Well, actually a bunch of sanding and painting and varnishing and sweeping and wiping and generally fussing. Keeping crews all busy had me running from 0800 to 1800 every day from March 31 to April 14 this year . . .. and heeeerrrrre weeeee goooooooo!!!!

Luke jumps in first to sand and fair the hull. (Note the kayaks are suspended from the rafters to get them out of our way. They get lowered right before the ship exits the shed or we wouldn’t be able to reach them) . . . (ie it happened once!)

Part of my ace team: Nadya, Al and Leah . . .

but they can be annoying . . .

Ok, lets play a guessing game. How much would you pay for a door latch? The COLUMBIA III has really nice, brass door latches. These are not original but certainly high quality . . . maybe really, really, high quality. The brass “face-places” are called rosettes and they were starting to tarnish in the corrosive marine environment. So I though, what the heck, I’ll just replace the handsets to keep the boat looking ship shape . . . That was until I found that each latch set was worth $700 CDN ($500 USD) . . .  that’s each door latch . . . So I ordered new rosettes instead. Things will look much nicer and it only cost $50 per rosette . . . two per door.

and the new rosettes.

and random exciting action shots . . . 

Every few years we cut off all the lines on the stanchions and then rezinc the metal posts and then replace the 1/4″ safety lines. . .

and add a coat to the window bright work . . .

and sand and paint the green bulwarks . . . 

The roof gets very hard wear during the summer and it is so rewarding to get it cleaned up and the first coat of paint on it. “So Fancy!” Sock feet only for the first few days.

Nadya taking advantage of a sunny afternoon . . .

and with the sun, “Lunch Break.”

Leah is one of my star ‘S&P’ers . . . but she was recovering from knee surgery so we locked her in the workshop to avoid straining her leg and we kept funneling removable bits and pieces that needed to be sanded and painted . . .Like galley cupboard doors, stateroom doors and chairs and running lights etc etc.

And someone with more bendy knees refinished the galley cabinet bases.

The anchor rode was hoisted from the rafters to get it out of the way for painting the anchor winch and the fore deck.

And the kayaks finally came down . . . 

If we pull the ship out of the shed without lowering the kayaks onto the ship’s roof . . . . one can’t reach them later . . . (learned that one by mistake!)

And “OUT SHE COMES!!!!”. Glinty, shiny, sparkly, glorious and heroic . . . .Is that tooting my crew’s horn?

and some mending to the first aid jump-bag and Al’s travel bag seemed to find its way under my sewing machine . . .

Then the kayaks came off the roof for cleaning and checking functionality  . . .

Here is an odd one! The kayaks all have rudders, that are made of metal, that stick out laterally, that swing upon hoisting, that bang against the COLUMBIA III, that chip the paint, and scar the bright work and irritate me!   I have tried various attempts at a solution and found rubber “washers” made of kid’s toy bouncy balls worked well. Except the cheap dollar store versions deteriorated in the UV in less than a summer .  . So I ordered new gourmet bouncy balls at $8 each and then proceeded to cut them up, very, very, carefully in the bandsaw with my fingers very close to the blade and then threw half of every ball away!

. . .then a bunch of stainless fender-washers and little bolts and I am now completely irritation-free!

Starting to look like an operational ship . . .

and Steve didn’t forget our Polaris tender . . . 

We installed new galvanized chain on the main anchor. I get about 5 years (5 summers!) before the chain is rusting so badly that the front deck gets covered in rust flakes and rust stains. My old skipper said he got 25 years on his fishboat’s rode in the 1970’s when the zinc was a higher quality . .  .

After the winter of having the ship tucked out of sight in the shed, its wonderful to have her just out my kitchen window! And it also means the season is getting close!

Leah and Nadya only see each other once a year during our spring maintenance but they always keep us smiling.

Here’s the Sonora Island Command Center for wooden boat “stuff”!

Ok,Ok! I know I am way behind on this blog and the posting dates won’t reflect the times when the photos were taken . . . But 21 years of shipyards do blur a little bit. . . . .

As every year,the ship comes out of the shed in March . . . 

and gets lifted in Campbell River at Ocean Pacific Marine . . . and I ALWAYS stress to see her lift out of the water , , , , so many questions . . . how’s the prop? any dings? the zincs?  . . . how active have they been? . . .  any glaring damage? any subtle damage? and gawd forbid any terrifying thoughts of straps failing while the COLUMBIA III is “flying”!!!!!

and skippers, Steve and Jonas, get right to work . . .

Jonas ever willing to take on the nastiest jobs . . . here scrapping the cooling pipes.

and Robin, one of my longest suffering kayak guides is also working towards her Captain’s papers and she wanted to know more about the ship . . .  by painting the hull!

and every 5 years ( it use to be every 4) Transport Canada requires we pull the thru-hull valves and the drive shaft for inspection.  Here are the bronze barrel valves dissembled and cleaned for inspection.

As the prop and rudder have to come off to pull the shaft, I take the opportunity to send the propeller off to be cleaned up.

I replaced the drive shaft about 10 years ago and so the inspection is hardly necessary as the shaft still appears like new.

I have a marine mechanic come and inspect the shaft and thru-hull fittings.  This allows me to submit an independent report on the findings to the Transport Canada Inspector. TC likes this level of verification!

and the usual aft-deck chaos that is so unlike the spotless summer season.

A shipyard welder puts new zincs on the rudder.

I tend to let the crews do the more straight forward tasks and I use my time to tackle quirkier projects . . .  like a new main engine fuel return line system that keeps the salon oil-stove roof-top tank filled automatically . . . .

and a drippy faucet in the chapel that required some surgery to replace. . . .

No maintenance blog would be complete without a little honest, self-deprecation.  I spent quite a bit of time rerouting the fuel lines from the engine room up to the roof-top stove tank and to the salon diesel fireplace. This required drilling holes in “places” and snaking 1/4″ and 3/8″ copper tubing through vexing contortions. Then one day we awoke on the ship on the hard and the propane stove would not light. Nothing cooked for breakfast! I did quite a bit of troubleshooting and determined one of the 4 propane safety detectors was malfunctioning and it would not allow the shut-off solenoid to open.
Well, the system is 25 years old . . . . 

and I was right in the ship yard with their well stocked marine chandlery . . . So I bought two new propane monitoring systems ( two for redundancy) and 4 new sensors (read: $4000). But of course, the new sensors and their accompanying electrical connectors were larger in diameter than the old style. So it took about two days (read: owner’s labour is always free!) to reroute the new sensor wires and get the new system installed. So when I triumphantly went to test the system i was just a tiny bit disappointed, though not surprised, that the stove still didn’t light off. . . . after another day of “free” owner labour (read: me) I found that I have mistakenly cut a wire to the propane sensor system when I was installing the new copper fuel lines for the salon fire place. . . .  So i repaired the one teeny weeny little broken wire and reflected how nice it was that I spent 3 days, $4000 and a lot of awkward work in close quarters upgrading a system needlessly. Cool.

and the prop comes back from overhaul.

and the shaft is back in …

And I love a hero shot of me. 

and then we “splashed” the ship. 21 annual shipyard visits completed.

Phew.

I was really uncertain of the merits of writing a blog posting about a company failure. But I did. Recently I received an unsolicited email. Here is one guest’s opinion on the matter:

March 6th, 2025  to Mothership Adventures. Subject line: Thank you for Ross’ s awesome story of one of the real stories of resilience and perseverance behind your small family’s entrepreneurial business!