Behind the Scenes: Our Boats Are Out of the Water!

M/V Liseron - January 2024

This blog post was taken from an Internal Operations Update Email written by Jim Jefferson.

We hope (and in some cases, know) that our guests enjoy the technicalities of our ships. Such guests are the type that love the tour of the engine rooms while onboard.

The Boat Company takes great pride in our operations, and as a nonprofit with a core value of transparency, we would love to share some of our getting-ready for the 2024 season updates with you!

Please enjoy:

“It has been busy down / over here in Reedsport for the week of January 14 to the 20th, 2024.

On Monday, we prepped the M/V Liseron for getting hauled out at 3 am on Tuesday morning. The stars aligned - as it was moved to Tuesday afternoon. We tied up at 3 pm at the shipyard, and the fun began.

We were moved back into the slip and Albert, the diver and head electrician, positioned the travel lift straps and the bilge chocks blocks. 

The weather took a turn for the worse with wind, rain, and darkness, but by 7:30pm the M/V Liseron was hauled out and sitting on dry land.

On Wednesday, the shipyard power washed the hull and removed the zincs / anodes from the vessel.

So, we shifted our work to the M/V Mist Cove for the day and Henry took apart the noisy galley fan blower system and have ordered a new motor and belts; we are guessing that it has never been apart, so after 24 years it owes us nothing.

Thursday was the big M/V Liseron move into the barn. We all showed up after lunch to set up shore power and laid down carpet and deck protection.

On Friday, the fun began on Friday – starting to strip the Portuguese Bridge and walk throughs with the yard for the mechanical / fabrication work lists. The big ones are getting all the thru hulls taken apart and eventually inspected by the Coast Guard.

Other big upcoming projects for the fabrication team are pump mounts for the M/V Liseron steering motor/pump assembly and reworking how the main engine exhaust hangers bolt into the overhead in the engine room.

Other items will include getting the propellers pulled to make proper baseline measurements of the cutless bearings both in the struts and the stern tubes. The propellers were last off in 2019, so with the new engines it's time for a “look-see”.

They will also do an engine alignment once we are back in the water.

Dylan and Tadd have already on Friday alone made great strides in the Portuguese Bridge Project.

Other big news: Joe the Engineer and Shelley arrived on Friday and both went right to work. They also both made up for lost time by working this weekend. 

Joe started by fixing the M/V Liseron convection motor on the stove, and he has also taken over the Oily Water Separator project from me.

Shelley has been stripping varnish and has begun the inventory process of the engineering department.

The new crane valve body assembly also arrived on Friday and Henry is installing that. No more rusty crane valves: very exciting.

The Fred Wahl Carpenter team starts on Monday, chasing the rot in the houses. Hatton Marine is showing up for the generator top-end rebuilds. Plus, on Tuesday we have a boom crane showing up for a month to help us with varnish and paint, much like the one we rented in 2021 for the M/V Mist Cove Portuguese Bridge varnish job.”

-Captain Jim Jefferson

Stay tuned for more Behind-the-Scenes as we prepare our boats for the 2024 season!