The Cape Dory Board

Thanks, John. I enjoyed the years and the interactions. I still post, scattered on Instagram (as dpatterson49) and Facebook, where I post on several forums, and to friends. At this point, on the hard in Port Townsend for a shaft issue, I’m working up my Alberg 29 NAVIGARE for some cruising. David

Hello to those who have followed me in recent years. I don’t think I’ll be posting here in 2018. I can be found on Instagram as dpatterson49, or on Facebook. I post to the Sailing and Cruising group, Singlehanders, and Tiny Liveaboards, as well as under David Patterson. The first photo is looking ou...

The schooner SPIKE AFRICA under a rainbow’s end in San Juan Channel, off Friday Harbor WA, a few years ago. I’m hoping for safe harbors and stimulating plans for all cruisers and sailors this winter. Happy Holidays!

I’ll guess pine. Treated lumber used as decking on a wharf, so could be a number of species. Pine most likely perhaps.

A last 2017 posting on this year's wandering cruising topic. The year definitely took me beyond my known, though not in the geographic terms I had initially hoped. Greene Point Rapids remains my new northern gate between familiar waters and the Broughton Archipelago I had planned to visit. Maybe in ...

Thinking about keel shapes, I took advantage of being next to a big boatyard, going out at mid-day to look at a few lower hulls. Poor timing for photos because of light angles, but perhaps these will illustrate. First is a full long keel on a big (to me) schooner. A straight stem yields the longest ...

A few more of my sightings during this last week of my curtailed 2017 cruising year. The home of the US Coast Guard Cutter OSPREY is in the same basin as NAVIGARE. I doubt that she is limited to the Salish Sea. So near the entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait, I presume she patrols part of the Pacific co...

With only a bit over a week of my 2017 year aboard left, I spend my time securing the boat and studying old classics slipped nearby. Here are three. The first is a 46' Sparkman & Stephens cutter, viewed port and starboard, built in 1934, undergoing something like a refit on the water. I found he...

One pleasure of cruising, as I'm doing so in the Pacific NW, is to spend some winter months in different places. This year for me it is Port Townsend, a once thriving Victorian seaport. In the latter half of the 19th century PT was the customs entry point for every vessel entering the NW US from the...

While there are surely other large boatyards in the Salish Sea, Port Townsend had surely one of the largest. Bellingham's is respectable in size, but I don't believe they have a 300 ton lift, or more than one Travel-all, for that matter. The Sound must have some large-boat yards, but that area of th...

My Alberg 29 NAVIGARE is in her 2017 winter slip in the commercial basin of Port Townsend's Boat Haven, among tugs, fishing boats, some yachts old and more recent, and the Coast Guard Cutter OSPREY, when she is in. I'm beginning to set N up for the inevitable Pacific gales and storms, doubling dock ...

A few more random photos. First is an unusual boat, set up to take the ground in drying bays. She looks a bit submarinish to me. Not the lines we Alberg design owners prefer. Freshly rinsed, I think she is headed home. Her owners reported great satisfaction with her. I can see her at rest in Long Ba...

Are you in the boat haven? Perhaps I could come by in the next two weeks.

A long-time NW waterman says it is a log pusher, probably, for moving logs around a harbor. And yes, I assume it creates a stress on the boat there.

I'll post a few more random photos from my limited cruising life recently, a couple more times before I stop. NAVIGARE goes to her winter slip on 9/15, among fishing boats and the CG Cutter OSPREY, in the commercial basin of the Port of Port Townsend. Two weeks to settle the boat and I'll be off on ...