This article was previously written by Rachel Messerschmidt for and published by Vancouver Family Magazine in May 2021.
At the beginning of April, after months tied to the dock during our harsh Pacific Northwest winter, we brought our sailboat, Mosaic, back to life like a bear coming out of hibernation.
The tarps came off. The lines and rigging were cleaned and inspected for any winter-time damage. The deck and cockpit were washed. More than a month’s worth of provisions purchased, catalogued, and painstakingly stashed into the boat’s nooks and crannies. The dinghy, lovingly named “Tile”, was dropped back into the water to once again serve her purpose as our primary means of getting to shore.
On top of our normal springtime routine, we also had to manage a plethora of larger improvement projects. These projects will improve life at anchor for us this summer as we sail and explore here in the Puget Sound, but they’re also essential projects for safety this autumn when we take the boat back out onto the Pacific Ocean and sail down the west coast to California and then onward to Mexico.
First and foremost, we worked with my brother for months on designing and fabricating a new stainless steel support tower for our solar panel array and radar dome. This new tower allowed us to double our solar intake which should make us completely power independent. Power is life aboard a sailboat, so this is a big deal.
Along with the installation of the new tower, though, came a whole heap of work. We had to build supports for the new solar array, install the panels and run the wiring. And it was the same story with the radar dome.
We also hired a rigger in Olympia to inspect our standing rigging- all the various cables that hold the mast up on the boat. Our forestay, the furthest forward cable holding up the mast, had to be measured precisely and replaced due to a previously discovered flaw. We need all of those cables to be rock-solid reliable and able to handle anything that the Pacific throws at us this fall.
Besides these big, critical projects, we also spent weeks before leaving the marina working on dozens of smaller side-projects to prep the boat. And all of it on top of both of us working fulltime jobs and also homeschooling the kids. It was an insanely busy run up to leaving the marina. I don’t know how many nights we were late serving dinner because we’d been delayed by that day’s project problems.
But it’s all worth it when we get to share the adventures that we do with our children. This life is amazing but it takes a lot of hard work and maintenance of the boat to keep it all running smoothly.
Living aboard a boat, sitting directly on the water and feeling the immediate effects of each change in the weather, current, and tide… it’s a connection to the earth unlike anything I’ve ever known before. Being grounded to the earth in this way is wholly awe-inspiring. It’s a love that I know I want to pass on to my children.
Rachel Messerschmidt and her family are Clark County natives currently living and cruising full time aboard their sailboat, Mosaic. In the Pacific Northwest currently, they are preparing to leave for Mexico in August or September of this year. Rachel blogs about her life and journey at www.mosaicvoyage.com and shares her family’s adventures in a monthly column in Vancouver Family Magazine.
