More Faster Backwards: Rebuilding David B

Chapter 1

There’s a Collection of Old Men on the Dock

It was just over eight years since we first saw her. In fact, it was eight years, nineteen days and a handful of hours since she became ours. Jeffrey stood in the doorway of the pilothouse. Ready for the bowline, he said with a grin.

My stomach was nervous with excitement and apprehension as I waited for Jeffrey to say those words. The David B was heading back to Alaska for the first time since she was launched in 1929. Only this time, we were taking her to Juneau to carry passengers.

I looked at the collection of old men drawn to the David B while she waited to get underway. It was the sound of the boat’s antique engine that brought them here. It happens every time. Ka-Pow! The ancient engine starts. Ching-ching-ching. . . Ching-ching-ching. It begins its mechanical waltz, then a few smoke rings rise from the stack, and poof—old men seem to spontaneously generate out of thin air. Most days when they come, they come armed with questions about cylinders, injectors, stroke and bore, gears, RPM and horsepower. More often, they come to reminisce about their youth.

How many cylinders ya got there? one of the men asked Jeffrey as he walked up.

Three cylinders, with a gear. Jeffrey smiled from his perch in the pilothouse. The David B’s reverse gear is always a surprise to the old-timers who grew up with engines that could not go into reverse without first shutting down.

Jeffrey continued to answer questions while Sean and I worked together to untie the lines holding the David B to the dock.

Excuse me, I said to the man, who had now parked himself in front of the boarding gate. He moved out of the way and continued to ask Jeffrey about the boat’s engine.

Aaron, our engineer and business partner, was standing on the back deck with a fender. He looked up at the stack and noted the color of the smoke. He was nervous but stood leaning suavely on his fender, looking good in his sunglasses, Bowling Green University Ski Team sweatshirt, and slightly baggy shorts. His girlfriend, Havilah, was on board, and I think he wanted to make a good impression.

I’m not sure we’d have the boat today if it weren’t for Aaron. As a twenty-something, he’d sacrificed a lot for the boat, the least of which was living in our eight-hundred-square-foot house with us, married people in their mid-thirties.

Aaron had inherited some money from his grandfather, and with encouragement from his parents, he’d invested it in the David B. In the year and a half he had been living with us, he had won our hearts with his humor, hard work, and sleep habits. We’d asked a lot of this twenty-four-year old, and he had always kept up with the pace. I watched him for a minute, jealous that his medium build could still metabolize a six-pack of beer and bag of Cheetos with no obvious effect.

I shifted my gaze from Aaron to Sean, who was on the foredeck gathering up the dock lines and putting them away. He had been working for us as a shipwright for the last six months to help get the David B ready for this trip, and now that the carpentry was done, he was ready to help out as Mate. I turned around to close the gate and smiled at the man on the dock. He stepped back from the boat and stood still with his arms limp at his sides. He smiled back at me with a distant look in his eyes. I wondered what long-ago memories the sound of the David B’s engine sparked in him. When he was young, the harbor would have been filled with the distinct sounds of engines from Washington Iron Works, Atlas-Imperial, Enterprise, and Fairbanks-Morse. I sighed to myself at the sight of the slightly overweight, flannel-clad man on the dock as he listened to the David B’s 3-cylinder Washington-Estep.

Ka-snap and a long shhhhhhhhh of compressed air came from the engine room as Jeffrey shifted the David B into reverse. Slowly, we slid away from the dock.

Jeffrey spun the big wooden wheel and gently pushed the long-handled brass shifter forward. Another rush of compressed air: sushhhh.

I looked back at Aaron and then to the row of fiberglass yachts behind us. The aft end of the David B’s big black wooden hull neared them. Aaron shifted his stance and readied his two-foot-long rubber fender, which seemed ridiculously small to fend our 135,000-pound boat off from the shiny white fiberglass yacht directly behind us.

Jeffrey worked to maneuver the David B out of her slip by shifting in and out of gear. I gathered the lines from the back deck, smiled nervously at Aaron, then went forward, stopping for a moment at the pilothouse door to watch Jeffrey as he cajoled the David B back and forth. Between each bump of power, he let the boat coast just a bit, all the while taking in the feel of her momentum. Jeffrey worked the boat with the skill of a lover. Every movement she made, he watched carefully to see how she responded to his commands, the light breeze, and the incoming tide.

The sun was shining into the pilothouse and onto Jeffrey’s tall, thin runner’s body as he maneuvered the boat from our tight slip. I watched him pause, turn around, and crouch down to look out the back windows. It was a beautiful dance to watch. He loved this boat, and whatever he asked her to do, she loved him back with a predictable response that showed how much they already understood each other. We cleared the row of yachts behind us, and Jeffrey straightened up the David B. As we headed out of the harbor, people stood on their decks waving and cheering us on. A couple horns sounded in congratulations. Jeffrey sounded back. These people knew us, and they knew how long and how hard we had worked on the David B to get to this day. We rounded the breakwater and entered Bellingham Bay.

It was Sunday, a good day to start a journey. We had carefully planned to avoid leaving on a Friday since it is bad luck, and Sean, who’s well versed in the superstitions of sailors, was pleased with our decision. He had helped increase our good luck for a safe journey the night before by rearranging the mugs hanging in the galley to make sure they were all facing the proper way, banishing bananas, and informing us that both whistling and cutting our fingernails into the water were strictly forbidden.

Although it was a warm June day, it felt good to stand in the galley next to the warmth of the crackling wood-fired cookstove while I organized the pots and pans. On the bridge deck, Jeffrey and Sean discussed the long list of projects that needed to be completed while we were underway. Aaron passed me on his way down to the engine room. He needed to do his top-of-the-hour engine check. It had been roughly thirty years since the engine had been run regularly, and we didn’t know any of its habits. With that in mind, Aaron’s plan was to check the engine’s temperature every fifteen minutes and oil all seventy-two moving parts on the outside of the old Washington every other hour. He had been down there long enough for me to forget about him, and we weren’t much farther than Eliza Island when he came up out of the engine room with his forehead creased.

Dude, Aaron interrupted the guys. Something’s up with the thrust bearing. I don’t know what’s going on, but the temp’s going though the roof. It’s a hundred and eighty degrees. We need to shut down pronto.

Jeffrey looked at him with unbelieving eyes and stopped talking for a moment. It was working fine last week when we went out to Sucia, he finally said. What’s different? Did you forget anything when you started the engine?

Aaron shook his head. No, I can’t think of what I could have missed. He turned and stared out the window.

Maybe, I thought to myself, if Aaron stares long enough out the window, the answer will come jumping out of the water and land flopping on the deck, making everything all right. A loud ticking sound began to amplify from the engine directly below our feet.

What’s the oil level in the Manzel? Jeffrey asked.

Aaron straightened up. I don’t know.

Go down to the engine room and slow us down so I can take the boat out of gear, then let’s check the Manzel’s oil level, Jeffrey said in a calm tone.

Aaron disappeared down the ladder. There was no throttle in the pilothouse, so it was Aaron’s job to control the speed of the engine. When the engine slowed down to 175 rpm or so, Jeffrey shifted into neutral and joined Aaron down below.

I stepped up to the bridge deck and glanced at Sean. I hope this isn’t serious, I said.

I think it will be all right. Like Jeffrey said, the engine worked fine last week. I’m sure the bearing just needs more oil. Sean shrugged. Problems are going to come up with that engine, and when they do, Jeffrey and Aaron are going to fix them. He leaned forward and held on to the wheel.

I know you’re right, but I’d hoped we’d get a little farther down the road before shit started breaking. We’re only forty-five minutes into a six-week cruise, and Juneau is looking a long way away right now.

I consoled myself with the view out the window. Gulls and Caspian Terns wheeled overhead in search of small fish in the sparkling blue water. A seal watched us briefly, then slid quietly beneath the surface. I’m just worried, I confided to Sean, that we won’t make it in time to meet up with our first-ever real passengers.

Jeffrey’s voice, with its slight Midwest accent, rose above the idling engine. I couldn’t quite hear his words, but his tone sounded calm. It was a good sign. Then Aaron’s deeper voice boomed up though the deck. Well, fuck me! I thought it filled itself.

Sean smiled. They evidently figured something out.

Jeffrey emerged from the engine room and stepped up onto the bridge deck. I watched him draw a deep breath before taking the wheel. My eyes were glued on him. The muscles in his jaw were tight. I waited for him to say something. He lifted his right hand to the brass gear shifter and held on to it, then scanned the pilothouse. I can’t believe that he thought that Manzel just filled itself with oil. If he’d put together a checklist, he’d have known to fill the damned thing up. Slowly he pushed the handle forward. The Manzel was empty. Nothing was getting any oil. We almost burned up the thrust bearing and who knows what else. Fuck, that was a close call. Jeffrey held on to the shifter until the engine clicked into gear. I’ve got to get him to make a checklist, but he’s just not interested.

In a few minutes Aaron came up, smiling. The temperature for the thrust bearing had come down to 121 degrees now that the Manzel high-pressure oiler had oil. He grabbed a bag of Cheetos and started munching.

You’ve gotta get a checklist. It’s just too hard to remember everything in your head, Jeffrey said as Aaron offered up some Cheetos.

I know. I know. I’ll start working on one. There just hasn’t been any time, Aaron countered with his mouth full. I’ve got a little time before my next engine-room check, so I’ll be out on deck with Havilah.

There’s just so much that can go wrong, Jeffrey said, taking a handful of Cheetos before Aaron left. "We can’t afford to screw up even a little bit. We’ve spent so much time bringing this boat back, we just can’t fuck it up. Think of all the years of work we’ve put into it."

The first time we were shown the David B, I thought it was a mistake. I stood on her deck listening to Jeffrey talk to the boat’s owner as if he were interested in buying the rotten old thing. Honestly, I just thought Jeffrey was being nice.

Rough was a polite way of describing the David B’s condition. Her hull was black and weathered, with planks that were pitted, and her paint was peeling. The billboard, which protects the bow from the anchor, was rotting, with some of its vertical staves broken or missing, and the white pilothouse sat old and faded on the aft end of the deck like a forgotten old woman in her rocking chair.

We had first gotten the idea to rebuild a boat during a phone call Jeffrey had made to his friend Michael, whom he had known from his early days of working on the big schooners in Maine. Michael was sort of Jeffrey’s maritime confidant. Before then, Jeffrey and I had tried to raise money to build a new schooner. Jeffrey spent countless hours drafting the plans for this sailboat. She was to be named Ceremony. We put together an IPO and raised a little money, but that whole plan fell apart in 2001 when the stock market tumbled. Still, we wanted to run a passenger boat of our own, so we began to look for other options.

Guess what? Jeffrey said one evening after calling Michael to catch up on the gossip in Maine.

I don’t know. What? I sat back in my old hand-me-down green office chair.

Michael just gave me the phone number of a guy out on Lopez Island who might be able to help us find a boat. Jeffrey’s eyes sparkled. His name’s Jeremy, and he evidently knows a shit-ton about old wooden boats and has a couple for sale. With the right-shaped hull we could re-rig it as a schooner. The words were coming out of Jeffrey so fast I could hardly follow along. We could redo the interior and set it up with private cabins to make the boat exactly how we want it.

How long do you think it would take to rebuild a boat and have it up and running? I asked, wondering if this was the answer to our dream.

I think we could do it in two years. Jeffrey said without too much thought.

We spent the rest of the night talking eagerly about the prospect of finding a boat. Why had we not thought about this before?

I wish we had done this instead of trying to build a boat, I said.

"Yeah, maybe, but I still want to build Ceremony one day." Jeffrey had a sadness in his voice.

I know. I do too, but I wish we hadn’t gone eight thousand dollars into debt to pay a group of lawyers and accountants to produce a pile of paperwork for an IPO. I knew this was a touchy subject. We had failed with the Ceremony IPO and we would be paying for it for a very long time.

I feel sort of ripped off by that. Why does it have to be so impossible for people like us to get ahead? Jeffrey said wistfully. The system seems to be only for people who already have money, and neither one of us seems to be able earn enough to do what we want.

"Well, Jeffrey, what’s done is done. We should leave Ceremony behind for a while and move forward with this new plan." I stared at the blueprint of the Ceremony above Jeffrey’s desk. She would have been beautiful if we could have pulled it off. It hurt me to see all the work Jeffrey had put into her.

Yeah, she would have been. Maybe we can build her some other time, Jeffrey answered.

Yeah, maybe. I knew Ceremony was just a dream and probably always would be.

The new plan, however, was coming together fast. Jeffrey was going to call Jeremy the next morning to glean some information about his boats. If he had one we liked, we could use our business plan for Ceremony and change it to fit with whatever boat we found. Buying an old boat to refurbish was our new path, and I went to bed with dreams of entertaining and cooking on a boat that sailed through the San Juan Islands—so much more fun than my job as a receptionist and shipper for a small new-age record label.

I spent the next day at work packaging up music CDs and answering phones. While I worked, I daydreamed about our future boat and the people who would come with us. I dreamt up gourmet recipes I would cook for them, and I imagined the whales that would swim around the boat to the delight of our passengers. As much as I enjoyed working for Soundings of the Planet, I felt numb. There wasn’t any creativity in putting CDs into padded envelopes. Soundings was someone else’s dream. I wanted my own.

Jeffrey called around lunch time. So, I talked with Jeremy. He wants to meet with us this weekend to show us his boats. We’ll need to catch the one p.m. ferry to Lopez Island.

I felt my spirit lift with the hope of finding a boat and to hear Jeffrey so excited. Soon after the IPO for the Ceremony had failed, Jeffrey had become directionless. It was sad to see him frustrated with where his life was going.

I was thinking, he continued, that it might be fun to walk the docks tonight after work where the fishing boats are tied up so we can see what’s for sale right here in town.

That sounds fun. I’ll hurry home. I hung up after a few more words and couldn’t wait to get off work.

Later that evening we drove to Squalicum Harbor’s Gate Five, where the remnants of the once-bustling Bellingham fishing fleet are moored. The parking lot had a congregation of old beater pickup trucks and trailers containing enormous mounds of fishing nets. There was a kind of empty chill I felt as we drove past the nets. They looked like they had been sitting there a long time, waiting for some far-off day when the great runs of salmon would return. Some of the mounds had blue tarps protecting them from the weather, but most just sat out in the open.

After we parked the car, we strolled down the ramp to see the boats. The fishing fleet was old, some boats from as early as the 1920s. Each boat seemed to have a personality and an old-timer’s knowledge of tides, currents, weather, and the ways of fish, stored like pages of an encyclopedia between untold of layers of paint. We stopped at the Leith W. It had a For Sale sign on it: $50,000.

She’s pretty, I said as Jeffrey sized up the boat.

And in the right price range, too. If Jeremy’s boats don’t work out, then we can take a better look at this one. Jeffrey walked down the dock alongside the Leith W.

It’s nice to feel like we have some options, I said later as we headed for home. I can’t wait to check out Jeremy’s boats.

***

I love to ride the ferry. There’s always an interesting mix of islanders and tourists to watch. While I waited for Jeffrey to return to our seats from the on-board cafeteria, I listened to the clacking sound of cars being loaded on to the vehicle deck below. The vibration of the ferry as it powered ahead in its berth was soothing to my nervous energy. Outside, a couple gulls stood on a piling, one with its mouth wide open and its head bowed to announce the arrival of another.

When we got off the ferry, Jeremy was there waiting. He reminded me of an oversized leprechaun and was dressed straight out of the Dust Bowl with a wool vest over the top of a flannel shirt, dirty black jeans, and a newsboy cap. He looked to be in his late forties.

It was a short drive to the first boat he wanted to show us. We turned left and drove down a private road, past a couple of old buildings. The road ended at an abandoned rock quarry near the shore.

There were two old boats anchored twenty or so feet off the beach, the Yakatat and the David B. We walked toward the rock-lined shore where the quarry’s operations had apparently taken place. Dandelions and buttercups poked through the rocks. There was no dock to get out to the boats, so Jeremy had rigged up a long float that swung from the boats to the shore. It looked sketchy, built with some two-by-fours, plywood, Styrofoam and a little bit of non-skid taped to the surface for safety.

I have to be careful not to leave the float up against the beach, Jeremy said as he grabbed hold of a line and began hauling in the float. You see, if you’re working out on the boats and the tide starts going out, the float will fetch up on the rocks. He kept pulling on the line and the float slowly began to pivot. When we get over to the other side, we’ll pull the float back out. It’s a bear to get the thing off the rocks if it gets stuck. Even worse, if the tide is really low, it can break the float. Jeffrey and I nodded that we understood how important it was to keep the float off the beach.

Jeremy led the way with a slight skip in his step. I carefully stepped on after Jeffrey, and the combined weight of the three of us caused the float to sag so that the top was even with the water. Any more weight and it would have been partially submerged.

I looked down and saw