She's Stripped

Pretty much everything is gone; Hatches, Decks, Bulkheads. We found lots of stagnant dirty water that would gush out as the bulkheads were cut. After the water was taken care of, the new revelation was that everything was coated in oil gunk thick enough you could scrape it off with a knife like peanut butter. So knives, putty knives, and the back side of bent up sawzall blades are being employed along with gallons of heinous cleaning products and an infinite paper towel roll to clean up the 'residue.'

Demolition of the Fish Hatches

The Gypsy Palace

Building her a palace is never easy. Thanksgiving, the original goal of "completion" came and went, as did Christmas.. then New Years.. It was up shortly after that. Somewhere around Jan 15th and began tearing off the decks Jan 16. Unfortunately no good pics of blow torching the plastic to shrink wrap the structure. Neither did we acquire any pics of actually draping the plastic over the beast. At 25' above the fertile shipyard soil, Dale was atop the peak of the building lending his muscles to pulling a 100'x 35'sheet of Dr. Shrink(TM) over the rafters. With a seeming lack of fear, he at such a height straddled the 1" beam running the length of the boat. It was in this delicate position it began to dump snow on the emboldened. However, on this fateful and pivotal day Robert Collier was a no show. Despite his RSVP. Hurt my feelings. Luckily Bob Bointon accompanied by his sweet facial hair showed up to lend a helping hand. It took a few days for a weather window to get the plastic shrunk. With even minimal wind your structure can be blown into an amoeba after its heated into a gelatinous state before it shrinks and achieves homeostasis. But while waiting for fair weather, crappy weather delivered a a beating to the tarp which required a days worth of high angle tape repair. Randomly and mysteriously somebody left us another roll of shrink tape which came in very handy; they deserved a beer. Finally we blow torched but were so thrilled and busy (2 days) flaming we neglected to get any pics. But its a good thing because Monique was already burnin holes in the tarp as it was. A lens distracting her Vanity could of been the end of the Palace.

The Cleanup

While cleaning out the rubbish and grime we discovered that the woodwork beneath the aged green slime and sockeye scales was Teak. So we cleaned it. Sanded and varnished many times.

Arrival into Port Townsend via tow

Northland Barge Services, Seattle

Operation: get Gypsy out of Northland. October 15th, 2010
Beryl E to the Rescue!

Dirty Gypsy

This blog will document the gypsy renovations. The first pictures are of the Gypsy when she first arrived from Bristol Bay to Seattle.