Brigid's Page
Brigid is my latest restoration project. I started work on her in the spring of 2024 and planned to have her back in the water for the 2025 season. Back in the water, not finished, boats are always a ‘work in progress’.
Brigid was built in 1998. She was designed by Bill Garden and custom-built by Al Thessen, her first owner. Her construction is of double diagonal cedar planks with a cedar strip lining. The deck and superstructure is all plywood and everything is finished with an epoxy glass sheath. This makes a very strong boat that is waterproof and easy to work on. Her design is based on the Colin Archer style double ender and built for comfort and seaworthiness rather than speed.
At 32ft LOD, 14ft and 5ft 6in draft with a loaded displacement of around 12 tons and a long keel, she is definitely in the heavy cruiser category. You might think this makes her slow but with a 5ft bowsprit added to make her a cutter rig she will set about 700sqft of plain sail. For some reason she was not fitted with the bowsprit when built as most boats of this design would have been. Possibly it was a constraint of her original berth. Weight and wetted area are only a problem if you can’t set enough sail!
What Seemed to Need Doing
When I bought Brigid she was in rough shape. The main problem was that she had very badly laid teak cover boards on the deck. These had been glued down with something that looked like Sikaflex and nailed!! She leaked like a sieve every time it rained and had been left at the dock for a couple of years. What I could see of the water damage was extensive but repairable. It did, of course, turn out to be worse than I could see in the initial survey. The other issues were that the electrics looked a mess and she had no navigation gear other than a handheld GPS, depth sounder and a basic VHF. She did have a Perkins diesel that seemed in good order, which the survey available listed as 30hp.
The Reality
However careful you are with the first survey you will always miss something, look at the work you can see and double it!! Brigid was no exception. The rot had got further down than was immediately apparent. I knew she would need extensive work on the cabin top, deck and deck framing as well as a new cockpit. It turned out the aft bulkhead was bad, needing about 50% replacement and it had even reached the tank mounts which all needed replacing. Once I got her stripped back I did not find anything new, just a bit more extensive damage than you could initially see.
The other surprise was the engine. It ran well but she seemed underpowered. My first thought was that the bottom was foul, she had been at the dock for a while. When I looked up the engine serial number it turned out to be 20hp not the 30hp model the surveyor listed… The performance was what you would expect with that size engine, fine for clearing the dock but not a passage-maker. With the throttle wide she made less than 5kn even on flat water. This was not a big issue for me as I had assumed the engine would be dead due to its age and a long layup. I had allowed for that in the offer price. I already had a new engine and transmission to go in. The engine was actually better than expected so I can put that job down the list until I want to make some offshore passages.
The only other issue on the delivery trip was that the heater died on day two. It was a 5-day trip in the middle of the Canadian winter, I needed a LOT of warm clothing.
Planned Improvements
Whenever you get a new boat, especially a project, there are changes and improvements you want to make. This is in addition to any repairs or ‘must-do’ upgrades to make her seaworthy.
With Brigid there were several. She obviously needed a bowsprit. I could see that just from looking at her, but I knew she also had severe weather helm and was underpowered in light winds.
I suspect she was designed with a bowsprit as the mast had all the fittings. Maybe a previous owner had removed it to reduce moorage charges?
She did not have either a dodger or a bimini. I am not a fan of biminies, too much windage and they get in the way when sailing, but on the North West Coast, some cover for the hatch and cockpit is essential. They don’t call it a rainforest for nothing. So a dodger went on the list.
Where have I got to?
This is the end of the second season working on Brigid and, you guessed it, turned out to be a bigger job than I envisaged. There haven’t been any big surprises but the water damage went further than was evident at the initial survey. The main area that was worse than I thought was under the cockpit. It had got down as far as the tank supports and into the core of the aft bulkhead, which needed replacing on both sides. A common issue with plywood bulkheads is that if water gets into the center core it can rot those out, but the outer facings still look sound. On the plus side, having removed the tanks, I found they could be moved back aft, leaving room for lockers in front. I am not a fan of cockpit lockers. Making water-tight lids is a lot of work and digging stuff out of a five-foot deep locker at sea is no fun; the thing you want is always at the bottom! Instead, I made access to the space from the main cabin. This gave me a separate space for the batteries and other machinery, inverter, heater, battery charger etc on one side. The other side is a hanging locker with a heater duct to make a drying locker. On the West Coast, having somewhere to dry oilskins without steaming up the main cabin is a real luxury. In the interior I added some additional shelving in the forward berth, replaced the door on the fridge to improve efficiency and made a new crockery store. Having a properly fitted galley where crockery is accessible but not going go flying in rough conditions is essential in an offshore boat.
The structural repairs are now almost complete. The weather was not ideal this year, with a very late start to summer and a wet spell at the end of August so I was not able to get all the deck seams finished. That is still to do, then I need to refinish and mount the scupper rails.
What’s left? I have to put the mast back up and sort out the deck gear plus fit all the navigation, radios and instruments. These are coming off my old boat; she was dismantled in Panama. Currently all that stuff is in a container somewhere on the high seas. The initial delivery estimate was mid-August, but of course, that did not happen. Now I am expecting them to arrive sometime in December.
Jan 2026 update
The manuscript for the book and the electronics guide is finished. I am talking to publishers and reviewers. The available edition is a prepress copy. If you would like to see it please go to the orders page. Think of this as an advanced copy. Once I have the final copy ready for publication I will send youan update.
Working on the next two guides, which will be the ones on sailmaking and building a spar. I will complete these projects over the rest of the winter and get all the photographs taken.
Meanwhile I am back at home for the winter. Brigid is all tucked up until the weather warms up enough for resin to cure. I will be back on the boat in the spring to finish the deck, deck layout and rigging.
I have to say this is a bizarre winter. I am in Northern BC, Canada, reading reports about ice storms in Louisiana, while it is raining outside!!! We should have a foot of snow and they should be basking in warm weather.
The book is finally launched. That is a big milestone for me. I was surprised to find that the editing and publishing steps took nearly as long as the writing. What they don’t tell you is that if you are going to self-publish an ebook, you have to learn to code in XHTML!
Also making some progress on winter jobs for the boat. I just completed the new staysail. It will rig from just behind the bow and has a set of reef points, so it will be good for up to 35kn with 3 reefs in the main. Full details of how to build your own sails will be in volume 2, but I have also done a slideshow for Practical Sailor, which should be out sometime in March.
Plans are to head back to the boat as soon as the weather is fit, probably mid-April. The aim is to launch sometime in June.
New sailing season is around the corner
The snow is clearing, and the days are getting longer; it’s time to start thinking about the sailing season. This should be the last year in the yard. The plan is to get to the boat early April and aim to launch in early summer. We want to spend some time cruising the Great Bear Rainforest, so I should have some different stuff for the blog.
With the book now in print, I have more time for other writing. This month saw a slide-show style article on how to make a sail from a kit published in Practical Sailor. This is the first of a series on making things. There will be one on the dorade boxes and one on how to make a wooden bowsprit. I am also going to look at laminating wood. This could be used for many things, including a radar arch or bimini. The great thing about wooden frames compared to stainless steel frames, apart from the cost, is that they are light and resilient. A wooden bimini frame could easily be half as heavy as a stainless one. The other plus with wood is it’s flexibilty. The sea can bend anything, and if it is metal, it stays bent. Wood will spring back.
These will all be published in Practical Sailor, I am aiming for one per month.