Off Center Harbor's Remarks

Spidsgatters are among our favorite small cruising boats and PIA looks like a beauty.

Description from Boat's Main Listing

The well known and loved 38 square meter (26’ x 8’4”) Klasse Spidsgatter PIA is looking for a new steward. I have owned and maintained PIA, a Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival regular for 26 years. At 72 and slowing down considerably I hope to find someone to carry on. Finding the right person, an aesthetic individual with skills and a passion for wooden boats who will continue to maintain and love PIA is very important to me.

PIA was built in Denmark in 1938 and commissioned within weeks of the end of WWII. A Danish immigrant, Jorgen Baard Baess, imported six 38 square meter Klasse Spidsgatters into Victoria, BC in or around 1960. PIA’s date of registry is listed as 49/60 which is reversed from our method so, 9/4/1960. Of those, EIO, DaCAPO, CITO and PIA now call Washington home. SKOAL is being restored in the Bent Jespersen boatyard in Sydney and AIDA sadly was cut up for unpaid moorage several years ago. Mr. Baess selected PIA as his personal yacht and renamed her LOTTE. I returned her name to her original PIA. PIA is an endearment meaning “Little One.” She was raced in the annual Swiftsure race in the sixties and perhaps a little later. I found PIA in near-derelict condition in 1991 in Cortez Bay, BC, and spent the following two years restoring her. The canvas was peeling badly on both decks and cabin top. The topping lift had broken and the boom crushed the companionway hatch and combined with the ruined canvas decks rainwater had free access to the interior. Someone in her past had replaced the original mahogany interior with an inferior unfinished plywood job. The hull was in good shape. The pinus sylvestris (Scotch Pine) used in her planking, decking and mast is a unique, rot resident and durable wood and is no doubt instrumental in the long lives of all of the Klasse Spidsgatters. I tore out the interior, pulled the engine (rusted to the point of the original color being unrecognizable), removed the quarter panels and companionway and cockpit, also cheaply done in plywood, stripped the entire interior and exterior down to bare wood and began the new work. This included a new hatch and coaming forward, new narrower companionway, sliding hatch and drop boards, quarter panels, skylight, parts of the cabin top including new canvas and eyebrows and other trim. Epoxy and Xynole polyester cloth (similar to Dynel) was used to replace the canvas on her decks. This has held up perfectly. I removed the old rails and installed new ones, new self-bailing cockpit, new engine mounts (the old ones actually moved underfoot), new cabin sole, new interior complete with galley including a two-burner propane stove and small Cole wood stove and draining sink. I replaced all thru-hulls below the waterline with genuine bronze seacocks. The mast and boom needed complete stripping and refinishing. I replaced superficial parts, hoses etc. and sanded, scraped and repainted the engine. I installed a new primary Racor fuel filter. I had the shaft and propellor trued and a new coupling fitted. I also added heavy bronze ring-shank nails in the planking in way of the sawn frames and all along the garboard and up the stems. I installed a new hand-operated aluminum Whale Guzzler bilge pump. I installed a 35-gallon bladder water tank and re-used the existing 16-gallon stainless steel fuel tank. The sink is fitted with a simple foot pump. I also built a new rudder, gudgeons and pintles and tiller at this time.

I replaced the original sails in 2001. They included a mainsail and genoa jib which I have used and remain in good shape. Two years ago I replaced the jib with a self furling Pro Furl and secondhand jib, slightly smaller than the original. I kept the jib and forestay in case anyone wanted to return to a traditional hanked-on jib.

On September 3rd, 2010 my son and I were caught in a sudden and terrific gale between Smith and Lopez Island and ended up abandoning PIA and being pulled out of a raging sea at night by a crack Coast Guard helicopter crew. PIA was wrecked on the spit between Smith and Minor Islands, being driven over the top of the dry spit and holed and sunk on the SE side. The seas that night were enormous. Thanks to Captain Slade and his team PIA was recovered and brought into Port Townsend. Between 2010 and 2012, while working full time elsewhere, I averaged 30 hours a week on PIA for the next 19 months. I repaired the hole in the planking including several broken frames, a hanging knee and interior bulkheads, and replaced the top 25 feet of the mast; built a new boom; refastened the hull, pulling as many of the galvanized iron boat nails as I could and replacing them with #14 bronze screws; replaced the keel bolts and rebuilt the Yanmar engine top to bottom including numerous coats of Yanmar engine enamel. The handrails and part of the cabin top and rudder were damaged, the starboard cockpit combing, a continuation of the cabin sides was blown entirely away and the tiller had disappeared, so I repaired and replaced those as well as making a new tiller. PIA is built with single-sawn, grown frames on each station, grown floor timbers (natural crotches), with two steam-bent frames copper riveted between each of the grown sawn frames. The original copper rivets and steam-bent oak frames are in good shape. I replaced the aluminum bilge pump with a plastic one which I think is better.

In 2016 I pulled the mast, added 15 coats of varnish and new standing rigging, along with turnbuckles, and installed a new Pro Furl self furling jib system. This year, in May of 2019, besides the work of the annual haul out (painting rails, topsides, bottom and decks), I replaced the shaft log pipe with a new nickel bronze pipe, replaced the stuffing box packing and replaced the babbitt stern bearing with a modern cutlass bearing as well as polishing the shaft, truing the propellor and having a new coupling fitted. The shaft work was done by the excellent Tacoma Propeller Company. Inger Rankin made a new awning. PIA has a two-year-old boom cover which extends to the rails and over the forward hatch. She is in sailaway condition and boatshow ready.

In addition I have all of PIA’s original documentation with translations as well as several original photographs signed by the designer, Aage Utzon.

Except for the summer of 2011, in addition to weekend cruises locally I have made annual cruises north to the San Juan and Gulf Islands every year since 1994 and all of those were wonderful experiences packed with lifetime memories. Having been originally designed for class racing and weekend family cruising PIA is comfortable and fast, a real thoroughbred. I designed her interior for cruising and she sleeps two people quite comfortably in the forward berth. Her main salon includes comfortable settees one of which converts to a 6’ x 34” berth, a dining table, a chart and navigation table and a simple and functional galley. During my working years my vacation cruises averaged 3 weeks. Since retiring we have been on five cruises over a month-long and two of them 41 days.

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Particulars

Length:
26 ft
Type:
Sail
Hull Material:
Wood
Designer:
Aage Utzon
Builder:
E. Knudsen
Year Built:
1938
Power:
Yanmar 2QM15 Diesel
Asking Price:
$29,500
Name:
PIA
Location:
Olympia, WA, US
Contact Name:
Aho'i Mench
Contact Phone:
(360) 556-0650
Contact Email:
[email protected]