Tidewater Yacht Service Center

This commercial yard in Baltimore is our home for now. We bought Adagio from Bob Brandon, owner of the yard. The TYSC is in the shadow of Domino Sugars across the harbor from the ever popular Inner Harbor. This is a great place to catch the fireworks show on the 4th of July. The Letter of Marque Water Taxi stops here so there is ready access to Fells Point and the Inner Harbor. At TYSC you can get water, ice, pumpout, and fuel. There is a clean head with shower. Within an easy walk is a supermarket. If necessary you could probably take the Water Taxi across to West Marine.

The best things about TYSC are the visiting yachts and the staff, from Bob on down. The carpenters, riggers and mechanics all know what they are doing. If they don't, then they don't last long. The Travel-lift is BIG, one of the biggest on the western shore. Folks come up from Annapolis and from the eastern shore in order to have their boats hauled. Another advantage is that do-it-yourselfers are welcome. To give some idea of what goes on at TYSC I've included some photos.

This catamaran showed up from points south. A couple of young D-I-Y partners are trying to get her into some semblance of working order. They didn't make much progress this summer. For whatever reason this boat really appeals to my son. Perhaps it is the low initial cost, the challenge of rebuilding it, and the room inside. Roominess appeals to teenagers more than seakeeping.

This old Cheoy Lee is 100% teak and is about 35 feet. One of the yard men owns her and has just started to work on the restoration. The hull is sound. By mid-October he had repaired the deck and coach roof so that they no longer leak. She already looks better than in this picture. The lines on her are classicly beautiful. Several other boats owned by yard men are in different stages of restoration.

This wooden boat is another D-I-Yer. She was built not too long ago (viz, in the age of fibre-glass) down in the Carolinas. Her current owners plan to retire and go cruising. She was in the yard while they recaulked some places in the hull and painted the bottom. At some point she will be back in order to have the hull completely recaulked before the owners start ont their retirement voyage.

Javelin is big, easily 60 feet, and built to race. She looks like she's sailing fast just sitting on the hard. I don't know why she was in the yard. Another racer is in the yard. George Stricker has one of his earlier Rapscallions in the yard. At present he is sailing his latest Rapscallion in the Aound Alone Race. His largely, if not completely self-financed, effort makes him a bona fide nautical sportsman. He made money as an entrepreneur, most recently with Sylvan Learning Centers.

This cat belongs to Leon and his wife. They have been cruising up and down the east coast for awhile now. Their home base is in Oklahoma. He too made money as an entrepreneur and is now enjoying the fruits of his labor. If you look closely at the bow there is a torpedo like affair up there. These were added last year at Leon's request by TYSC. Leon reasoned that they would reduce hobby horsing in the short steep waves of the areas in which he sails. In the intervening year Leon decided that they made the bow too bouyant, which he counteracted by carrying lots of chain up there. To solve the bouyancy in the bow he was having the stern extended this year by TYSC. The finished job looked great and by all reports, works great. He now has enough reserve bouyancy to add a genset and maybe even a compressor for his scuba tanks.

This is more than just a character boat. Sixpence (56 feet and 48 tons) belongs to Dimitri, Ros and AnnaRuth Bernhardt. They live on her full time. She was built in the 1920's to the drawings of a naval architect named Hand, a name recognizable to naval historians. Dimitri has owned her for 18 years and has spent that time restoring her from her earlier derelict state. This picture doesn't do her justice. Sixpence is beautiful. In the summer she is for hire with crew to explore the bays of Maine and go kayaking. In early spring she is available on a bed and breakfast basis at the wooden boat show on the eastern shore of Maryland. Write to Dimitri and Ros at P.O. Box 51, Orr's Island, ME 04066. If you charter with them you'll have a great time.
Sixpence was in the yard to solve a leak (50 gallons per hour) in her shaft log. Dimitri chose TYSC becasue it has one of the few lifts anywhere that can handle Sixpence and also allows D-I-Yers. In the end the solution was to enlarge the original bronze shaft tube and put in a lexan tube. The bilge is now quite dry. Figuring out the exact problem took longer than expected. Solving it took a little longer and cost a bit more than expected. As a consequence Dimitri worked for TYSC this summer and fall. In the winter he works in the yards down in New Bern. Judging from the work I've seen in Sixpence and his work in the yard, you can't lose by having him work on your boat.

This is a little photo essay about the ravages of galvanic corrosion. The left picure shows that a great deal of the prop has dissolved. The middle photo shows that the fitting for the martingale at the bow has dissolved below the water line. The thru-hull on the right is just about to fall out. The owners of this boat had it repowered at another location. The mechanic left a live 12v line laying in the bilge. The owners couldn't figure out why they were having trouble keeping the battery bank charged. They were shocked when the boat came out of the water. They brought her to Tidewater to locate the current leak and to have all of the corroded parts below the waterline replaced.