Some old boats are worth saving. Others turn out to be just a hole in the water to throw your money into. We'd like to think that we rescued this classic wooden ketch, a 42' Wooden Hull, Ed Monk design..from becoming a permanent reef in Guaymas Harbor Mexico,in the state of Sonora.
We took a look at all the teak and mahogany and couldn't wait to start scraping and sanding. We had the boat hauled out at Marina Seca in Guaymas.
It had its own ecosystem that accompanied it. Amazing! Little fish jumping out, crabs running to find shelter and dangling shrimp.
Well we got our wish. We started scraping, and sanding... We gave her a couple of coats of red anti fouling paint. More sanding, scraping, caulking, painting. With her anti-fouling paint, two coats of primer, etc she was ready to go.
It was a bit of a challenge getting the boat over to Bahia San Carlos, located on the beautiful Sea of Cortez, where we planned to moor and begin restoration. We had to wait for high tide to leave Guaymas Marina Seca. High tide was at 9:00 pm Saturday evening. The diesel engine had not been run for over a year and was partly disassembled, so we took the Johnson 9.9 off of "This Side Up", our 22' Dolphin sloop and mounted it temporarily. The prop and intake were submerged enough to motor only when the sea was calm.
We pulled away from drydock and anchored in Bahia Guaymas. The following morning we motored sailed out of Guaymas harbor. Once out of the bay we cut the engine and headed north. It was our first time sailing Madwenowe. It was very thrilling to hoist 3 of the 4 sails for the first time. The wind was in our favor with about 3 to 4 foot seas untill about 11 in the morning then then the wind shifted to the north, straight out of San Carlos. At sundown things changed. The winds grew very stong out of the north at about 20 miles per hour accompanied with rain and plenty of whitecaps and spray. Madwenowe handled the high seas and wind very well. We tried various sail combinations but were unable to make the tack around Haystack Point. Finally after dark we decided to sail downwind to Bahia Catalina near the Cabo Haro lighthouse between Guaymas and San Carlos - thanks to Cunningham charts and our GPS we had no problems locating safe shelter.
We dropped anchor and spent the night. The following morning we headed out and were able to motor to San Franciso Bahia where we anchored for a day. The following morning we were on a mooring in the bahia at San Carlos.

Lessons learned from this "shake down" cruise.
An ancient proverb refers to "vanity and a striving after the wind". Such was the case in trying "one more time" to make our destination. Before we wear ourselves out fighting the wind and while there is still daylight, we will save strength and energy and seek a safe haven sooner. All in all it was a great cruise.
If you would like to follow the restoration of Madwenowe, a classic Ed Monk Ketch go to our website: www.webtiller.com and join our mailing list. We now have about 15,000 subscribers on our list.