In the shed

The boat came out of the water last Monday and from the looks of the place, so did a lot of other boats. When we left last weekend, the docks in the shot above were full. From what we understand, the yard crew worked even through the rain to get almost everyone out. Today they looked tired and were allowed to quit at noon.

Ken and Elsie Gouin, who own the yard, head off for Florida each year on the day after Thanksgiving and Ken likes to know that the majority of the winter storage boats are where they are supposed to be before he leaves. Ken's middle son, Wayne, heads up the crew.

During the summer, Ken and the crew leveled more area in the front of the yard to gain additional  space, especially for bigger boats. As part of that, they they buried utility lines and installed water and electricity for that new area. Ken is a retired shop teacher who can do just about anything.

As you can see it's a little tight in the shed but it always is. We know most of the owners of the boats around us so it doesn't make any difference. (Just noticed how crooked the boat name is on our bow. We'll fix that too.)

Chances are, by next weekend, they will have moved those mast dollies in front of us and put a boat or two there.

We left our bridge enclosure up this year and it is a tight fit. Looks like we have about a foot a foot between our top and the underside of the shed roof.

If we were three or four feet over to the left, the top would have scraped on a girder that runs from the back of the shed to the front. This parking is all done with a hydraulic trailer pushed by what was once an airplane tug.

While we were there today, we wanted to measure the bow pulpit once again.

We were interested in knowing what the distance was between those railing bases (5-3/4") before we go out and buy a new anchor roller. We don't know if the new roller will even mount that far back (we doubt it) but it's probably better to know this stuff before before we visit Defender in Waterford.

Down memory lane

We've been at Portland Riverside for 27 years. Our Silverton is the third boat we've had during that time. The first one ("Mad Dog") was a 28 ft. Luhrs (wood) that we bought from a guy in this yard. It needed quite a lot of TLC and in those days, it was easy to get a crew to help: just give them a lot of supervision and a case of beer.

Here we were in July, 1986 and that old boat still wasn't quite ready to go in.

Amazing. I think Bill still has those shorts.

That old Luhrs leaked just as all those clinker-built boats did, but we took it all over and had lots of fun with it. When we bought the second "Mad Dog," a 32 ft. Chris Craft Sea Skiff, we gave the engine in the Luhrs to someone who had ruined his by not winterizing it properly. Then the crew at Portland Riverside kindly cut the Luhrs up with a chain saw and burned the pieces during the winter  in the wood stove in their shop.

Can't do stuff like that any more.

The river looked pretty nice as we got ready to leave. But the winter boating season has started and we have already started a list of things to do.