You only have to spend a short time talking with Randy Mims to know that he has the soul of a true sailor. Randy not only built his 27ft gaff-rigged cutter, Ideath, but each year he single-hands the cutter from North Carolina to the Northern Gulf Coast and back again. “Ideath” is pronounced Idea-th and loosely translates as “house of ideas”. Randy stops along the way to visit maritime museums and, indulging his passion for music, he volunteers to sing in church choirs along the way. He also takes time to share his travels with his friends and has agreed to allow SSECN to post his emails. For more photos and more on Randy, go to http://towndock.net/shippingnews/ideath?pg=1 from TownDock.net in Oriental. Also see /?p=150703.

Randy Mims

Dear Friends,
It seems like a very long time since my last update. Believe it or not I consider that I am still on my voyage. It has been since the boat was hauled in October of last year that the boat has moved. I will not spend your time listing all the individual repairs that I have been involved in since I got here. After a through survey of areas of that needed attention, three main areas needed to be addressed. The cockpit combings and cabin sides had pretty extensive rot areas. This was caused by water intruding under the cap railing which also had rot. The second area of concern was the bowsprite, Sampson post and the bow in general. Now that the engine has over two thousand hours of use it is time to replace a lot of things that have a life span.
As I was tearing out the rotten wood around the cockpit combing, It occured to me that I put this wood here back in 1986. I was not quite so bummed when I realized that the wood I was replacing has served well for thirty years! I am happy to say that new wood is now in place, has been fiberglassed and even has it’s first coat of paint. The boat is now sporting new steam bent oak cockpit combing railings. They turned out beautifully and now have four of the eight or nine coats of varnish.
With the repairs in the stern down to finishes, I turned my attention to the bow. I can not begin to express how happy I was when I finally got the rotten bowsprit to let go of the boat and found that the bow was in virtually new condition. I was sure that I would find a dismal situation that would involve rebuilding the entire bow. Insted all I have to do is repair some fiberglass and make a new bowsprite and sampson post.
One good thing about having so many things to do is that no matter what the weather is, there is some project that I can advance. When ever it is to cold or rainy to work on the boat, I have been replacing the engine mounts, the raw water pump, engine cooling water hoses and dozens of other regular maintenance items to get the propulsion system in a like new condition.
I am really enjoying getting “Ideath” back into shipshape condition. If the weather cooperates, I hope to be back to real voyaging sometime in early March. I promise more sea stories then. At the first opportunity I will be uploading a new video I made of the repairs to Youtube and Facebook. Be on the lookout. Enjoy.
Peace and Love to you all,
Randy

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