When we found Fifer languishing in Tom-Mac Shipyard in Vancouver B.C., we were looking for a gentleman's yacht for a friend of ours. We searched through internet listings looking for the perfect vessel. Anyone who is truly passionate about wooden boats knows that half the excitement and fun of finding these old yachts is the hunt for them. The ultimate "treasure hunt."

The listing for Fifer looked interesting, but it surely didn't cover all that was waiting for us. I'm not sure if my memory is accurate, or that over the years the initial viewing turned more into tall boaters tale, but what I remember the most was that it SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. She was such a mess it’s hard to remember how horrible she was in the beginning.

We met the boat's owner and decided to ride in his car with him to the shipyard so we wouldn't get lost. He was a chain-smoker (I am using that description kindly, if there is a level of addiction above "chain-smoker"…that is where he was) and I remember him having a *tiny* crack in the driver's side window to let the Steamboat-Willy-style smoke out. By the time we reached Tom-Mac Shipyard on the Fraser River I was sick as a dog and reeked. I wasn't in the best mood, to be sure. Cranky as hell and likely not in the right mindset to see the state Fifer was in the first time we saw her.

Tom-Mac is a unique little spot. I grew to love the place and it's quirky Canadian inhabitants who ranged from Michael Buble's dad to a guy restoring his little wooden tugboat who proclaimed that all he needed to live on his boat was "Kokanee, protein powder and a bucket." (I have now idea the logistics of that life plan) It was the most Canadian place I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. For a ridiculously West Coast kid who learned everything she even knew about Canadians from Bob and Doug McKenzie it was a little slice of paradise.

We walked down the dodgy little dock to where Fifer was tied, it was kind of obvious even walking to her spot that she was kind of a forgotten girl. There wasn't one thing about her that shined, or showed any indication she was once a vessel of pedigree or distinction. She had once hosted Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth) for lunch? It was terribly difficult to envision that, I have to be honest. Her owner had covered her with a shitty, white tarp weighed down by old plastic milk jugs filled with water to keep the tarp from blowing off and letting the water pour in. We would come to find that the Fraser River williwaws were like no wind we had ever dealt with, even growing up on the North Oregon Coast. There wasn't a tarp or structure that could withstand those howlings. That was an interesting lesson that was learned through LOTS of trial and error. GOT to keep the water out. Wooden ships rot from the top down. Rainwater (freshwater) kills boats.

The boat was filled with crap. Just crap. All kinds of garbage, supplies and stuff that had purpose in trying to hobble along the bad maintenance. Rolls of twine in all kinds of neon colors—likely use? Tying the milk jugs to the tarp. Old tarps. a weird cobbled together battery system that wasn’t safe (when it came to electrical matters Fifer’s previous owner was decidedly “SAFETY THIRD!”) at all. Then just tons and tons of crap that seemingly had no purpose at all. It was almost if he had no idea what to do, so he just kept buying things he wouldn’t need out of pure frustration. It was hard to see through all of that. The owner seemed to be losing his mind trying to deal with this boat, obviously too much to handle. It felt like he had no idea where to even start....he had ridden the wild ride as far as he was able and this was the end of the line. Anyone who has a wooden boat knows that you are always walking that line, taking on too much, getting ahead of yourself only to fall miserably behind based on bad decisions you were damned sure were GREAT ideas at the time. Once we figured out that the problems the owner was having were well beyond Fifer we realized he had no choice but to sell her. And FAST. He was being indicted by both the American and Canadian SEC. That is a long story I likely have no reason to tell, so I will leave it at that. Suffice to say his life was "complicated."

She was filthy. She had rainwater pouring in, despite his half-assed attempts to keep it out. As I descended the stairs into the dining salon I saw the water falling all around me. The smell of "bad old boat" was everywhere. The owner told me to be careful not to step on the bare electrical wires he had hobbled together to power the lights. My husband and I explored, venturing into every nook and cranny. We had done this before on countless boats, either for ourselves or somebody we knew who was crazy enough with "the sickness" to jump into the scary world of wooden ships on a small or large budget.

When we left that first encounter with Fifer we were strangely not overwhelmed by the scope of the project. Oh, what we didn’t know. We have a saying we often repeat, “Part of doing anything is not realizing the word “can’t.” In Fifer’s case there was never a “can’t”—-just working out the complicated details of her sale. Her previous owner wanted WAY too much money for her. Plenty of people had gone and looked at her only to conclude that it was “too much” of a project to take on. Many of the folks in the wooden boat community we know had looked at her before us. She had been completely gutted. Her engines had been removed, rebuilt (at great expense) and were located at a business in Surrey. They weigh 3 tons each. The gearboxes were removed and rebuilt, they were located in a self-storage unit many miles from the boat, along with many other pieces\parts. There was no diagram or instructions as to how to put her all back together again. The owner knew nothing about how to do it, he had zero mechanical know-how. No running gear. It would be a very challenging refit to say the least.

We were committed and undaunted. After we talked it over in great detail we decided to “go for it.” We then had to work the deal out with the owner. Easier said than done. At first he wanted an absolutely unreasonable amount of money. We managed to talk him down closer to earth. Then he wanted to write up a legal document that stated HE would have decision-making power in how we were going to restore Fifer. That was a large and immediate “NOPE” on our part. He was a shrewd lawyer. We were a united front of passion for wooden yachts. It was a serious WWF match for quite awhile. When we finally came to a mutually satisfying agreement we were happy.

We signed the initial paperwork and agreed on the dates to make the payments. That fun of dealing with her owner and trying to make a smooth transition of ownership is a story in of itself! Let’s just say that the day we truly owned Fifer we ere signing the Final paperwork in the ICU with some urgency getting the deal finished because it looked like he might die.

And I promise I will tell that story entirely at some point…but now? Onward!

Fifer Grounding

As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, and by the end of this story, you too will see.

For five months straight we had been going to Canada for three day weekends. We would leave Kingston Thursday on the 7PM ferry, and pull into Tom Mac shipyard before 10PM. We had a trip down to a science, crossing the border when it was still manned for the evening rush, but after it had passed. We had the home trip timed perfect too, returning on Sunday, unless it was a holiday weekend, in which case we stayed until Monday night.

By the end of August we were operational. The engines were running beautifully, and we had done a “fast cruise.” Fast cruise is a shakedown where you test all your systems, including spinning your props, while still tied to the dock. The idea is to get the boat and crew ready for the first underway after an extended refit, by testing machinery and systems, with everyone at their posts.

In the days leading up to the planned underway, we had our share of last minute setbacks. The laptop we had all set up and networked for navigation had a bad motherboard, and there were many details like ensuring all of our navigation lights were properly wired. There were adapters to track down to wire the radar, and antennae to mount for the VHF, and paper work to prepare for customs.

There was not a lot of maneuvering room on the North Fork of the Frasier River, so the evening before, on an outgoing tide, we did a “dead stick” move using long lines and the current to pull her out of her slip, and spin her around to the outermost side tie. She was aimed for home, and ready for her voyage.

Not much sleep was had the night of 6 September, and I was up at sunrise on the 7th with my father to finish plumbing the fresh water tanks in the stern. I wanted them filled to trim Fifer as she is a bit bow heavy. By early afternoon everything was ready, and the plan was to head for Deer Harbor, tie up to the customs dock, and clear customs the following morning.

It was a late start, as we headed down the Frasier, but we still wanted to rendezvous with Deerleap, Fifer’s sister, for the trip south, and we knew he was leaving Deer Harbor on the morning of the 8th. I was glad that I did not have to do a lot of maneuvering. I was getting a feel for her fifty eight tons, and she felt and looked great, as we passed joggers and picnickers out in the summer sun, pausing to watch her pass, even if she responded to the wheel more as suggestions before responding.

By the time we made it out to the Straits, it was shaping up to be an amazing sunset. As we got into open water, I gave her more throttle, to start making better time, but the log was still only reading three and a half knots. Ben did some dead reckoning at the chart table, as well as checking the GPS on his phone, and for a third opinion the ships computer. They all confirmed that we were going no faster at the higher RPM. Then Carrie came up from the engine room. “The gear boxes are smoking and smell like burnt oil” she said. She had mentioned that the gearboxes seemed hot while we were transiting the river, which I chalked up to everything wearing in. Now I knew there was something wrong. I throttled back down to 250 RPM, and we did not lose any speed, but the gearboxes started cooling down.

We got a bit of rough chop, and the dingy came loose and swung out on the boom on the Port side. Carrie headed up to secure it, but after nearly going over, and us yelling at her, she came back down to put on a life jacket as I steered Fifer into the swell to calm her out. After she went up the second time to and got the dingy secure, we had a family meeting on the bridge to discuss our situation. We called Boat US, the provider for our tow insurance, like AAA on the water, and they stated that the earliest they could get a tow to us was the next morning, and that it would simplify things considerably if we could clear customs first. Deer Harbor was out of the question, and so our options were either Point Roberts, or beyond that Anacortes. At this point the water had calmed as the sun set, and we continued South. By ten it was obvious that Point Roberts was our best option. We contacted the US Coast Guard, who seemed indifferent, and then the Canadians, who were sympathetic, but had little to offer. I went up on deck to check the windlass, and anchor, as there is sheltered anchorage outside the harbor. I had not run the hydraulics’ to it, but had checked manual operation several weeks before. Now it was frozen, and I tried to work out how I could retrieve the Danforth if I anchored out. Not having knowledge of the type of bottom, nor much experience setting an anchor, and none with Fifer, I resolved to navigate into the customs dock.

I studied the charts, and even pulled up Google earth on my phone to look at the satellite imagery of the entrance. The channel into the harbor runs South to North, but you cannot go straight in as there is a protective rock wall running East West parallel to the shore. To protect the harbor from winter storms blowing from the South. With a twin screw boat making a sharp turn is much easier because you can reverse the screw on the inside of the turn, so despite Fifer’s 58 tons, I figured we could come in slow and easy. We had not taken the time to hook up hydraulics to the gearboxes, so Carrie was going to act as engineman, just as would have been done prior to 1935, when she was the first private yacht fitted with hydraulic shift control from the bridge.

We slowly limped into Point Roberts at 3AM on 8 September 2011 on a high tide. I approached from the West staying to the right to swing wide for the turn. In the spotlight we caught a left arrow sign mounted to a piling mounted in the middle of the channel on the East side. It seemed odd, and I thought no kidding as I turned the wheel full rudder to Port. She started to turn, but it became obvious not fast enough so I throttled down to idle on the Port Engine and yelled down to my engine woman to shift Port to reverse. Ben had actually rigged a set of lights for each gearbox as a hybrid engine order telegraph, and I had switched the toggle just before redundantly ordering the reverse bell, but we were slowly approaching the sign with a turn much too wide. “The gearbox is stuck” she yelled back. I throttled starboard down to idle and ordered Starboard in reverse so we could at least stop. “This gearbox is stuck too!” she yelled back. At this point I practically jumped down the ladder to the hand-wheels, first Port, the Starboard, which I had tested operational just 20 minutes earlier, and sure enough, neither would budge. Climbing back to the bridge, I shut down both engines as we slowly creeped towards the sign. I told Ben to go up to the bow to push off the piling which was now just off the Port Bow. Slowly we inched forward, and I went out on deck with him and my father to try add more muscle to push off the piling that was now about six feet past the bow. It was now obvious we were aground, and looking at the sign that was actually a diamond, bent over by some other boat coming in from the East, I knew why. Shining a light into the water I could see that the piling was stuck in the middle of a rock wash wall, still submerged on the outgoing tide. No amount of pushing would dislodge us, and the tide had turned and was rapidly going out. A seal looked at us from the eel grass in the channel behind, curious about why we would park there. I went back down to the engine room but the hand-wheels would still not budge. Back on deck, I looked around us with my flashlight for something that I could tie off to for leverage to pull us free, and seeing nothing lowered the dingy over to inspect. At the bow, the water level was receding with the stem firmly resting on the rocks. I tried leverage, and pulling with the dingy, but we were now hard aground.

We called Boats US, the US Coast Guard, and the Canadian Coast Guard to inform them of our new situation, with the same results as earlier. Boats US would not have a tow boat to us until 8 AM, the USCG could care less, but the Canadians actually volunteered a boat to come help if they could. About 4 AM the Canadian patrol boat showed up, and after a failed attempt to pull us free, made sure no one was injured, helped make sure that the fuel tanks were secure, and helped set an anchor to the stern to keep the boat from swinging into the channel. They were sympathetic, but we would just have to wait until the next high tide. Checking the tables, the next high, which luckily would be just as high would be in the early afternoon. As we waved goodbye to our Canadian friends, we resolved to get as much sleep as we could, which wasn’t going to be easy, as she was now starting to list.

We might have gotten a couple hours at most before the Boats US tow boat arrived. After ferrying my father, Ben, and Katrianna to the customs dock, which was less than 100 feet away, we discussed our options. Being hard aground is not covered, and their assistance was not going to be cheap. The alternative was that the harbor master would want to put an oil boom around us, even if not one drop of petroleum went into the water, and that would cost $25,000. Fifteen hundred dollars an hour, for the five and a half hours until the next high tide, was obviously a better deal, so we took that option.

As the tide started to come back in, Carrie and I got to work. I dumped the 600 gallons of freshwater in the stern tanks to the bilge, and pumped it overboard. I pulled batteries from the engine room, now at a 40 degree angle to port, and 15 degrees bow to stern, up to the Starboard deck. Ran pumps and hoses, and duct taped vents, battening down all the portholes and hatches on the Port side. Carrie went into the engine room and filled three trash bags with absorbent towels cleaning any and all possible oil from the bilges. If we took any water on and had to run pumps, we did not want even a hint of oil in that water. Slowly the tide crept up towards the Port toe rail.

Sometime during all this, I called Slim Gardner, captain and owner of Deerleap, to ask for assistance. “I can’t tow you, as I have less power than you,” he stated. “I don’t need a tow Slim, I just need someone here with more experience, and sleep than I have,” I replied. “Fair enough, I am almost to Port Townsend but will be there as fast as I can.”

I was standing on the outside the handrails of the Starboard rail. The big electric and gas pumps were rigged, and my son had walked over the now dry wash wall rocks to hand Carrie and I a sandwich my father had bought for us. I watched as the water rose within two inches of the Port toe rail, and as I enjoyed the sandwich, knowing we had done all we could for now, I felt the Fifer pop out of the sand under the stern, as she gained buoyancy. Slowly she started to roll upright, and smiling at Carrie in relief, I looked up to see Deerleap steaming towards us, and looking every bit like the Calvary with her flags flying. We waved and chatted briefly as he maneuvered into the customs dock, and I knew everything was going to be alright.

As Fifer was about to float free of the rocks, I finally got a call back from the USCG. They wanted to get some additional information to complete a report. Ten minutes later I saw why when a USCG helicopter flew over with special cameras to try and detect any oil in the water so that they could fine us. After a couple of passes they flew off empty handed. Considering how much it costs to put a helicopter in the air, I’m sure they were disappointed they could not be more helpful.

Soon Fifer was tied to the dock behind Deerleap. After clearing customs, it was agreed that Slim would give up one of his crew to man Fifer, and that Ben would join him, but would not have duty until after he got some sleep. After paying the Boats US for the grounding, they tied off the lines for the tow, and maneuvered her out of the harbor. We cast lines off of Deerleap, and I sat in the pilothouse with Slim as he followed her out. After a seafood dinner, a shower, and a change into some clean clothes, we climbed into our bunks as Deerleap one (Fifer) and Deerleap two headed home.

Once safely home and rested, I eventually tracked down some original drawings for the gear boxes on a British website Canalboat.org. As soon as I saw the installation diagrams, I knew what had gone wrong. The gearboxes had been installed backwards, and with the thrust bearings in front, and none at the back, the thrust from the props would push the clutches out and cause them to slip above a low idle. How the shop that rebuilt the boxes managed to install the input flange with a different bolt pattern and inside diameter than the output flange, I have yet to figure out. What I have learned in hindsight is that rushing for a deadline, not having full documentation for your equipment, inexperience, and too many loose ends, all in combination can add up to expensive learning experiences. I also learned that under pressure, Carrie and I can rise to the occasion, and take care of business.

1957 31 ft. Owens Flagship Cruiser, “Miss Molly.”

I would say we didn’t realize what we were getting into with this phase of the restoration, but we pretty much understood once we started there would be no going back. We were in 100%. We wanted to replace the roof that had been badly cobbled together when they extended the salon, and the owner before us cut a large hole to remove the engines after he had run Fifer aground and left her to languish and sink through a few tidal changes. The engines had to be rebuilt. That had never been repaired. The engines were rebuilt and left in a warehouse until we took the project on….and truth be told, that hole in the roof was used to crane the engines back into Fifer when we got to to that part of putting her back together. A hole in the water to throw money….and very large Gardener 6L3’s engines into.

As we spent more and more time observing How the structural elements had been settling underneath the pilothouse, it became obvious there was a large amount of rot that needed to be address in the mainbeam (that was holding up the the weight of the pilothouse) along with the carlings and beam clamps. We had removed the battery box that was installed in the engine room, nicely fiberglassed and painted. I had a difficult time with this because it looked great. LOL. It was one of the best looking parts of the engine room! We suspected that the space behind the very good-looking battery box held some ugly secrets. It did. The moisture was held against the side of the hull and rotted parts of the planks. The previous owner had let the rainwater pour into Fifer through the hole in the roof and decks that had not been maintained. The fresh water had rotted the deck beams and structural elements below. It was a big ol’ can o’ worms. Sometimes t’s just nice to pretend there isn’t anything wrong, right?

We decided, quite wisely I think, that instead of attempting to replaced the roof we should repair the structural problems before we took the roof on. Got to have a foundation before you can build on top of it. This wasn’t going to be a small task, and we decided on a plan to move forward. Money would have to be rustled up, and we needed to hire a competent shipwright. We hired a local guy who works on different yachts we know and came recommended.

We had some curve balls thrown our way before we started but had already committed to the summer refit. We had someone rear-end us and both of us were injured, but we soldiered on in spite of some pain and discomfort. We rented a boathouse in our marina so we could keep Fifer undercover while we were working, and things took off in early July. The “tearing the rot out” phase went on WAY too long. It was terrifying hearing the sound of a Sawz-All ripping through the mainbeam and other rotten parts. As we got a better idea of what we were looking at, the extent of how far we were going to have to go to completely stabilize the structure under the pilothouse. Over the years the previous owners had done all kinds of things to cover up the fact that the structure was rotting and dropping. Things were failing to line up properly because the pilohouse had dropped 3/4 of an inch, and putting a new roof on was out of the question until we fixed everything.

We also decided while we had everything torn our that we would replace the planks in the engine room that were well above the waterline that were rotted. we had about four that were of concern to us. Over the years that had shorted many of the planks in pursuit of quick repairs, many sections were only a couple of feet long instead of full-length (up to 20 ft+ in many cases) as they were supposed to be. We worked throughout the summer completing the necessary repairs and starting the removal of the old roof.

To be continued….