Raising Gizmo

Gizmo is a 1979 Harmony 22, built in Florida under the MORC rule. Her background is unknown other than that she spent a few years in Kingston, WA, before I bought her in 2012. She is not a stock Harmony 22. Notice the double spreader rig, complete with rod rigging and diamond stays! The diamond stays are there to dial in a fixed amount of mast-bend without having to rely on the backstay. That's unheard of on 22' boats, especially from that era. One of the builders of this boat was an Olympic gold medalist, and he campaigned Harmony 22's very successfully until the MORC rule fell out of favor. Could Gizmo have been his boat? Who knows. I do know that the boat has no HID. I had to get one assigned by WSDOT in order to title her.

Before I bought Gizmo, I had been perusing Craigslist for years. Something about Gizmo caught my eye. She looked familiar, so I had to go look at her. I found her parked in front of a barn in Kingston, WA. It was a Deja vu moment, and I knew instantly that she was coming home with me. Going all the way back to 1979 now, I found a sleek little 22' sailboat with a daggerboard named Music in Harbor Town marina on Hilton Head, SC. I kept returning to the boat to see if the owners had returned. I just had to know what make of boat it was. They never did while I was there. I finally left disappointed. When I saw Gizmo's distinctive transom, I knew that this was the very same make of boat that I had fallen in love with back in 1979.

Frank Neumann, Jay Berglund and I campaigned her quite successfully in 2013 and 2014. She won her class in the Race to the Straits and the Toliva Shoals Race. She's a very fast boat that easily outsails her rating in light to moderate wind and flat seas. Gizmo is the perfect boat for Olympia, WA. The winds there are notoriously light, but not always. And one of those days led to her sinking.

On October 14, 2014, we competed in the 27-mile Eagle Island Race starting at eight in the morning. We knew that there was a wind advisory for that evening, but decided that since we had a good breeze, we could easily finish the race by three o'clock, a couple of hours before the windstorm was supposed to hit. The wind advisory warned of winds in excess of 25 knots. It actually hit us while the fleet was finishing the race sometime around three. The skies turned completely black, and the normally flat Budd Inlet was experiencing 4-6 foot wind waves. The wind was well in excess of 25 knots, more likely in the 40+ range. Instead of reefing, we just furled the mainsail completely and switched down to the 110 percent working jib. With the daggerboard so far forward on the Harmony 22, that works with only a moderate lee helm. If the finish line hadn't been just a couple of miles in front of us, we would have dropped out at Boston Harbor. But we sailed on and passed Sugar Magnolia, an S2 7.9 that was struggling under the main alone. The waves were building, so we hugged the eastern shore. That's where we witnessed a guy out on a kiteboard just killing the waves, doing all sorts of aerial flips and twists. But as we headed back out into open water to get to the finish line, we were hit with a series of very large waves, 8-9 feet tall. One of these rolled us over. With the lee helm, I wasn't able to get her bow over the wave as I had been doing on all the smaller waves. She fell off into the trough, and the waves rolled her right over. Unfortunately, Jay was not wearing his PFD and ended up perishing. Swamped, Gizmo only stayed afloat for a few minutes.

Distressed, I vowed to quit sailing. I blamed myself for everything. With 20-20 hindsight, I should have dropped out in Boston Harbor. Passing Sugar Magnolia put us in first place, and I hated to quit. I spent several days grieving, but early one morning, as I lay in bed semi-asleep, I heard Jay's voice quite clearly saying, "Sail on, Bro." The room was empty, but the voice was quite clear. I vowed to find Gizmo and restore her like Jay and I had been planning.

Finding Gizmo proved to be no easy task. The water was approximately 75'deep. Eric Egge and I went out in Bill Brosius' runabout towing a grapnel. We actually did snag her and broke off the backstay, but we didn't know it at the time and kept on going. Giving that up, I hired a local diver, Mike Osborne, and his tugboat, Toredo, to scan for her. His sonar was pretty useless, so I bought a side-scanning sonar set. We had to mount it to his dinghy and tow it alongside, but it worked. Or at least it worked in calm seas. Most of November and December were fairly rough. And when it was calm, it was often foggy, making it very difficult to steer a straight track line. I knew approximately where Gizmo sank, and we searched that area thoroughly multiple times. Then we set up quadrants and did a back-and-forth search of each quadrant. We found lots of fish balls, which reassures me of the health of Budd Inlet. But we didn't find Gizmo. Finally, I gave up. We had searched everywhere she could possibly be without finding her. I figured that the current must have swept her into the 200-foot trench just to the north. Here are our track lines of the search. We pretty thoroughly covered the complete area of her sinking.

On the 20th of December, I went out to Boston Harbor to retrieve my sonar equipment. Mike mentioned that there were a couple of hits that he had taken pictures of, so we quickly reviewed them. They were clearly fish balls suspended above the bottom. But there was one that was located exactly where I thought Gizmo had sunk, and it appeared to be on the bottom, which isn't typical of a fish ball. It sure didn't look like a boat to me, but Mike offered to make one last sweep just to make sure. He said that he had seen that hit on multiple days. Fish balls don't do that. So, I let him make that last sweep. The next day, he sent me a text "Found her!" The images were unmistakable.

Gizmo's distinctive mast and double spreader rig.

Raising Gizmo was no easy task. I honestly believe that Jay was pulling pranks on us. Why else would the scans show up so clearly now when prior scans just looked like fish balls? It was like playing hide and seek. When we finally quit, Gizmo spoke up and said, "Hey, wait for me! Here I am!' And then the weather turned too bad for diving operations. On the first calm day, a pod of orcas entered the bay. Divers don't like being in the water with orcas for obvious reasons. But on December 24th, the weather cooperated, and Gizmo was raised. Getting her to the surface was the least of our problems. The diver just fastened a float bag to her toe rail, and up she came. Sort of. She hovered just under the water level suspended by the float bag. Getting her all the way to the surface where she could be dewatered required getting float bags under her hull. These would normally be secured to her keel, but Gizmo doesn't have one. She rolled over and over as the diver tried to secure the bags.

Notice the daggerboard hanging in the rigging? I was sure that when she capsized, the daggerboard had slid out of the trunk. And it had, only to be secured by its retrieval line. Had we lost it completely, Gizmo would have been a total loss. I was so happy to see it tangled in the rigging. I was in a small dinghy and moved in to salvage it before anything else could happen to it.

My solution to the dewatering problem was to simply tow Gizmo over to the dredge spoils bank and let the tide go out from under her. But the diver owned a barge with a crane. He decided to go get that to make the final lift. It was after dark before he returned. Lifting from above, Gizmo finally behaved. Finding Gizmo and raising her only cost me $12K and the insurance covered that. I only had liability insurance, but the USCG required me to raise the boat. That's a liability.

Mike Osborne of Osborne Marine

On Christmas Day 2014, Gizmo was finally back on her trailer where she belonged. She was covered with mud and barnacles. A week after Gizmo was raised, a large log ship anchored exactly where she had been resting. The anchor would have crushed Gizmo. I sealed the muddy sails in plastic bags, kept them wet, and sent them off to be professionally washed by a company that only does sail laundering. They were shocked that the sails came back so clean. The secret was keeping them wet. All the mud simply washed right off. I took the outboard to Tom's Outboard in Olympia, and they cleaned it up and had it running again in an hour. I pressure-washed the hull and got all the mud and barnacles off. But the bases of the barnacles remained. Scraping each one wasn't a viable solution, so I used muriatic acid. That did the trick but etched the gel coat and destroyed the finish. Remember to use a respirator if you ever use muriatic acid. I was shocked at how many fumes were generated. It looked like the boat was steaming.

While I was stripping her down, I took off the aluminum toe rail. Normally I like the toe rails, but in this case, the manufacturer had pieced together two lengths, and the joint didn't line up. It gave the overall impression that the boat was kinked in the middle. Catherine Hovell graciously helped me remove all the hardware. In the process, we discovered that the hull-to-deck joint was completely unglued and would have to be resealed.

The mast was shot due to electrolysis, as was just about every other bit of raw aluminum on Gizmo. She needed a thorough restoration, and I was resolved to give her that in Jay's honor. I couldn't do that at the boatyard. Gizmo followed me home. I cleared out the garage and backed her in. I had to let all the air out of the trailer tires to get her in. I stripped her completely. Every stanchion, winch, handrail, cleat, window, hatch, you name it. It all came off. All the hardware was chucked and replaced. All the aluminum backing plates were corroded. I replaced them all with stainless steel. I salvaged all the teak. But the windows were all replaced. The deck-to-hull joint was pried apart and resealed with Sika-Flex bedding compound. Everything was sanded smooth and painted, deck and hull alike. I used Kiwi-grip for the nonskid. I applied six coats of primer, sanding between coats to fill all the etching left over from the muriatic acid. Unfortunately, probably four of those coats ended up in my shop vac, but I got her smooth and shiny again. The final gloss coat was Easy Poxy-2, a two-part epoxy enamel that was removed from the shelves as I was working on this project. It had inconsistent pot life, sometimes twenty minutes, sometimes 5 minutes. Upon the recommendation of the manufacturer, I used far less catalyst than the instructions call for and got her done. I applied with a roller, then smoothed the paint by tipping it with a foam brush. The epoxy ate up the foam, so I went through a few dozen. I could only work on a 3'x3 section at a time since I had to tip it while the paint was still very wet. A second person would have been a godsend. But it passes the 5-foot test.

I measured the mast and sent out the specifications to every mast manufacturer I could find on the internet. The lowest bid for an aluminum mast was $5400, and the highest was $8300. Ouch! Then I got a bid from Forte Composites for a custom carbon-fiber mast for $4500. A full grand cheaper! Turns out that Forte is the OEM spar provider for Melges and J-Boats, along with several other brands. So, it's a quality product. Jay often made this grunting sound like Tim Allen on Tool Time whenever he talked about more power. I could just hear Jay grunting when I ordered the carbon fiber mast. I found most of the other parts on eBay and no one bid against me! On any of the items! That never happens! I put in ridiculously low bids and won them all. The jib fairleads are Harken units that, if brand new, would have cost $249 each. I found a pair and a length of Harken track and bid $125. I knew I wouldn't win, so I bid on a second set for $100. I won them both! The cockpit winches are new old stock, out of production for 20 years but still new in the box. $100 for the pair. The next cheapest would be Harken at $175 each. I added 4 more lifeline stanchions for safety and found someone selling four of the exact size and model that were already on the boat. $100 for all four compared to $150 each for brand new that didn't match the existing ones.

Gizmo in the yards at Swantown Boatworks for her final fitting out.

The bottom was a story unto itself. In 2013, Jay had spent 13 days under her, putting on a racing bottom while storms raged. I conveniently had to work, so I just bought the lunches each day. This was in April, yet we had snow and sleet! The tarps were whipping about dangerously in the high winds and rain. The previous owner had the brilliant idea of covering the bottom with copper foil. He removed it before I bought her but simply painted over the gunk. When Jay started sanding, expecting to be done with the entire hull in a day, the gunk clogged his sandpaper immediately. Stripper didn't work either. Jay finally resorted to a heat gun to get the bulk off, then stripper to get the residue off. Gizmo was dry sailed, so we covered her bottom in an epoxy barrier coat, then polished that with 400 grit paper. No bottom paint. After Jay finally finished, the weather turned nice again. The difference was amazing. Gizmo felt alive and responsive without bottom paint.

Fast-forward to 2015. I spent exactly 13 days under Gizmo scraping off the remaining barnacle bases, sanding the hull, and repainting her. We had a hot streak the entire time I was working under her. The high temperatures were in the upper 90s or even over 100 every day. It cooled off the day I was done. About two hours of sanding per day were all I could muster. I could hear Jay laughing at me the whole time.

Gizmo gets her new mast!

I did away with the diamond stays. They made getting around the boat just about impossible during tacks. It just meant that the new North 3DL mainsail had to be cut with far less luff curve than the old sail.

Christening Day, complete with champagne and lemon cookies! Thanks to Susan Willis for the champagne and cookies.

Restored at last!

Gizmo sailing the Reach and Row Regatta in 2022.

On October 21st, 2015, Gizmo returned to the race fleet and sailed the Eagle Island Race. This was the one-year anniversary of her sinking. We dropped rose petals before the start to honor Jay, then focused on the race at hand. I had Doug McClanahan as my crew. The wind was light, favoring Gizmo. We drifted down Budd Inlet and Dana Pass, rounded Devil's Head, and found the entire fleet parked becalmed ahead. We drifted over to the southern side of Drayton Passage, and sure enough, a very narrow band of wind picked up right where we were. Flying a spinnaker, we had all the wind we could handle while the rest of the fleet sat becalmed. As we neared the turning point, a Thunderbird named Fjord, I noticed that they were flying the shortened course flag. This was the finish! The fleet crossed before us, but we were well within our corrected time. On her debut race after the sinking, Gizmo won not only her class but first overall! Thank you, Jay, for giving us that little band of wind!