October 2009 eBook all pages (free PDF, 36.6 - Latitude 38

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Page 50 • Latitude 38 • October, 2009
COURTESY CLOUDIA
COURTESY CLOUDIA
LETTERS
went into chartering. By doing this, I figured I could at least
control who goes and stays on my boat. (By the way, I'm happy
to report that the owner of the boat I did the Ha-Ha on and I
have made amends and become good friends.)
Anyway, my new boat is Cloudia, a 1920 85-ft LOA Colin
Archer design. She's currently at the Driscoll yard in Mission
Bay getting a refit. Cloudia
is probably one of the last
of the big wood hulls to be
re-planked. I even had a
hard time finding vertical
grain planks — and I grew
up in the Northwest where
my family was in the lumber
business. The problem
in finding the wood
is that the government
won't let us harvest the
good trees needed for this
It's hard to believe but Capt.
Blanchard's other boat is an Islander
34, which he calls "rocket fast."
purpose anymore. But by
buying a semi-truck and
scrounging from Alaska all
the way down to Eugene,
I managed to get 7,000
board-feet of Alaskan yel-
low cedar to redo the entire hull one last time. You don't want
to know what it cost for the wood or the fastenings, but I'm
pretty sure that I'm stimlulating the U.S. economy more than
the government is.
My restoration was going to be the whole shebang —
planks, deck, machinery — the works. But then I got a fright!
The man who was
going to plank the
boat backed out
at the last second.
It turned out to
be a blessing in
disguise, because
we decided to cold
mold the hull in-
Timber! That's what's inside big wood boats.
stead of replanking
it, and it's turning
out much better all
the way around.
To all but the Colin Archer purists — who live in Norway
— Cloudia will still look planked.
I sometimes complain about the refit's being an expensive
pain, but I just love old wood boats because they have
something that the newer ones lack. For instance, I have an
Islander 34 that's a rocket ship. While she's a blast and all,
Cloudia is just classier in my book. Believe it or not, she's
faster, too. Yeah, my big Colin Archer really hauls ass. The
trick is stopping her!
Work hard, sail free!
Captain Thaddeous Blanchard
Cloudia, Colin Archer 85
San Diego
Thaddeous — Your boat, which has more character than 25
fiberglass boats, would certainly be welcome in the next Ha-
Ha. Good luck with the refit — and thanks for all that you're
doing for the economy.
⇑⇓DROP OUT, BECOME A BILLIONAIRE
We think you made a mistake when you corrected George