Jeff is in the house!

 Well, look who is back in my driveway.  Bruce trailered it over about five days ago, in the rain—and Bruce never works in the rain so I know he loves me (hey, it’s a stretch, but it could happen) and pronounced Jeff “better than last year,” which for him is high praise.  “Let’s work on keeping it from sinking this year” were his parting words. 

 

And in fact, non-sinking is our main concern this year—apart from re-sanding, painting the whole thing again, hoping rot didn’t set in somewhere new, and finding a nice gold paint that doesn’t oxidize the minute I put it on the rub rail.

There are several new challenges this year.  First of all, it is the Emma C. Berry’s 150^th birthday on June 5^th—Emma is the last smack sloop (fishing boat with a wet well) in existence, and Mystic Seaport is making a very big deal out of her birthday—as well they should. But Jeff Brown is also a smack sloop, along with Winsome, which was built a little after Jeff Brown—1970-ish.  And both Jeff and Winsome have been invited to float beside Emma at the Seaport during the Wooden Boat Show, which is one of the biggest deals for wooden boat lovers in the country.  

 

Here’s Winsome, in a 2006 photo by "Wildjack." You can see it has more cockpit space and a cabin--it actually is very cozy and has a head, and a bunk area.  And I got a lesson from Paul last year on what the bowsprits are called and let’s just say they are different. Winsome points down and Jeff Brown points slightly up.  You can guess where the naming headed . . . but who's cuter, really, huh, who?

But it is the last weekend in June, which means that we have to shake a tailfeather and get Jeff all un-sinkable and gorgeous by the end of June so that he is ready for his close-up as thousands stroll by the dock, or “smack alley” as we are calling it.

So apart from the sanding and re-painting, which will not be that bad this year, there is much to be done “below the waterline.”  Paul mentions epoxy in hushed tones and I suspect that gallons of it will be needed to be poured into holes in some dark reaches of the bilge (which is being kept covered to stay dry until that’s done) but as of now, that is above my pay grade.

I have been assigned to “reef out the garboard plank,” which is as you may imagine the first time I have ever typed that in a sentence.  We’ll see how that actually goes in practice tomorrow.

This year we have a new volunteer—Dane, who is great.  I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.  Actually, Dane is the master of masts, and is taking Jeff’s mast, boom, etc. down to bare wood so it can be completely re-varnished and doesn’t look like a pinto pony this year. He’s already sanded the mast and it is gorgeous. I have to take a photo of it—it’s in Paul’s barn.