Hy Chris & Marissa! Great job on the Boat:) Made me remeber those fun days with the longboard before painting. Was fun to watch your latest videos and know prism is family:) love their projects and videos and look forward to new ones coming up hopefully soon👍🏽 hoping to meet you guys one day! After hearing of your plans of going north and visiting alaska i thought maybe we will meet because we have similar plans in the future, even though we go slow and are currently in europe😸 Fair winds and following seas Aladino
Hey Aladino! Thank you so much for watching! We LOVE your channel. Yes, Jon is my older brother. I actually just got back from spending 14 days helping him with boat projects on the east coast! Now back to our own projects lol... we are back floating but still have some work to do until we can set sail again. It would be amazing to meet up in an anchorage someday!
Outstanding . your choice , your life , don't let anybody stop you . Whatever happens, take responsibility. Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself. If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. If you don't like something, change it. It is good people who make good places . Good Luck . Have a nice day , Best wishes from Alberta - Canada Tom
Great video guys.Skills to rejuvinate are many and chasing that water out of the laminate is the best gift you can give an old boat.Cheers from Aus .Ross
Hey there! Thanks for watching and commenting, we love chatting! It was a tedious project but we are so glad we did it. This is our home, she takes care of us, we take care of her 💙 cheers, friend
It was really nice to watch you put all that care and effort into your boat. No doubt in my mind that it will look absolutely beautiful in the end. Looking forward to part 2!
Thanks so much for watching and commenting! Sorry it took so long to respond. WE are so happy to be back floating... it was a long 53 days in the yard. Part 2 will be up this week, we will send you a link so you can see it with our Patrons :)
Thank you so much, that really does mean a lot to us. We hope everyone takes something away from our videos, whether they be sailors or just generally interested! :)
Thank you so much! It is all a labor of love and patience is key. Chris grew up working on cars and boats so he is well versed in patience whereas I am still working on it... luckily he supports my learning experience every chance he gets. We are so proud of how far we have come... part 2 gets uploaded tonight! Excited to share!!
Today is respond and message day so you guys are first up! Great video, these boat work video are always fun and get great traction huh?!?! Well till our paths cross, cheers and have fun! Warren and Erica on WEsail
Just subscribed I'm completely new to sailing but have been getting more and more intrigued by it through the delos videos I'll have to give yours a watch once I finish those. Your content looks great. I guess I'm going to have to learn to sail now.
Hey Michael! Welcome to the wild world of sailing. Where are you from? If you have Instagram, send us a DM we are happy to help teach you some tips and tricks ☺️ if you are ever near us, let us know! Would be happy to have you aboard. Fair winds ~
Ah, the casual laid back life of a sailboat owner....great details of good stewardship. Been there and done that. Wow...your osmosis problems were distressing. Never really know how deep they go until you open them up. Really proud of you and the missus for going at it and repairing back to factory quality. Great work.
Hey Alan! Ah yes, it sounds like you know the “struggle” 😉 luckily Chris grew up working on boats so Avocet is in very good hands! Bonus points because he is patient enough to teach me along the way. Unfortunately I didn’t make it in many of the shots because I was always behind the camera and Chris’s hands were too busy to film me lol! I am much more visible in part 2 and can’t wait to show off my newly acquired skills. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch and comment, as mentioned it sounds like you know the struggle.. what kind of boat do/did you have? 🥂⛵️
Wow, you guys have been BUSY, 👨🔧👩🔧 VERY cool! Avocet is 1)in good hands and 2)looking like PROPER care and work is being done for her, good on you! 🙂👌
busy busy busy! We are just happy to be floating again. We cant wait to share part 2 with you soon! thank you for watching and taking the time to comment.
Greetings from the south shore of Long Island where my 30' Grampian sloop Avocet sits out on her mooring awaiting the next sail. Good luck in all your projects.
wow i never thought i would watch a full 20 min video on a boat lol but the editing, music, B roll, story telling everything was perfect. really enjoyed it . Also what mic do you guys use for clips like the one @ 12:30
Wow! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. We are so happy to hear you enjoyed the camera work and editing... we hope you enjoy part 2 that’s coming soon! I’ve seen you in that youtuber Facebook group before, you have a great channel! When we aren’t using lav mics we are using a azden mic on our cameras. You can pick one up on Amazon amzn.to/3cZQPsV
You guys got a lot done!! Great work! When we hauled out in Greece our visas were running out along with getting stung about $20/day for living on the boat there so had to do what we could and get back in the water... The issue we have now is that we probably don't need to lift out for another 2yrs now for antifoul etc but we need to fix the rudder bearings before we cross the Atlantic... So not sure what to do now :(
Thank you guys for watching! We really appreciate the time and support. we were very thankful to be offered the industry rate for our yard fees and utilized our wholesale accounts for materials. miraculously we made it out of there UNDER budget which is unheard of!! hmmm... your rudder bearing sounds like a tricky issue for sure... keep us updated!
I note the San Francisco homeport on the stern, I learned to sail in the North Bay (which is pretty intense way to learn). Avocet, with the big keel, looks like she should deal with it pretty well (the old Naval Air Station at Alameda (now Naval Supply Center)) had a 44' Luders USNA yawl (in wood, when they replaced them with fiberglass boats) and she had 12,000 pounds of keel under her. We would go out of weekend and all the flyweight boats would make fun of us when the air was light (usually in the mornings), but when the North Bay would kick up (nearly every day they would get a small craft warning) we going put up more sail and that big honker would just GET AFTER IT (especially UP-wind), about the time the J-24s would run for home we would be having a blast!. This was as a teenager (still a USN dependent) and I later joined the USN myself. If nothing else two summers sailing on the North Bay will make nearly any weather (including the Northern Sea of Japan, and the North Atlantic) survivable..
Thats awesome! I grew up sailing in the bay on my families Mason 43’ which we actually just moved to Southern California after being in Berkeley for 28 years! When we bought Avocet I had intentions of returning to college in SF but then my work picked up and a further degree became unnecessary in my field, where my demo reel and work experience speak for themselves. We fell in love with the Channel Islands and decided to make Ventura our home base until we cast off (soon)! We are excited to sail Avocet to the bay and sail to all my favorite places (treasure island, sausalito, angel island, etc....) it sounds like you have a lot of good boat stories. Maybe we can meet up for a drink if we ever cross paths :)
@@sailingavocet Unfortunately, life kind of moves on... I got out of the USN (still miss the water and boats (of all sizes)), and somewhere along the line fell in line with an Idaho Native (who goes into withdrawal if she gets more than that 50 miles from her parents! LOL) There were four of those USNA Yawls on the bay in the late 70's-80 (NASALA (from Alameda), TREASURER (from TI (which sank about the time they closed the base, in the anchorage, (they came in on New Years for a sail and she was hanging from her mooring buoy (through-hull fitting gave up) not sure what happened to her after that)), the boat from the old Mare Island Yard (which actually rarely made it out into the bay), and SeaScouts had one (which they ripped the masts out of her in 79 due to an unplanned jibe with the running backstays set (wooden masts in all of them then)). NASALA and the Mare Island boat both had Navy blue hulls, Treasurer had powder blue, and the Sea Scout boat had white (when they finally ( it took over a year for them to come up with the money) got new masts in her they were aluminum). If you were around you probably saw us on weekends in the North Bay, we were easy to tell, for some reason a brand hew North Sails spinnaker would never fly right when flown right side out (it had been custom stitched (and partially paid for by the USN) with "GO NAVY" on it) BUT if you ever saw the Navy Blue 44 with a chute that said OG YVAN you saw us! (we all thought it was hilarious (we would tell people we would race against that it was cut that way so we could have it read WHEN WE WERE AHEAD!!) and got so much grief about that!). Go ahead and make fun of the big hog when the wind comes up we could put a whole bucket of canvas up (180% Genoa, 110% stays'le, main (maybe ONE reef) and mizzen (again probably with a reef) (her actual weakness was slightly small rudder which we could over-power with too much sail, so the mizzen trim being right was vital to sailing her upwind) and get after it!
Just ran across your channel this evening. We have some things in common. My daughter lives in Ventura and I spent many’s days at that harbor on my first boat, which was a Catalina 36’. My second boat was a Cheoy Lee 42’ and I’m currently restoring a Mason 43’ for a circumnavigation (hopefully). I also went back to watch your Q&A and you seem like good people who are ready to take on this lifestyle. Enjoy and keep up the good work. And thanks for not pimping out the young lady as clickbait. Just sayin. ☮️ Thanks
Hey there! Marissa here (I manage all of our social media) thanks so much for watching and reaching out! Wow! We DO have a lot in common! We are actually preparing Chris’s moms Mason 43’ to move down here to Ventura from SF bay. Chris comes from a huge sailing family and he taught me when we were 15! I have been hooked ever since. I want people to see me as a dedicated sailor with a passion for adventure versus just another pretty face and thankfully my husband supports that and is very proud of that ideal. Thanks again for watching and reaching out, I hope we cross paths someday 🙌
Thanks Christian! We are so excited to share part 2 with you all soon. We are so incredibly happy with our floating home, and proud of the hard work we put into her. Cheers and fair winds!
Wow, great video you guys! when I first started watching y'all you had great video quality, and since I've been following y'all the quality has hugely increased!
A lot of work there. It would have been nice to get a heated vac pad on the hull in those wet areas but like you say time and money. Looking forward to the next vid. Sail Safe Guys, Ant, Cid & the pooch crew.
Thank you Clay! I (Marissa) finally had a chance to put effort into the backend SEO of our channel. After this video we received 299+ subscribers! It’s mind blowing! We are so thankful to have great supporters and look forward to hopefully meeting y’all sometime. Thank you for the kind words, it really makes our day. Stay safe out there!
Not many blues at all! We love boat life and wouldn’t trade it for anything. We were just “blue” about the COVID-19 pandemic and bad weather delaying our progress! Besides that it was a humbling experience to work on our boat.
Great question! We rebuilt it because our toe rail was leaking so badly, leading us to remove it completely. By glassing the deck to hull joint we remedied the holes left by the 180 through bolts and also reinforced the strength of the deck and hull.
To make it worse: we thought for a few days our ballast was iron instead of lead because of the rust that was weeping out of the hole. WE used a magnet to confirm our ballast was Lead, despite what our specs say. The rust was from metal bits in the sand! it was a roller coaster of a discovery.
Wow!! The ammount of work you guys put into that boat is amazing! And it seems you know what you are doing to. Very impressive, and a great video as always!
work like a sailor, play like a pirate!! Thank you Roger, we put 110% into our home. Chris is actually a boatright and has spent his whole life around fixing things on boats... im just thankful he is patient enough to teach me now!
Like others here I have just found your channel and like the restoration as much as the sailing. Chris seems pretty knowledgeable, what is his background tradewise ?
First: WELCOME ABOARD! Glad to have you. How did you find us? Chris grew up around boats, sailing AND fixing them. His family has a Mason 43, and his older brother Jon has a Hans Christian 33 (SV Prism) so the boatwork came naturally. Chris has a lot of talents and skills... at 15 he built his own car, a 1963 MGB from the frame up! We still have her. He is a driven guy, and I'm very thankful to be married to him. Although his hands are always busy with projects his "real" job is cinematography, so he shoots documentaries, promotions, the occasional music video and wedding. Thanks for checking us out, feel free to ask more questions!
@@sailingavocet I found you guys from other sailing channels and I love the work (essential and non) that you both have carried out. The yachts that came from British Hong Kong are so well built and similar to Ta Shings and Taiwanese Tayanas in terms of construction. I asked about Chris's background as it was clear he has some knowledge just in the way he talks regarding materials.I'm not a boatbuilder or shipwright but a carpenter that has worked in many yards from building 75 motor yachts at Aquastar in Guernsey to Perini Navi and Wally yachts in Viareggio and Fano respectively, built the first Difer 54 out of Fallonica/Punta Ala, Spanish Americas Cup 70' mono Iberdrolla (false bow redesign) and Trans Pac 52's out of Tarragona, Lutra 30's (sprint resin infusion) in Dubai and ended up a yard on the River Hamble just down the road, looking after classics, I regret leaving the Elephant boatyard and just being on or next the water. Instead I thought I'd get a proper job and now work as a building supervisor for the NHS (health service) running a team of carpenters/builders and ground staff across two hospitals.......I can't stand it......so you two give me my fix and that's a very good thing :)
Hey! Thanks for watching and commenting. Wow! That’s awesome, what type of boat, Our Avocet came with her name... it was the original name in ‘79 and stuck ever since! We have yet to see an Avocet bird in the wild but I look forward to the day we do :)
@@sailingavocet It was very humble Leisure 17. I think my dad bought it the early seventies. We occasionally still see it sailing in the area (Zeeland in the Netherlands). Haven't seen an avocet bird for a while either. They are called Kluut in Dutch, which is the sound that they (well sort of anyway). Happy sailing!
Thank you Iain! We will do a boat tour when we finish varnishing the interior, rebuild our nav station, replace our galley counters, and maybe reupholster. Hopefully we will have a full tour available by the end of the year 😂
that piting is why bronze is far superior to stainless for rudder shafts..unfortunately the manufacturing sector has lost their appreciation for marine bronze.... Good luck with the refit nice work and your are marvellously thorough
Great question! We didn't really explain our process in this video, but part 2 covers our repair more extensively. We left a heat lamp on the hole for 30+ days to dry, then filled it with closed cell foam before fiber glassing over :) Chris is a boatright and has repaired many blisters, we were mostly concerned with the make of our ballast, since the bit of weeping rust made us think we could have a compromised iron ballast. Luckily we tested the ballast's integrity with a high powered magnet, confirming it is lead. THAT is what most of Chris's concern was when he was discussing the hole, even though he failed to explain ;) Thank you for watching! We appreciate you taking the time to comment as well. Fair winds~
I am thinking of removing my toe rail and doing basically way you did. Are you happy with how it turned out? Do you miss being able to attach and move blocks on the toe rail? Do you feel less secure on deck without the toe rail?
Hey Dan! We are so stoked and can’t wait to show the outcome in the next video. We still have our stanchions that snap blocks connect to, the track on our toe rail was never used because it was never truly functional, so it was not missed 😉 we have a bulwark, which is 1” off the deck, and 12 inches high, much more effective than the prior design :)
Sailing Avocet thanks for the reply. We use our toe rail a lot and move a snatch block when sailing on a reach to change the sheeting angle on the headsail. So we would loose that. We also use it to secure blocks for twings so we can use a single line as a sheet or a guy with a kite. But it leaks just a bit from time to time and if we get the rail over a bit to far it caused a lot of drag. So everything is a trade off. Still am not decided on what to do. Best wishes. Just watched your video where you sprayed on varnish! I didn’t know you could do that. I may try that.
Ha! Trust me, there are a lot of "sailor mouth" moments in part 2... im just not sure if we filmed them or not! Hope you are doing well. Fair winds, friend!
During an ocean passage , squalls with lightning do occur , are there procedures to protect electronic nav equipment in the event of a lightning strike ?
great question! in an anchorage you can just turn off/unplug your electronics... while sailing... well you better hope you aren't sailing in a storm like that lol!
You gotta be careful in the slings I watched another channel where they bout a boat at scrap prices the boat had been hung in the slings and the former owner was trying to get the rudder off it was up about 16 ft and slipped out of the slings and shattered the stern clean off and cracked the haul in several places up past the 2nd bulkhead the worked on it for a year and a half and are currently about half way around the world from where they started
If you are referring to sailing magic carpet: We love watching their videos and have been following them for years! I actually remember seeing the boat up for sale right after it had fallen. Although it was a tragedy for them, or maybe a blessing.. being in the slings is relatively safe. Sure, it’s scary to have our home up above the hard ground but it is our only option, and done every day by thousands of yards across the world. The slings that magic carpet was being lifted was a bit different, it was being transported from a shipping container and was being lifted not by travel lifts like we use but by a crane which is much more risky. Haul outs like ours are a routine practice done by professionals trained to handle boats (not just “cargo”) and were diligent in their practice. Of course make sure you research ANY boatyard and make sure your boat is in good hands 🤙
Thank you! Yes, a LOT of work has gone into Avocet to ensure she is the safest she can be for our voyages. Luckily, we will never have to repeat the extent of this job every again. The resins used in the 70's were not the same quality that we have now which is why many boats of that era are found with severe blister issues (like ours and worse!) using proper techniques to repair and prevent blisters will keep Avocet's bottom ship shape for years to come. Next time we haul out we will just have to scuff up the bottom then repaint... not sand all the way down to glass like what was done here. Her topsides hadn't been painted since she was originally splashed in 79' and although they were a little rough she was still in surprisingly good shape! We anticipate having to repaint maybe in 5 years maybe more, all dependent on the environments we take her to. Great question! Can't wait to share more in the next upload. Cheers!
I intend to sail some blue water in the future , and realistically my budget would restrict me to a boat that needs work , before setting out. Your video was an inspiration and in my humble opinion your handy work was and is , top drawer. Keep safe and travel well. Keep the wind at your back and the sun in your face .
Im so glad you guys reached out on my channel cause now I can see this! Yours is so cool and the detail in editing really shows! Keep making more I love this journey you guys have.
I’d like to help but living in disability doesn’t give me options. I’ve been sailing for 45 years but currently for me that’s gone. Enjoy every day while you bond with your yacht. Make her look perfect. The effort is worth it and the rewards are many. Take care !!
did you guys look into sand blasting instead of sanding the hull? I know that can be pretty costly to do, so I was curious as to why you chose the hard way :)
Hey there! There are a couple reasons why we chose not to sandblast: 1. it is expensive! 2. Sandblasting introduces a lot of foreign contaminates into the fiberglass. We have Sandblasted most of the aluminum pieces on our boat though! Loved the result.
I know there are many factors involved , including equipment , good maintenance record etc , but from your experience what would be the minimum length of vessel to go blue water cruising ?
Great question, it sounds like you already know a bit regarding maintenance and equipment! Although those are two crucial factors, there are many blue water cruisers as small as 20’! It really depends on the vessel design, as well as your comfort level. I suggest looking into the books by Lin and Larry Pardy who coined the term “go small, go simple, go now”.... they cruised the world multiple times aboard their Lyle Hess Bristol Channel Cutter 24’ followed by their 28’. My brother is cruising on a Hans Christian 33, which is small in length but more comfortable and capable than any 33’ mass production boat. There are a lot of excellent resources online regarding blue water cruisers, as mentioned it really depends on YOUR comfort level. Design trumps, build quality. Make sure the boat you are looking at has a proven hull design I.e.: full keel, fin keel with skeg hung rudder, and encapsulated keels. You want to trust your vessel! :) in our opinion the 2 biggest things you want underwater are a rudder far aft and an encapsulated keel. Thanks for asking! Happy to answer any more questions
Same here. Seems as soon as everything tried to head in the direction of semi normal, the carona cooties strike once more. When will this all be over. I can’t stand being land locked 🔒
If only the "easy" ways had the same results... cant get much better than hand sanded, and we will touch upon that in the next video where Chris sanded for 32 hours straight- not kidding, he pulled an ALL NIGHTER hand sanding! Cheers!
Not to our knowledge, we are the 3rd owners and know the previous owner’s name was John. The original owner would have owned Avocet in ‘79-mid 80’s. Do you know something we don’t? 😉
Hey JD! We are actually pleased to see this question amongst the various other comments because it shows you genuinely care about the environment! We don't really discuss it in this video, and I feel like we should so let me shed some light on this: Boatyards are messy. There are chemicals, pollutants, and dangerous things everywhere you look... however one reason we chose the Ventura Harbor Boatyard is because of the way they maintain a functioning boatyard while also keeping their work spaces clean and ensuring everyone is abiding by health and safety laws and guidelines. A big reason we tarped over Avocet while sanding the bottom was not only for weather, but also to capture the sanding dust so we could vacuum it up every day when we were finished. It worked really well and the yard was impressed with our clean work space considering the amount of sanding we did! I honestly think more fiberglass ended up in our arms than the ocean. If you would like to know more about how we put the environment first during our boat projects feel free to reach out on Instagram @svavocet ! You may be interested in this video we did a while back: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mNrLKDFKJpI.html Cheers! - Marissa
It generally is never free, even the first time. The initial haul and block was $400, every lift after that was $200 each time. Every yard is different but I have never heard of a yard doing a lift for free. Nothing in a yard is ever free 🤷🏻♀️
