The Subjects Discussed Herein

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The following articles all concern our adventures in Murre.

Murre is a Far East Mariner ketch of 31 feet, Japan built in 1972, whose design and furnishings are reminiscent of Herreshoff and Garden and the much older yachts that cruised just after World War II. Her decidedly full keel, spade rudder, worm gear steering and wooden ship's wheel; her rig, wooden masts, sprit and tackle; her twin teak samson posts; her bronze hardware all speak to the values of a previous era. And though her hull is of fiberglass, her only modern feature, its lines suggest a lofting floor rather than a mold.

In short, when we bought Murre in 2001, nearly 30 years after she was lowered into Los Angeles Harbor from the decks of a freighter, she was an old boat based on old ideals of what constituted seaworthy yacht construction. These were our ideals too, so when we first met, and as she sat proudly in her slip, newly painted and accompanied by her broker's confident, mellifluous baritone, we were easily overmatched.

Which goes some way toward explaining why so many of these articles concentrate on restoration and why our acquisition of carpentry skill was driven much more by necessity than natural inclination.

But for all our time with hammer and saw there has been plenty of sailing to chronicle, plenty of cruises in and around our home waters of San Francisco Bay.

The work and the sailing continue, as does the "worse habit of writing about them."

What's in a Name?

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Whether attached to children or boats, names carry a heavy load of intent and the choices are endless.

Where boats are concerned, in particular, the name can be called on to express something of the owner's sense of adventure or desired use for the boat (Wanderer, Walkabout); his affinity for cruising history or nautical literature (Joshua, Surprise); his sense of poetry (Firecrest, Moonraker); his affection for his wife or girlfriend (Annabelle, Lolita) or, less laudably, his sense of humor (Knot Inn, Gute Fahrt*).

We chose a bird, a slow flying but strong swimming sea bird that breeds in our waters. A sort of penguin, murres can be seen in the bay and along the coast bobbing comfortably in the worst of weathers and so seemed a fitting epithet for our tough little boat.

More introductory photographs of Murre are available here.

*literally, "good drive". Shame on you!

Replacing the Deck and Cabin Sides

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Writing-up the adventure is, for some, half the fun of having it. But while the adventure can inconvenience only its small party of fully informed volunteers, publishing it begs the indulgence of a larger audience, some of whom may wish to know the itinerary before embarking on the voyage.

If it is not obvious how a Mariner restoration job could be considered an adventure in the usual sense, let me explain that this long article is as much a personal reminiscence—the story of one man’s trip to America and another’s hard-knocks education in a boat yard—as it is a technical report. Its length is due to the inclusion, on both fronts, of as many details as I can now recall, along with a generous number of photographs. Sadly, my camera was crap and often poorly aimed.

This rebuild plan was a crazy risk, inspired by desperation and ignorance in equal measure. The result, however, was entirely positive, and the process, one of the more rewarding experiences in memory.

Continue reading this article...

Cockpit Well Rebuild

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I wasn’t born chewing on ring nails and blowing sawdust out my ears.

In fact, if you’d asked me on the day after I bought Murre what the surveyor from the day before had meant when he said “this is beginning to look like a project”, I would have struggled to provide an informed answer. I wasn’t a shop guy in high school. I had no idea.


But early on Murre had a strange affect. When Jo asked if maybe Murre was more than we could handle and should we sell, my reason for declining was, “We wouldn’t get near what we paid.”

Even I knew that was a cover for something deeper. Murre’s deck and cabin side job of 2003 had begun to provide some context for the word “project”, how it might be approached, pursued, and completed. It also hinted at the great satisfaction gotten from doing one’s own work. And then Jo’s Christmas present of power tools sealed the deal.

The cockpit sole needed attention. It was a simple rectangle whose clean right angles I was sure implied only a few weekends of work. So in January of 2006 I put Murre into a shed at the San Rafael Yacht Harbor, and without quite knowing it, I began the cockpit job.

“How long you gonna be here?” asked Matt the Harbor Master as I laid the rent on his desk. “I’m just doing the cockpit, so a couple months seems plenty,” I replied. “OK then,” he said, flipping his calendar to a summer month before making a mark, “I’ll check on you in June. These things have a way of going on, don’t they?”

Continue reading this article...

Fuel Tank Replacement

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I replaced Murre’s fuel tank in 2006 because I was rebuilding the cockpit and so had the area opened up.

The mild steel tank hadn’t given me any real trouble—it didn’t leak or seep—even though by the time I bought the boat it was already over 30 years old. But its exterior suggested better days were a memory, and its interior hinted things could go badly soon and without much notice. Large rust blooms were visible in places that had already been repainted at least once, the bottom of the dip stick tended to come up rusty at the tip, and brown rust flakes swam around in small, mean looking schools in the fuel filter bowl.

And a way to resuscitate the old codger was not obvious, either. Water that had collected under the fuel over the decades (little as it may have been) could not be got out because the drain valve was not located at the exact bottom of the tank; nor was the fill fitting large enough to allow a professional fuel polishing hose.

Since the cockpit had been removed, the hour had arrived, so out came the tank.

Continue reading this article...

Replacing the Aft Cabin Bulkhead

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And so it begins…

Oddly, Murre is not only in the same shed as two years ago for the cockpit job, she's in the same slip. She's facing bow out, just like before. The blue tarps I used for extra coverage against storms are the same blue tarps. The same sea gulls do the same tap-tap-squawk dance on the same tin roof. Even the neighbors are the same. But I find their neighborly recognition is slow, somewhat guarded, as I explain I am back for more of the same, as if they are thinking, "didn’t he already do that?”—as if they are thinking “is he crazy or just plain dumb?"

And as to that question and by way of providing evidence one way or the other, I thought I might post a few photos here now and again—as work progresses or fails to progress and my access to enlightenment and divine grace waxes, wanes.

Continue reading this article...

Rigging Specifications

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What follows are detailed measurements of Murre's standing and running rigging, including not just relevant rigging lengths, but also their material type and diameter and the type, size and number of fittings used.

I’ve taken pains to be accurate; however, I’d be happy to correct any data if errors are found. More importantly, please note that the data is for my boat and may not be exactly yours.

As far as I can tell, all material types on Murre are “factory”: masts, head rig, chain plate positions, spreader rig, etc., are all original to the boat.

Continue to specifications page on Mariner Owner's Site...

Spreader Drawings

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It is difficult to comprehend what a mass of hardware is a boat's "rig" until one has to find a place for it off-boat.

In the winter of 2006 I pulled Murre's masts so she could go under wraps for the cockpit rebuilt. I bundled up the sails into the rafters of our garage and coiled the wire behind the gas meter, but the booms and spreaders I installed in our bedroom on horses and next to my writing desk.

Joanna was away at the time, but upon her return I was only made to explain how long I thought they might be there. "Just until I can copy them down," I said.

Fortunately, at least where the booms and spreaders were concerned, Joanna's attention was easily redirected toward the living room where the bowsprit sat on tarps under the bookshelf and a fine covering of varnish dust had mysteriously settled on much of our furniture.

The book that absorbed me during this cockpit rebuild was L. Francis Herreshoff's Sensible Cruising Designs. A collection of Murre's spars ended up in the house because I intended to draw-up in the Herreshoff style as much of the boat's rig as the winter would allow.

There is something entirely engaging in Herreshoff's drawings. The H-28 chapter is, in some ways, where the Mariner 31 was born, but the attraction goes deeper than simple lineage; it goes right the heart of seeing a boat. The idea begins in the mind but meets its first expression on paper as an anatomy, a boat in pieces. But in Herreshoff, the abstract expression is itself appealing as a work of art. His drawings are at once intricate and accessible, highly detailed and rudimentary, and somehow essentially physical, almost as if his pencil were sculpting the boat that would be.

In the end only Murre's spreaders made it onto paper that winter before they and the other spars were banished to the garage.

Click here to access spreader drawings and write up...