Owner On Board

A Seattle yard specializing in Nordhavn refits encourages boat owners to participate in the work and get to know their boats like the professionals do.

Photo: Enterprise III, a Nordhavn 55 (16.77m), awaits relaunching at Seaview Boatyard West in Shilshole, Washington, toward the end of a medium-sized refit by Emerald Harbor Marine (EHM).

Larry Schildwachter (right) of Emerald Harbor Marine and Doug Lambeth of Pacific Fiberglass frequently collaborate on refit projects.

A crew at Pacific Fiberglass repairs topside gelcoat on a Nordhavn 43 (13.11m) that was hauled out during the off-season.

To introduce Emerald Harbor refits, Schildwachter took me on a tour of Ballard, Seattle’s gentrifying working waterfront. The first stop was Pacific Fiberglass, in the back of Canal Boatyard, on the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The outfit is owned and run by Doug Lambeth, a 30-year veteran of the composites- and gelcoat-repair business, who employs about a dozen workers and has partnered with EHM for a quarter century. There I met Scott Allen, 62, and his wife, Abby Nicholson, 60, a retired industrial hygienist, and Epoch, their recently acquired used Nordhavn 47 (14.33m). Allen and Nicholson previously owned a Hi-Star 53 Europa trawler they kept in Anacortes to cruise Pacific Northwest waters, so they had some relevant experience. “Epoch is our retirement plan,” Allen said. “That’s why we bought her. We want to see the West Coast from Alaska to Mexico and points beyond.”

He is a typical hands-on owner, with a can-do attitude informed by his profession as a fire-protection engineer and later as the division director, Facility Operations & Engineering at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, run by the Department of Energy, where 315 people worked for him. “I dealt with skilled labor, with engineers, welders, and carpenters,” Allen noted. “I know tools. I know how to work on things. And understanding the installations [on Epoch] gives me confidence.”

He found Epoch in Port Orchard, Washington. She is hull No. 17, powered by a 174-hp Lugger diesel with a 3.96-to-1.00 reduction-gear ratio and a 40-hp Yanmar wing engine. The hour meter stood at 3,131, not all that much, given that the boat was built in 2004, by South Coast Marine in Xiamen, China.

The pre-purchase survey uncovered only wear and tear associated with previous use in temperate waters and the age of the boat: corroded metal parts, deteriorated rubber hoses, a dripping shaftlog on the wing engine, oil in the bilge from a leaky hydraulic pump, aged gelcoat, areas of elevated moisture in the deck laminate, a cracked transom door, worn brushes in the bow thruster’s electric motor, missing and malfunctioning GFCI-protected receptacles, and four of five reverse-cycle air-conditioning units that did not work as designed. “Overall, the boat would be considered to be in average condition for this model year,” the survey concluded, estimating fair market value at $650,000.

The survey’s list of recommendations itemized the must-haves, adding the nice-to-haves, like hydronic heat for voyaging in high latitudes, hot-air vents in the wheelhouse to defog the windshield windows and on the galley floor to keep the cook happy, and upgrading electronics that still worked but had aged out of technical support from vendors and manufacturers.

Schildwachter and his outfit were recommended as specialists for the upgrades Allen had in mind, and he landed the job, which would run well into six figures, Allen said, “because Larry came to Anacortes to look at the boat and talk about philosophy. We had good chemistry”—the operational term here—essential but hard to define.

Asked how he knows when to invite a willing owner to participate, Schild­wachter said he decides case by case. It’s a bit like a job interview that goes both ways, covering a wide range of topics that go beyond refit work to find essential compatibilities. “Many [interested customers] underestimate how much time and commitment it takes to stick with the job all the way to the end,” Schildwachter explained, but not Allen and Nicholson. They were all in.

In December 2017, Epoch moved to Seattle, where Allen and Nicholson took up residence in their RV outside Schildwachter’s office at Elliott Bay Marina. In the course of the refit, Epoch was also hauled out at Pacific Fiberglass, where crews ripped out the old to get ready for the new. While Lambeth’s guys were addressing the moisture problems in the deck laminate, the cracked transom door, the faded gelcoat, and taking off the exterior doors to be stripped, primed, and repainted, EHM focused on stabilizers, keel coolers, and the bow thruster. The new hot-water system (which was installed before the haulout) includes an OL60 Olympia Boiler 60,000-Btu hydronic heater 120/12V, an Everhot W001-106 Marine 6-gal (22.7-l)-per-minute tankless on-demand water heater, and a Torrid MVS 20 IX 20-gal (75.7-l) water heater. The heater system that augments the reverse-cycle AC units consists of a REAL Heat 845X-LP 12V 9,700/14,000-Btu marine hydronic combo heater, and four Real marine hydronic fan heaters with 3“ or 4“ (7.62cm or 10.16cm) outlets and capacities ranging from 5,300 Btu to 19,250 Btu, plus assorted fittings, fasteners, controllers, valves, and thermostats. The decision was made to replace the four malfunctioning AC units with Dometic Turbo DTU self-contained 230V units in the staterooms, the galley, and the pilothouse with 10,000 Btu, 12,000 Btu, and 16,000 Btu, respectively.

For Epoch he designed and constructed a new dashboard that brought a clean, modern feel to the wheelhouse. It accommodates two 14“ (35.56cm) Furuno NavNet TZtouch multi-function displays, which interface with sensors and systems, such as a SiriusXM Satellite weather receiver, a Class B AIS transponder, and a 6-kW UHD digital radar. Other essential instruments that had to be integrated include an SC 70 satellite compass and a NavPilot 711C self-learning adaptive autopilot. That’s a lot of gear for the dash and a challenge Miller relishes. He first made shadow cutouts for positioning the screens and controls so they work for the 5‘10“ (178cm) Allen and the 5‘1“ (155cm) Nicholson, who has to stand on the footrest of the helm chair to reach the instruments on the upper dash.

It’s important to get the looks right, Miller explained, but not at the expense of ergonomics. To illustrate his point, he shared photos of two screen boxes for TZtouch MFDs he built for another Nordhavn’s flybridge. “[These] screens usually get stuffed in a dash. I had a chance to do something a little different: The boxes were built out of 1⁄4“ and 1⁄2“ [6.3mm and 12.7mm] okoume ply, epoxy-glassed, and faired with WEST System 410. Then I shot them with custom-matched white Awlgrip. That job was especially fun and challenging, because of the two different angles and levels of the dashes.”

Epoch’s old wheelhouse is deconstructed (left) to make way for a new dash with upgraded electronics (right). Two 14″ (35.56cm) Furuno NavNet TZtouch multi-function displays dominate the clearer and better-organized helm station, which offers improved ergonomics. The dark ceiling liner cuts reflections and glare during night passages.

But ultimately, what goes where is up to the owner, who along with the crew needs to operate the vessel safely and efficiently. “We kept things simple,” Allen said. “If you can operate a computer, you can navigate [this boat]. I also wanted buttons, not just touch-screens, which are difficult to operate with precision when it is rough. It’s frustrating when it dumps you into a different menu if you mishandle it.” To avoid a crowded dash, a Dell laptop runs Nobeltec’s TIMEZERO Professional navigation software package, and a monitor is installed in the starboard console of Epoch’s cockpit, on top of the large AC/DC switch panel.   

Allen also insisted on a dark ceiling liner to cut light reflection in the wheelhouse during night passages, and he installed two cameras, one aft facing on the mast and one in the engineroom. Drawing from his professional background, which taught him to expect the unexpected, he and Nicholson signed up for a two-day training class given by ABT/TRAC in Rohnert Park, California, where they learned to service, maintain, and repair their yacht’s stabilizer system, an essential element for the vessel’s safety and the crew’s comfort.

“Slow down; think things through strategically; you go into slow motion when conditions get difficult; you follow emergency protocols,” Allen added. “We’ll build checklists. I like that stuff; it gives me something to do and think about.”

I asked him about his equipment choices. The short answer, accompanied by a chuckle, was: “Stuff that Larry’d be putting into his own boat.” The longer version was about personal experience, spending time on the computer, walking the docks to see what others use (especially commercial operators), and attending Pacific Marine Expo, the West Coast’s largest commercial marine trade show. The event is not open to consumers, but Schildwachter sent Allen and Nicholson as his reps, so they could chat up manufacturers, confident that they were going to get solid advice.

Emerald Harbor Marine (EHM) specializes in upgrading Nordhavn cruising yachts for extended voyages while also welcoming owners who want to participate in the work. EHM and its staff of 10 are headquartered in Seattle’s Elliott Bay Marina, with million-dollar views of the glittery high-rises of downtown, the Space Needle, and the 14,400‘-high (4,389m) volcano Mount Rainier to the south.

“Going to sea is primeval; it is an experience unlike most others,” said Larry Schildwachter, 59, the company’s founder. “It is a bit like mountaineering or going on your first expedition, forging unbreakable bonds.”

After studying anthropology at the University of Delaware for two years, Schildwachter heeded the call of the sea and ultimately started his own repair and refit business. Especially now, as boats are getting bigger and more complex, “anyone who takes to sea has to trust their craft with their lives, especially when undertaking ocean crossings,” Schildwachter continued. “Owners must have faith in the work we do.”

Or, they can get down and dirty alongside his crew and learn about their boats by doing some of the work themselves—a daring proposition not many yard owners and managers embrace. To prove it indeed can work, EHM let me observe refits of two Nordhavn yachts, whose owners were chasing wires, swapping filters, and rebuilding watermakers or anchor windlasses. Those owners had much in common: an engineering background, the need to know how stuff works, curiosity about how that same stuff can fail and why, and an aversion to calling 911 when the shit hits the fan out there.

Schildwachter went a step further and asked office manager Kelly Maxson to share copies of all invoices tracking every product and every minute of labor that went into these boats. There’s no formal title or rigorous structure to such “transparent refits” like there is in a Six Sigma, but the method evolved from experience and seems to work well. (Six Sigma [6σ], a trademark of Motorola Inc., describes techniques and tools for process optimization. For example: reduce process cycle time, pollution, and costs, and increase customer satisfaction and profits.)

In a previous life, Schildwachter, who was born in New York and grew up on the East Coast, ran large charter yachts, which is also how he met his wife, Lyn, who grew up around wooden boats and now also is the co-owner of EHM. When they decided to get married, she “did not want a ring, but a boat.” Schild­wachter laughed. “We bought a 38‘ [11.6m] wooden pilot cutter, so with our names we’re [almost] exactly like the Pardeys.” He went from running boats to working on them. He attended the Northwest School of Wooden Boat­building in Port Hadlock, Washington, graduated in 1991, and set up shop in Seattle the same year. “Wooden boat school taught me fundamentals, which proved helpful for pattern making and problem solving. That’s the nature of the game; if you don’t have the right tool, you can make it. Learning by doing—it’s the classic way of the boatyard.”

Brad Miller drills a hole for the exhaust of Epoch’s new hydronic heating system.

Word about Emerald Harbor Marine has spread through the Nordhavn community, which is how Martin Brooks, 58, and his wife, Elzane Verster—he’s British, she’s South African, but they call Australia home—fetched up at Elliott Bay Marina with their Nordhavn 55 (16.77m) Enterprise III. “We pulled up anchor in La Paz, Mexico, on October 21, 2017, and made a beeline to Seattle to get a heating system installed and a few other upgrades,” Brooks said.

The hydronic heating system they ordered from EHM mirrored that on Epoch, with an Olympia boiler, an Everhot tankless water heater, and Real cabin heaters plus defroster combo, except that some components had to have more capacity and power (the 55‘ Enterprise III has a 105,000-Btu boiler versus a 60,000-Btu model on the smaller Epoch). Numerous other jobs and issues included rerouting the sensor for the Cruisair TZ air handler in the forward stateroom, because its temperature readings were off. Strangely, it had lived under the bunk, where the ambient temperature is about 10°F (12.2°C) cooler than in the rest of the cabin. Once the vessel was on the hard, Schildwachter’s crew serviced the keel cooler and the stabilizers. The latter required removing fins, wings, and actuators as well as the top and bottom plates to replace the seals and top off the oil before reassembling, rezincing, and calibrating both units.

The graywater plumbing was updated with a new dip tube and float switch and rewired tank sensors. A loose connection in the inverter’s remote was resoldered, and five new AC outlets were installed in the pilothouse and the lazarette. In the engineroom, new blowers and exhaust ducting were installed, while Miller fabricated a new aluminum dash panel for the network and heater switches in the wheelhouse. The composites crew took care of a crack in the mast with an injection of epoxy that subsequently was clamped. Then the spar was wired and an access panel cut. EHM also fabricated mounts for a couple of 30“ (0.76m) Rigid LED light bars that will help the boat avoid crab pots and deadheads on night passages. 

By his own admission, Brooks did “a little bit of manual labor to help out when needed, but remained conscious that an unskilled worker, no matter how willing, could be more of a hindrance.” To his taste, on older models Nordhavn cable runs are “very tight, very tiddly,” which added considerable time to his refit. Regardless, he rebuilt the watermaker by fixing annoying leaks and getting the high-pressure pump reconditioned. He adjusted the valves and swapped out filters on the main engine and the Northern Light 20-kW genset. He serviced the Maxwell 3500 anchor windlass and repainted the chain markings; and he installed fresh exhaust bracket bolts in the top of the mast. About that last one, Brooks got explicit: “It’s a bitch!”

“As an early-production unit, there were some inherent design issues in Martin’s crane that were worked out in later units,” explained MPH sales manager Lance Washburn. “Hoses to the linear winch, which is contained within the telescopic boom, were arranged in such a way that they tended to bunch up and sustain damage during crane retract. We modified the internal structure and fabricated a custom stainless-steel bracket to allow the hoses to bend naturally into a void to each side of the telescopic boom. We also rerouted all the function hoses to a new clearance hole in the front of the turret structure and added 45° fittings at the rotary swivel.” This modification eliminated a hose kink point when the crane is in its stored position and improved aesthetics by making all the hydraulic plumbing less visible.

MPH also corrected a rigging error where the hoist line crossed over itself, causing another chafe point. Rerigging the hoist cylinder with new synthetic line and modifying the sheave-head cover plate allowed the hoist line to leave the boom tip in the correct location. Lastly, the swing-drive mechanism causing the messy leak was removed, resealed, and tested.

“Cylinder and swing-drive leaks are the most common issues on yacht davits, followed by bushing and sheave repairs,” Washburn said. “Early Aritex davits in particular vary in design and construction from one unit to the next, so each one has to be assessed separately.” 

After Enterprise III was put back together, she was launched at Seaview Boatyard West out in Shilshole. With shiny topsides and a fresh coat of Sea Hawk’s Sharkskin fire-engine-red ablative bottom paint, she looked better than new. Brooks and Verster were quite happy to move back on board. “We’d stayed in three different Airbnbs [during the refit], which was fun in its own way,” Brooks reported, “but the experience confirmed in no uncertain terms that we’re really not ready to move back to land again any time soon.” The crane now worked as advertised, the carpets were back on the boat, and the larder was getting stocked as the day of departure drew close. The first leg of their next adventure is only a short hop north, across the Canadian border, to the Gulf Islands, a place they know well. And to Brooks and Verster, this journey holds the promise of a fresh—actually cozy—outlook on cruising in high latitudes with a potent heating system on board.

It’s very similar, but also quite different for Allen and Nicholson, whom I caught on the phone just as they were driving back from Seattle to their stick-and-brick home in Eastern Washington. At that moment they were busy with wrapping up their affairs on terra firma—getting medical and dental checkups and fetching one last load of boat stuff. Allen sounded elated about their cruising dreams finally turning into reality, if also a bit tired after all the work that had gone into the boat over the past six months.

“Double the time and twice the money than I initially thought,” he quipped in response to my question about the refit in review. “But it all got done.” For the last several days, a crew of Splash N’ Detail, a Seattle-based outfit that specializes in cosmetic boat maintenance, put the finishing touches on Epoch’s gelcoat: wet-sanding, compounding, buffing, and waxing to work up that glossy finish. “She doesn’t look like a 14-year-old boat,” Allen noted.

After having the vessel turned upside down and inside out for the electronics upgrade and the addition of the heater system and all the other jobs big and small, this finally was visible proof that the job was done. During the shakedown, Allen and Nicholson plan to stick around in the South Sound area, in case something needs attention.

And Schildwachter, the guy they’d call if that happens, was happy as well—not just about wrapping up these refits but about the course that lies ahead for his clients: the primeval act of going to sea. “Scott’s one of the best sponges we’ve ever had; he absorbed everything.” He laughed, knowing that not many owners can dedicate that much time and sweat equity to a refit. But the all-important chemistry was good, and that’s why this transparent refit worked. “Helping customers live their dreams and experience magic moments in bucket-list places—it’s a good thing.”