Throw back Thursday -Getting Acquainted

“Man, I got absolutely no sleep last night. Not sure if it was the nor’easter working on blowing Joana over or the strange picture of the previous owner freaking me out in the glow of the flash light when I got up to check on things.” My dad gave a chuckle. “No, just the feeling of a fish out of water.”
We had found ourselves at the local Timmy HoHo’s (Tim Hortons), grabbing a cup of Joe and some Minnis. Just to our left was a a group of die hard Tim Horton groupies. On the East Coast of Canada they will sit from morning till night only leaving to get a pack of smokes. It’s better to come here then to listen to the morning news though if you want to catch up on the town gossip.
“Oh, I heard it used to be an old sail training ship.”
“No, I heard some guy brought it down here for his wife. They say her soul still walks the decks.”
“You don’t say! You’re all wrong” the oldest looking T Ho groupie says. “One of the Coast Guard fellas told me old Adolf use to own her. She was part of his private fleet in Germany.”.
“Oh hush yourself. “You don’t know what your talking about” a woman said, obviously the wife.
“I think it’s right something them girls are taking that on…”
Like I had mentioned, we were becoming the talk of the town. My dad and I just gave one another a smirk. “You ready to head back Dad? Old Adolf will be getting upset and we don’t want that.”
I have to admit whenever I drove up to the boat I never had that daunting feeling like “what have we done?” I always felt more like “Wow, ok. Now what.”
Just so we’re all on the same page, Joana’s layout goes something like this: a king size forward birth, one starboard double birth just across from a decent sized galley. She has a proper sized head with a separate shower stall, a large salon with a drop down table birth. A group of useless drawers on the port side in the salon that could be torn out and replaced with a nice seating area / sea bunk. Continuing aft there is another sea bunk on the port side and large aft state room.
There is a nice workshop complete with a drill press in the engine room which opens such that one has access to all sides of the 180hp Cummins engine.
There is also lots of spots to stow useless things such as 20 pounds of rice and a ridiculous amount of President’s Choice molasses.

In the head there was at least ten stacks of groove and tongue Laos hardwood and ten more stacks throughout the boat, ready to be laid down.

The forward cabin held an almost new suite of sails. Joana carries three jibs, three square sails, a gaff with gaff topsail and a mizzen .

When needed, a mizzen staysail is also on board. It’s hard to beat the old way of sailing out of square rigged sailors so it is nice to have the option of the squares which are great for trade wind sailing. While we aren’t totally set up to fly them yet, it is easy enough to build the spars when we want to use the sails. But, for the time being, the fore and aft set are perfect.

Layout of sail plan

Joana was constructed from the plans of Herreshoff’s Manana design. Of course his chosen material was wood but Joana’s is steel. They also substituted the centerboard with 2.1 meter draft, a cement ballast fitted in a hollow keel.

The entire superstructure is steel as well. She is powered by a 180hp C Series keel cooled Cummings with an old crash box Gray Marine transmission, which is the size of the engine. We had our work cut out for us with that but it makes for a future good story! All of this gave us a 37 ton ocean-going tank .
Her original design was supplemented with a large bow sprit and bumpkin. She is about 55 feet at the waterline, 60 on deck and 72 over all . The government issued registration says LOA is 16.79 meters. That must be a mistake and we will have to look into it one day! The main and mizen are both steel tapered masts. The main mast is 65 feet from the waterline and mizzen about 50 feet. Both are deck stepped. She has the potential of a lot of wind power when needed.

She carries 300 gallons of water and 300 gallons of fuel. Both tanks are built into the hull, with two nice size manholes for access. One of the first things on my to-do list was to empty both out and clean them. I looked through most of the crazy stuff in the sole but found no fuel transfer pump. I decided to wander over to the neighbors to see if they had one. If you don’t remember, the neighbors were the Canadian Coast Guard.
I looked in the massive garage where someone was usually working but no one was there this time. I looked around the property and noticed no one was around. I walked to the front desk in the main building but that was empty too. The phone started ringing and I thought for sure someone would come out. Wrong. Then I heard some intense talking and loud shushing coming from the door just to my right. I knocked. No answer. You may be wondering about security at this Coast Guard facility. Don’t worry folks, remember, this is Canada. No need for security. You can walk through the Parliament and harass the Prime Minister about your garbage not getting picked up.
Anyway, I opened the door and there were five grown men intensely watching Coronation Street, the longest running English soap opera. Canadians love it .
“Hello?”
No movement so I walked in. “Hi.”
“Ssshhhhhhh” was all I got in reply
I stood and waited patiently for the lady on TV, Michelle, to go through some crazy drama before a big burly guy with a strong Cape Breton accent stands up and waves his arms at the general area of grown men and TV, clearly disgusted and says “it’s just a matter of time before Culom gets what’s coming to him. Mark my word.”
And then he turns to me. “Hello! My name’s Sheldon. What can I do for ya, dear?”
Oh boy. I could tell this was going to be a very entertaining month of yard.