Friday, January 29, 2010

Seattle Boat Show

An encouragement that we used with Seahorse Marine, the folks who built Alpenglow, to get our boat finished expeditiously was our willingness to make it available for the Lake Union floating boat display portion of the Seattle Boat Show (January 29 to February 6). It also gave us a good deadline to get the boat cleaned up.

Stepping the mast While at Seaview East Boatyard we pretty much reassembled the boat, repaired a few things that cropped since the boat left China, and cleaned up lots of dirt and grime (both inside and out).

The photo to the left shows how masts are typically stepped in the US.  The mast is on a cart which can be wheeled close to the boat. A lifting harness is placed on the mast and a crane lifts it into position where a couple of guys guide it into position. Contrast this with how they did it when the boat was first assembled (stepping a mast at Seahorse).

We moved the boat over to the Lake Union venue on Wednesday, the 27th.  During the show it was part of the Capital City Yachts display.  They are the broker for Seahorse boats and their sales representatives stayed on the boat while it was open for display.

We’d love to have many more sisterships cruising around as it creates a market for the inevitable time when we sell the boat.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Let’s not sink it just yet

When our boat was off loaded from the freighter on Sunday night, we had Lars Nilsson and Costica Gheorghiu from Marine-Tec help us. Lars is a licensed captain and Costica was a ship’s engineer on a commercial freighter. Our first journey was from Terminal 46 on the East Duwamish waterway over to Shilshole marina. That was plenty.

The next morning, with the help from our friends Dorothy & Dave Nagle, who own DavidEllis, hull #2 of the classic Seahorse Marine 462 Diesel Duck, and visiting “duckies” Jerie & John Milici who own Peking, hull #3 of 462 ducks, we took Alpenglow through the Ballard Locks.  Our destination was Seaview East boatyard where we will begin reassembling the boat.

It was my (Kurt), first time driving the boat.   It was pouring down rain and there was lots of water being spilled from the Lake Washington Ship canal giving a nice current to contend with.

With the help of lots of good fendering, major mishaps were avoided and the journey ended with the boat still afloat.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Someday Your Ship Will Come In – Ours was January 3, 2010

2010-01-043xWe tracked the course of the Cosco Tianjin, the freighter carrying Alpenglow, on its route from Hong Kong, to Yokohama Japan, to Prince Rupert BC, to Vancouver BC and finally Seattle.  It arrived on a cloudy Sunday afternoon and we eagerly went to Hamilton Viewpoint near our home to watch it enter Elliot Bay.

2010-01-051x Our little boat had a good position on the ship. It was located forward of the bridge and engine exhaust and well protected by containers on either side.  You can just see the fly bridge and bow poking out from its protecting containers.