Dockton, Quartermaster Harbor, WA – 10-SEP-2026 – We arrived on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend – last weekend – to visit my friend John Riley. To see him again and work on his boat a bit. It was good to see him. He arranged a mooring ball for us. He came over for breakfast and dinner, I rowed over to his boat and he rowed over to ours. When we cast off the mooring ball on Tuesday, it sounded like someone had attached a coffee can full of bolts under the cockpit.
I couldn’t figure out what it was. Jennifer turned us towards the ball. I asked whether she just wanted to idle here while I went under the boat. She said no, in the way that implied I was crazy to think such a thing. We made it back to the ball, and I hooked us up again.
I got out the mask – a good one this time – and a snorkel and a pair of trunks. After a few minutes of perching on the swim ladder, I went in to the water. The water was cold, but not as cold as I expected, not as cold as the last time I went in the water in BC in July 2024. Jennifer had put one line over the side for me to hang onto, and when I went under the boat, I realized I would have to thrash much harder to get below, and I needed to be farther forward to see the prop because there was nothing further aft. Jennifer attached a second line to a stanchion. After two or three attempts, I got under the boat and saw that the two bolts that held in the cutlass bearing had come out and were held on to the propeller shaft by the retaining wire.
I returned to the boat to get a cable cutter. The water was cold. I couldn’t stop shivering. I literally could not. I couldn’t hold a cup of tea, nothing. Jennifer wrapped the dog blanket around me. She then lifted her shirt and wrapped her arms around me. It was a very nice thing to do, but I felt I couldn’t freeze her as well. After about 20 minutes, I stopped shaking. I took the cable cutter, paused for a few minutes on the swim ladder, and dropped into the water. This time I only went under the water once. I cut the wire and watched one of the screws slide off to sink in the muck 30 feet below, but I did get one of the screws up.
This happened once before in 2019 as we were leaving for Hawaii. That time, we got Caro Babbo into a yard on the ship canal, and I replaced the screws. It took a little while to figure out what was going on: the screws seemed to have different threads along the length of the screws. I took them to the hardware store I normally buy screws from. The manager, who I knew, couldn’t figure it out. I went to Tacoma Screw, and I met the manager. She took one look at it, told me the screws had stretched, and gave me two M8 metric screws. I modified the heads to take the wires, installed them, and we were back in business.
Now, seven years later, we were back in the same place, I thought. We called a diver that John Riley knew and tentatively arranged for one of his people to come. Jennifer and I grabbed a bus and then a ferry into Seattle, went to the same Tacoma Screw, and bought four M8 screws and three drill bits for $8, met John, who was already there, and returned by bus. That afternoon, Jake, the dive company owner, told us Nicco would come and do the work tomorrow.
The next morning, when I went to modify the screw heads to accept the wire, I found I had left the drill bits behind or lost them. I took the bus into Burton, bought three drill bits for hard steel for $10 apiece, and took a $40 cab to get back to the dock. (I also picked up groceries and ice.)
Nicco was a very nice man who put on two wetsuits, entered the water, and told me it was colder than he expected. I towed him out to the boat where he said he wished he had put on three suits.
I didn’t sleep the night before because the bilge pump was running every 30 seconds for one second. The cutlass bearing jostled my thinking and had me think that the dripless seal was leaking. This couldn’t be, I kept thinking, and then kept thinking about how it could happen. At times like this, logic escapes me.
One second isn’t enough to suck up water to run over board. The electronic switch is supposed to need a 2” difference in water height to turn on and then turn off. Well, that could be that it was turning off and on at smaller difference, so perhaps it was leaking. It was very sleepless night. I either started to sleep through the cycles or it stopped. In the morning I poured a quart of water into the bilge. The pump ran, pumped out the water and the trouble stopped. When I added ice to the ice box, the melting water caused the pump to work as it should: the sound of the pump going on, then the change in timbre as it pushes water through the pump (this a self-priming diaphragm pump), then the pump turns off, and we hear the last drops fall overboard. It can take a few hours between cycles when there is ice and no cycles when there is no ice.
I need to add bleach to the bilge. The very small sump (1-1/2 cups) has started to smell because not enough water is pumping through.
Nicco dove under the boat, came up, and told me he understood what I wanted to do. I showed him the picture in the parking lot. He asked for one of the bolts. Jennifer dressed the bolt in anti-seize compound, and down he went. He came back a few moments later for the second, and then a few moments later asking if we had spares because he dropped one of the bolts. We did, and down he went. This time he stayed for ten or more minutes. When he came up, he said he couldn’t get the second bolt to grab. The first did, but not the second. I asked if he backed out the first so that the plate would be even and the second bolt could grab. He said he did. I asked him to try again, which he did, taking another 7 or eight minutes, and then said it was no good.
He asked if I would like him to wire in the single bolt. I said yes. And he did.
On the way out to the boat, I explained about wiring the bolts and the modifications I made to the bolt heads. He told me they do mooring balls the same way, and sometimes that’s what’s holding the thing together. I asked him to explain, and he said that sometimes the shackle just disintegrates. Once the galvanizing on the chain wears through, the metal rusts and disappears. The wire is stainless.
I told him about something the boat maintenance man, Joe Green, at the Center for Wooden Boats told me once. Someone had crashed one of the Blanchard Juniors and bashed in the front. When I met him, he told me he almost had the stern repaired. I said I thought it was the bow. He said yes, but when we went to grab the stern, his hand went through the paint. All of the wood had rotted away. The paint was what was holding the boat together. Nicco didn’t seem to grasp the relationship between the two stories.
I told Nicco thanks for the effort and for telling me about this. I towed him over to John Riley’s boat where he could clean the bottom.
After Nicco left, Jennifer and I started working the phones. The best place to do this work is Port Townsend, but it is more than fifty miles away. We could sail the distance and probably should. We could sail it in one go or anchor or dock along the way. Jennifer decided against it, and I was feeling uncertain, so I agreed.
We then started calling boat yards. PT closed at 4:15. We called at 4:14, but they had stopped answering. We called a boat yard in Tacoma, but they closed at 5 pm and we called at 5:03.
Somewhere in there, we called my insurance company, Progressive. Their website wasn’t that helpful because I couldn’t find my actual policy. I have it somewhere on my laptop, but I decided to call. I eventually got to a young woman named Jeri, who explained how towing worked: Yes, there are no limits on the number of calls or the distance. But if I call because of things that should have been taken care of in routine maintenance, they will not cover it. She handles Marine and Auto. Does she dispatch? No, someone else does that. Could she transfer me over? Did I want the tow now? No, but I wanted to speak with the people to understand the mechanics and timing, which is how I got to speak with Sebastian.
Sebastian was wonderful. Yes, there is unlimited distance, but only to the closest place that can do the work. Yes, there is unlimited calls, and he repeated what Jeri had said. It will take one to two hours between when I call and when the tow shows up. Will they tow me to Tacoma? Where was I? Quartermaster Harbor. He looked for a moment and said yes, they will pay for that.
I didn’t ask either of them whether using this service would raise my insurance bill. I assumed it would. The premium has dropped by 30% over the seven years I’ve had them… I’ve never used it. Besides liability, I am most interested in the disposal service if I crash my boat. Now, I am pleased I have towing. Sign and Glide is what it is called.
The next morning we were back to calling the yards. (BTW, the dive company charged $1000. They gave me a bit of a discount because they couldn’t fix it – $1000 was for both John and me.)
Jennifer discovered Gig Harbor Boat Yard. I spoke with Emily. Bring it in tomorrow, and we’ll have you out the same day. Hot Damn! I asked if I could send a picture for her to show the mechanic. Twenty minutes later, she called to say they would have to pull the boat from the water. I was surprised she didn’t know that. The next time they could do that was Wednesday, six days in the future.
We started calling. I put a call in to Kevin, a master mechanic who ran the boat repair business at Breakwater Marina. He took a few hours to text me back. In the interim, we started calling everyone in Tacoma. The place we called last night but missed told us they no longer allowed do-it-yourself, and your boat had to be newer than 1990. I said thanks and moved on.
I called Breakwater, who told me they shut down their maintenance yard at the end of August – two weeks prior. I suggested they update their recording. The very nice woman said they hadn’t remembered the recording. Thanks. Could they recommend a place? She said she would get back to me, but never did.
I called the last place in Tacoma and spoke to an equally nice woman who said we’d need to unstep the mast. The lift they have can’t take a boat with a mast. I asked if she knew any place nearby that we could take the boat to. She said, Gig Harbor is the best place. Gig Harbor it was.
In the interim, my friend Kevin texted, told me he was in Tonga and was sorry he couldn’t help.
Then I called Emily, told her to schedule the appointment; she sent me a quote for $1000. Then another Kevin, the Gig Harbor head mechanic, called, and we discussed what actually needed to be done and could he do it in one day? He said he didn’t see why not, and they don’t charge for extra days in the yard if the work rolls over. I didn’t ask if we could stay aboard overnight.
Emily will give a slip the night before, so we will be there at 8.30 am to get pulled. We’ll arrange for the tow Tuesday afternoon…I wonder what the slip will cost? And the adventure continues.
[This will be the first time I have ever let someone work on Caro Babbo. This is expensive.]
