Sailing/Cruising Blog of Jen & Harry aboard the Solla Sollew
About the Boat
Solla Sollew at anchor in San Simeon, CA
Solla Sollew is a 1985 Amazon 37, a Canadian steel sailboat from SP Metalcraft. Only 17 were built, but they were heralded for seaworthiness, design, and comfort. Don’t be fooled by the old age…she might be 33(!) years old, but she is often mistaken for being brand new with all the work we’ve done on her. And, with very few exceptions, we’ve done all the work ourselves.
What follows is a lengthy telling of the overhaul, which only the most dedicated fans will get through (hi, mom). For the rest of you, a summary, and if you get tired, just take a look at all the pictures.
New Stuff: hard aluminum dodger, stainless cockpit railing, stainless cockpit floor, aft cockpit enclosure removed, radar arch, windlass, anchor chain routing aft, Hydrovane, 3 solar panels with custom mounts, wind generator & custom mount, radar, depth/wind/speed transducers, 2 hatches, 1 portlight, binnacle, steering quadrant and cables, DC electrical panel, every light everywhere, some flooring panels, some ceiling panels, a lot of interior wood trim, pretty much all wiring, standing rigging, galley sink, all thruhulls, custom outboard mount, BBQ & custom mount, anchor, most plumbing, added a few lockers, propane system, memory foam mattress, additional AC/DC fridge/freezer, wifi booster, stereo, VHF, tachometer, mast steps, roller furling, mainsail & stackpack
Rebuilt: Exterior paint job, most of the interior re-foam insulated & repainted, mast and everything on it, complete remodel of the bathroom, rebuilt head, renewed heat exchanger
Canvas Work: bimini + transition to hard dodger, cockpit flooring, cockpit cushions, weather cloths interior flooring, head door vent covers, forepeak shelving covers, trash bag, laundry bag, altered comforter and comforter cover, altered v-birth cushions to accommodate anchor chain passage, new cushion and its cover for spare bunk, pillows, bolster (blanket storage), bottom half upholstery covers, numerous bags for all sorts of things, covers for: winches, compass, bbq, Hydrovane, outboard, staysail, shorepower cord, fenders, hatches.
Purchase
Harry bought her in the fall of 2009 and kept her up in Vancouver right in front of the Empress Hotel for a while. In the summer of 2011, he suckered some of his friends and then-girlfriend into helping bring her down the coast to Northern California. (I say “suckered” because apparently no one knew how to sail very well. They didn’t know how to reef or even what reefing is, and that is not a stretch of coast for amateurs!) All survived and Solla made it to her new home in Bodega Bay Harbor.
Disaster
Disaster struck in Oct. 2013. The boat next to Solla had an electrical fire and blew up. Being steel, she actually saved many of the boats behind her by acting as a heat shield, but just about everything on deck melted, including the paint job. Harry was up in Oregon when the call came. He doesn’t remember much of it…something like “you better get down here, quick.” (Quick aside: Harry thinks that if the fire hadn’t happened, we would never have met. I’ll say more in the “How We Met” section ?)
Rebuilding Begins
Some (nowhere near enough) insurance money came out of the ordeal, and Harry had her towed to KKMI in Richmond, CA. There he set to work on fire-cleanup and a to-do list of upgrades, some he had already planned (hard dodger, radar arch), some his project manager rattled off (solid railing for the cockpit, cutting out the backend). This is right around the time I came into the picture, late summer 2014. Mysteriously ?, boat work slowed way down for a few months, but after we got married in December of that year we “honey-mooned” at the yard. Harry was at it 7 days a week, and I joined him just about every weekend. I don’t remember much of what all we did, I can only tell you that it took a very long time. We weren’t ready to paint until October 2015, and even that felt rushed.
Painting
THE Paint Job still overshadows most of my memory of boat projects. It was to be done in 2 parts: hull then topsides and was coordinated with a commercial sandblaster. In comparison to the topsides, the hull was actually pretty easy except for the first 24 hours – we had to get 2 coats on back-to-back starting at 6pm when the sandblaster finished. It was “easy” because we were on the ground (as opposed to on scaffolding), had big open sections and no detail work, but it grew tiresome rolling on coat after coat working our way up to 10 primer coats (followed by another 2 coats of actual bottom paint).
The topsides was a different story all together. We still had to get 2 coats on in the first 24 hours, but this time we were crawling around on hands and knees, teetering precariously on scaffolding, desperately trying to keep moisture off the bare metal, and laboriously working around all the nooks and crannies of embedded deck hardware, portlights, hatches, etc. Our brushing progress was so slow that the paint would start to harden before we could use it all, and we had to throw out a few mixes. By 6am we reached the cockpit, only to find that the entire thing had flash-rusted. We had asked the sandblaster NOT to do the cockpit for this very reason, but he did it anyway. We left it, knowing he’d have to come back, and immediately went back to the bow to start coat #2. I’m pretty sure I started crying at that point. The second coat went on, sandblaster came back and did the cockpit, and then 2 coats went on it. But we had to build up to ten or twelve coats, and if each coat took 12 hours for 2 people there was no way we were going to finish (I had a full-time job too!).
Enter, the commercial airless paint sprayer, aka “the marriage saver”. It was expensive even though we bought a used unit, but it was worth every penny. Now, a coat took us a mere TWO HOURS, and involved no tears.
Eventually, we got to 10 primer coats on the topsides (re-taping every @$%ing scrap of stainless every coat or two – that took me several hours each time). The yard did the final shiny coats, including the nonskid, with Harry assisting. (If you ever find yourself getting your boat painted at KKMI in Richmond, ask for Oscar. The man is incredible.)
There was a speckle of joy during this time. I found a graphic artist to do our lettering and Dr. Seuss characters on the sides and stern. We had chosen a metallic dark purple as our accent and letter coloring (it was surprisingly easy to talk Harry into this one). Seeing the sparkly purple name and the little accent arrows I designed emerge was awesome, and when the Seuss critters went on I was giddy and skipping around the yard. Plus, we were nearing the finish line (of the paint job).
Sunshine
In April of 2016, Solla went outside, leaving the shed that had been her home for nearly 2 ½ years. She splashed on May 6, but our work was far from over. Most of the interior had to be re-foamed (many steel boats are foam-insulated to prevent condensation which leads to rust), and re-painted with umpteen coats of the dreaded epoxy, remodeling the bathroom, new wiring, etc. etc. Basically all of the “inside” stuff I mentioned up in the summary above.
We had been living on my boat since the beginning, and somewhere around that summer I started getting her ready to sell so that had a list of projects (new nonskid, new electrical panel, rebuilt heat exchanger, tons of cleaning & organizing) followed by the process of selling her myself. She sold at the end of October (yay!) but Solla was no where near ready to live on (boo!). Thankfully our friend Mike had just bought a new boat and let us live there for a few months…which turned into 7. Here again I have blocked most of the horrid project details from my memory, but we got her done. After we moved onto her we embarked on smaller and more fun projects…installing & configuring stuff we’d bought years before, finishing touches, creature comforts, etc. And after several years of barely working, Harry finally got back to making a bit of money.
Mast & Boom
We still didn’t have a mast. Well, we had one, but it was stored in the racks at KKMI (and the boom was at his mom’s). Summer of 2017 Harry started the overhaul which was to involve sanding down, repainting, all new standing & running rigging, new mast steps, and installing the new electronics (radar, wind, lights). In comparison to what we’d just been through, the mast was a breeze and WAY less expensive (thank god). It all went into place on a gloriously sunny day on October 3, 2017.
Sails & Sailing
The main burned in the fire so we had a new one made (Hood Sails). It wasn’t installed until sometime in December. The genoa miraculously survived the fire (though we had a sailmaker carefully look it over). Given the Holidays, we didn’t have time to do a shakedown cruise. In fact the first use of our new main was as the projector screen for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” at the marina holiday party! On New Years Eve, Solla finally stretched her legs. It may have been a gloomy day but Harry and I were THRILLED at how everything performed that weekend. After the YEARS of work, sweat, blood (literally), and tears (literally), Solla Sollew sailed.
