All Blog Posts (162)

Sorry for being a little slow,but what the hell she is still for sale took some new pics and hope she finds a good home just to much for me to handle , the pictures you see is how she looked 3 days ago. If anyone is interested no reasoanable offer refused PETE & PATTY

This is not necessarily all of my Newporter experiences, maybe just the exciting ones.  For the present let’s go back several years to the summer of 1948 for a trip eastbound on the Long Island Sound.

 My father, who is the source of my name and with whom I made an agreement when I was six years old that neither of us would ever use the “Sr.” or “Jr.” usually associated with such naming, had come into ownership of the A. J. Meerwald, recently renamed the Clyde A. Phillips, and we were…

Took SoNice out for a quick (very quick) spin on Saturday. Engine is still overheating - only once we're underway though. It'll run for quite a while at the dock, barely getting warm, but once moving under power she overheats in minutes.

Didn't get to spend as much time as I'd intended on Sunday to try to diagnose the problem. My mechanic is coming by tomorrow to take a look at it. It's gotta be something straightforward, but I've already checked most of the obvious stuff. We'll…

Sean Collins, the man who revolutionized the way surfers find the best waves with the surfline telephone report and surfline.com, passed away while playing tennis in Newport Beach the day after Christmas.

Many of the articles about Sean's passing indicate that his love for sea and surf and his knowledge of weather forecasting originated in his childhood while…

I may be sabotaging myself here, by sharing this, but Herb sent me the link to this listing for Hull #19 - Kaomi. http://ning.it/vxVhfc

I went down to visit her this morning.

She needs a great deal of cosmetic work on the exterior - The decks need to be stripped, the hull should probably be sanded and repainted, the topside as well, but her standing rigging looks almost brand new, her engine is shiny with only about 70 hours on it... The…

I found this on the web while searching “Newporter 40” in IMAGES on Google.  I enlarged a picture of the Swan (of Honolulu—not necessarily in Honolulu) that led to a site advertising a Newporter being parted out. This link should take you to the first of 18 pictures. …

For the past three years, I've done a sail out to Santa Barbara Island from Marina Del Rey, CA.



For folks not used to sailing in the area, Santa Barbara Island is nowhere near Santa Barbara. SBI is roughly 50 miles off the cost, roughly southwest of Marina Del Rey. It is a largely undeveloped rock, part of the Channel Islands archipelago, with sparse succulents, a large population of nesting seabirds, and one of the largest sea lion rookeries in California.

Most…

Ok after all the phone calls and web searches.  Having finally finding the owner of Moonfleet was a relief.  I really don’t think the broker want to sail her to us.  We also offered such a low offer on her that he didn’t think it was worth his time.  He had others that offered way more but were turned down.  I think we hit him at just the right time.

We also did tons of web searches for Newporters.  We had never heard of them before.  We found, at that time, there was next to no…

We are from Colorado, a total land lock area.  I was born there but lived over all of North American and South America.  Short of it was pick a spot every 2 to 4 months and that is where we moved.  My father loved boats, power but we won't hold that against him.    When we as family would go to Galveston beach I always saw the sailboats in the bay, I was maybe 3 or 4.  I think that started my love. 

 I moved with my mother to Colorado  after my parents split up.  Now don't get me…

Hi everyone,

Someone suggested I get back on this site and maybe do a story of Moonfleet and what she meant to us.  I decided he may be right and what a story she can tell.  I'll try to fill in as much as I know and have been told.  You have to understand as soon as we saw Moonfleet on the broker's website we were done looking for a sailboat.  this story will be her's and our together which if should could talk Moonfleet would smile about.

Before I begin…

That boat you are thinking about buying may not be as stout as she looks. There are many places that can be hiding some monstrously serious problems for you. So, a good marine surveyor's fee, though not necessary, can be money well spent. If possible, follow him all over that boat and see what he sees, ask him questions as you go, and look at the boat as an object of study, not yet as the object of your love.  Remember, love is blind; or better said, love blinds…

http://newporter.ning.com/photo/album/list   

Look over the list and…

I know this is something that we as boat owners pretty much have to accept as a fact of life - boats are damp places and areas without good ventilation will be even damper.

Anyone have any interesting approaches to providing better ventilation to the storage areas on their Newporter?  Mostly, I have this problem in the hanging storage in the forward berth and in the storage bins in the cabin. These areas all appear to be pretty much original construction except for one bin…

Hi all!

I told Bob months ago that I would post the details of my main mast rebuild as I go, and am finally carrying through on that promise. I just posted several photos of the process, but also have a ton of close ups of the mast before I pulled it apart. They might be good for anyone looking to do a similar project who doesn't want to get to the rebuild process having forgotten where each hardware fixture goes.

This project started because, like my mizzen, water had…

So I brought SoNice from her previous home down in Alamitos Bay in Long Beach up to Marina Del Rey.



I have loved the look of these beautiful boats for years, and I have loved this girl up close and personal for the last few months as we've gotten her ready to make the trip up here, both mechanically and cosmetically: but delays have kept me from being able to take her out on anything more than one very brief trial just to test out the engine.



So the first sea trial was a 12…

       Cut out the first layer of 3/4" (I actually used two 3/8 pieces because I am building in place now and they are easy to bend, until the epoxy drys!). The bulwark on the transom is a little different than the rest of the boat in that the first layer extends below the deck and nestles in the transom knee notch (approximately 14" wide in center, down to 13 1/2 at outsides). Next comes the deck beam. The narrow curved piece on the transom is the old one in a position to mark for the new…

The Masts are down! Napa Valley Marina - Napa California.  I made it up the Napa river without running aground riding a 5 knot flood tide.  The masts, booms, and bowsprit are now sitting in the yard.  Removing them was easy enough since they had a manbasket to remove the triadic stay.  It is a simple matter of removing all the turnbuckles and plucking them from the boat with a crane.

From what I can see the main mast front board has a seem where it has begun to separate all…