pearl’s Enterprise diesel. This is the first time I’ve traveled any distance on the Pearl. Usually, I just help take it out into the lake and back. Now, I’ve been getting to know all the little noises it makes and other little quirks of an individual engine operating for a while. I’m also able to record the temperatures over time and chase the leaks.

One early morning while raising the anchor, I was reminded of the million times I’ve raised chain in the middle of nowhere. The fog, the salty smell, the cold coffee, and the clunk clunk of the chain are all so familiar but it’s been a while since I’ve been out on a boat. I really love mornings like that.

Another day, Brian, Craig, Roger, and I took the skiff to explore Butedale, an old outpost of the Canada Fishing Company that canned salmon and produced fertilizer. There’s not much left but awesome derelict wooden buildings. In one big empty building up on pilings, I found bowling pins and balls. I immediately set them up and started to bowl.

Craig and Roger were talking with the old man who lives there when they heard a crash. They looked up to the big building and said “What the heck?” They thought that Brian and I fell or got squashed. The old man shrugged and said “Oh, they’re bowling”. Craig and Roger Thought the old man had lost it and they ran up to see what happened:

After Butedale, we did a little exploring in the skiff. I drove the bow of the skiff in to a water fall to get Craig, a smartass, soaked. He is still pissed.

That night we bought some jumbo shrimp from a fishboat sharing our anchorage. I boiled half of them, and butterflied the other half and sautéed them in butter and cayenne pepper. Yum. We finished the night in style by drinking too much and telling stories and lies, all while smoking cigars in the hot tub on the tug in the middle-of-nowhere Canada.

Stay tuned for the rest of the Alaska trip in Old Tacoma Marine Inc Week 21.