Restoration Continues

MAYAN needed a bit of TLC when we bought her.  While her hull and deck are sound and wonderfully watertight, her exterior varnish needed a bit of work to bring it up to the level we prefer. Now, after a number of weeks of stripping and varnishing, things are looking up.  Only one more pin rail to go and we're done with the restoration phase and will start moving on to some improvements we want to make.

For those who don't work with varnish much, here's what's done to each piece:
1) Strip all old varnish off with a heat gun and edge scraper
2) Hard-block sand with 100 grit to bring the wood flat
3) Hard-block sand with 180 to smooth
4) Hard-block sand with 220 to smooth
5) Hand sand with the various grits on all the bits that couldn't be reached with the block
6) Two coats of sealer, sanding with 220 grit after the second coat
7) Six coats of varnish, sanding between coats with 220 grit

The picture on the left shows the four square hatches that lie above the forward guest cabin, the owner's cabin, the head and the galley.  It's wonderful to have this amount of ventilation when out cruising and it's great fun to watch the water slide over the port hole in the hatch when sailing upwind in a strong breeze.

DavidC developed an interesting way of holding these hatches open.  The hatch has "normal" right handed threads on a bronze swivel, the interior edge of the hatch has a "backwards" left handed thread on the inside lip.  There are matched pairs of these on the aft and forward edges of the hatches and a set of bronze bars that are threaded appropriately of various lengths.  One simply threads a turn or two into the hatch, pushes the rod upward and threads a turn or two more into the lower socket.  The hatch is then held open firmly and is secure from moving up or down.  Each is hinged on both forward and aft edges so they can be positioned to either force air into the boat or exhaust it.


In the previous post about MAYAN's non-Alden interior we talked a bit about what we were going to change.  After a lot of demolition of existing bits, below is the first piece of new wood to start going back in.  This is the seat back for the port side settee in the main saloon, just outboard of the table.  It also serves as the inboard side of the pilot berth.  It is one inch thick Honduras mahogany, from the forest where MAYAN was built.  The wood is terribly hard to get, but fortunately Wayne Ettel has a lovely supply of decades old Mahogany in his shop.  The picture to the right is of the piece after step six above, the second coat of sealer.  Next week it gets four or five coats of varnish before being installed and will receive a couple more coats after it is in place aboard MAYAN.

One plank finished - dozens to go....

MAYAN - What She's Like Under The Water

Amongst cruising boats there is a common desire to sail into the shallows where there is often the most sheltered water and proximity to shore. This, of course, conflicts directly with the desire to have a boat sail well upwind, which most often requires a deep keel. In an attempt to satisfy both needs, many designers have built hulls with centerboards that can be pulled up when a boat is near shoals. MAYAN is one of these designs.

A "centerboard trunk" runs through the center of the cabin aboard MAYAN, between the owner's cabin and the forward double guest cabin to starboard and the galley and head to port. While inconvenient to the designer, having a trunk running down the center of the cabin, MAYAN is long enough and beamy enough that John Alden could fit a proper interior around the trunk which runs from just ahead of the mainmast step to just after of the foremast step. When the board is raised, MAYAN only draws a little under five feet, and when lowered MAYAN draws a bit over ten feet. This allows her to sail upwind without making excessive leeway and yet pick up speed by lifting the centerboard and reducing her drag substantially when sailing off the wind.

In the drawing above one can see how shallow and broad MAYAN's hull is. Shallow to allow access to thin water ports and broad to provide stability for sailing despite the necessary shallow position of her ballast keel. It's easy to see that MAYAN has very little keel with her centerboard pulled up.  In the picture below can see the centerboard extended. Unlike some centerboard designs, MAYAN does not have ballast in her centerboard. Rather, the board is made of Iroko, a type of iron-wood, that is heavy enough to sink in water and strong enough to take the tremendous lateral loads when sailing.

MAYAN, centerboard partially extended

One challenge remains for the yacht designer of a centerboard boat. The rudder can't be deeper than the keel when the board is pulled up. As a result, it becomes difficult to design a rudder that will provide good control while having a shallow draft. MAYAN's rudder is much longer fore-n-aft than a traditional rudder, to give it adequate area to turn the boat. But by making what is basically a "square" rudder, the loads a substantially higher. In the fourth picture one can see the heavy wood and large bronze straps that Alden designed to deal with the larger stresses. Thankfully, a schooner rig is extremely easy to balance on and off the wind. As a result, the shallow rudder hasn't presented a problem.

MAYAN's rudder and prop aperture

Our early sails aboard MAYAN have proven this configuration to work wonderfully well. With the centerboard up, she powers along like a trawler with economical fuel consumption below that of a full keel schooner due to her substantially lower wetted surface. With the centerboard down she sails well.  With the centerboard up, MAYAN does roll a bit in a seaway - just like a trawler. Thankfully, we've only to lower the board or set a staysail to get MAYAN to power along in a much more stable fashion.

MAYAN - The Missing History

MAYAN approaching Pt. Loma

All boats have bits of their history that are lost forever, most of which doesn't matter at all to anyone. But MAYAN has been such a well loved boat that it remains rather odd that no one can determine when her rig changed.

When she was built, she sported what is now referred to as a "transitional schooner rig". This can been seen in the early picture

MAYAN's original rig

where the mainsail is what was then called a jib-headed main, we now call those marconi mainsails. This kind of mainsail was introduced to reduce the size of the crew required to sail a schooner. Marconi mainsails had also proven to be much faster in racing sloops of the '20s and '30s. During the '30s many schooners were built with jib-headed mains, and MAYAN carried on that tradition.

The transitional schooners continued to carry on the gaff-headed foresail of the past.  For those of you who aren't sailors, the "gaff" is the wooden pole that runs diagonally across the top of the foresail (the sail between the two masts that is hoisted form the foremast.) It was easier to get performance from the gaff headed foresail than it was from a gaff-headed main because one could pull the gaff to windward with a gaff-vang that lead to the front side of the mainmast without over-tightening the leach of the sail.  Also, the gaff on the foresail is substantially smaller than the gaff on the mainsail, so a large crew wasn't required to corral the thing when reefing or striking the sail.

Sometime, between about 1950 and 1969 MAYAN was converted to a staysail schooner, her current rig. Staysail schooners replace the gaff-headed foresail with a main staysail, a triangular sail that is set from the front of the main mast to the base of the foremast much like the fore staysail.  You can see the jib like sail between the masts in the picture of MAYAN at the top of this page.

Above the main staysail various sized main topmast staysails are set with all sorts of romantic names. While technically all are main topmast staysails, the romantic names are much more popular than just saying something like: "Hoist the #1 MTS." There is a real ring to shouting: "Hoist the Gollywobbler!" These staysails, from the smallest to the largest, are named the: Little Fisherman, Fisherman, Advance and Gollywobbler. Clearly, much more fun that numbers 4 through 1. This is analogous to calling the larger outer jib that flies from the bowsprit the Genoa as opposed to the #1 Jib.

Starling Burgess schooner ADVANCE

This rig conversion was a very common conversion for two reasons. First, the desire for less crew was served again. Without a gaff on the foresail one person can hoist, reef and strike the main staysail easily.  Second, the staysail schooner rig had started winning races. Starling Burgess and John Alden were competitors as yacht designers and their competition played out in races like the Bermuda Race and the Trans-Atlantic races of the era. Burgess had shaken the sailing world with a small staysail schooner named NIÑA, which finished first in the Trans-Atlantic Race to Spain by sailing closer to the wind than her much larger gaff-headed competitors. He had also dominated local races with an innovative 88' schooner named the ADVANCE. The large upwind main topmast staysail called the "advance" is named in her honor. Below you can see an advance staysail working well with a genoa and mainsail on the beautiful S&S schooner SANTANA. This innovation kept staysail schooners competitive with sloops and cutters for a few more years.

Owners immediately started to demand staysail schooner rigs from Alden, who reportedly resisted them. Alden was one of the few schooner owners who was also a first class racer. He knew that the added sail area of a gaff rig was helpful on a reach and that many ocean races were primarily reaches. But eventually the pressure of competition and owner's demands for less crew forced him to move to the staysail schooner rig and eventually to yawls and ketches. 

Just to make a point, Alden's final personal class win in the Bermuda race was achieved in a transitional schooner, with her gaff headed foresail drawing perfectly as she crossed the finish line. This was over a decade after everyone else had given up on the rig. Olin Stephens mused that Alden would have probably won the entire race, rather than just his class, if he'd been willing to race one of the fast Alden Yawls.

With this background, it's not at all surprising that MAYAN was re-rigged as a staysail schooner. Indeed, it's surprising she wasn't built in 1947 with that rig. But sailors are a conservative lot, their lives depend upon it, and they adopt innovations only when well proven. Now MAYAN finds herself as a grand old girl sporting a rig long since designated obsolete by racing sailors. But Stacey and Beau can easily sail her without help and her small sails make it easy to set, reef and strike each of them. Perhaps more importantly, there are lots of lines and sails for guests and grandchildren to call their own; and she sports one of the most beautiful rigs ever designed for a sailing boat.

For one final bit of fun, in the picture below the Alden 83' staysail schooner SERENA is sporting her rig for the TransPac race to Hawaii. From bow to stern she is flying a fore spinnaker, fore spinnaker staysail, gollywobbler (the gigantic sail with two stripes), and mainsail. There is no rig that can hold up more sail area on a reach, or look better doing it.

MAYAN's History - The Crosby Years

David Crosby Sailing MAYAN

As MAYAN settled into her 45 year relationship with David Crosby, she began one of the more interesting boat histories we've come across. As David put it, "MAYAN became my rock. She was always there and I could always get away from the crazies in my business." Many of us have followed David's career through his early successes with the Byrds and then the amazing success of CSN&Y. But David found a sanctuary aboard MAYAN that let him live a more normal life when he wanted it. Despite being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, aboard MAYAN he was just the skipper.

After sailing MAYAN through the Caribbean for a few years and then sailing from Florida through the canal and up to San Diego, David was checking in to US Customs in San Diego. While tied to the dock, with the Customs inspectors aboard, an 8-meter sailing past lost control and crashed into MAYAN's bowsprit. Lead by David everyone charged up on deck to find a badly damaged 8-meter sloop and MAYAN's bowsprit broken and dangling from the stays.

"Hey, you broke my F***ing bowsprit!" David says he shouted at the 8-meter's crew. "I sailed this boat all the way from Florida without putting a scratch on her, and you guys break off the bowsprit!" he was furious. The 8-meter crew could only respond with: "You're David Crosby. WOW, that's so cool!" They financed the repair of the bowsprit and got to meet David. "MAYAN had always had more weather helm than I liked." David recounts. "This gave me a chance to do something about it. So, we made the bowsprit two feet longer. It's the only thing we ever changed about Alden's design."

David & Jan Crosby at sea aboard MAYAN

Despite incidents like this, most of the time David could retreat to MAYAN and just be a sailor if he wished to be. In the shelter of MAYAN he could work and relax. Over the four and a half decades he owned her, David says he wrote numerous songs aboard including "Wooden Ships" for which MAYAN served as his muse. "I always figured if everything really went to hell, we'd just leave on MAYAN and head for the islands. Back then a lot of us thought everything was going to collapse pretty soon. I'm sure glad it didn't."

During these years MAYAN sailed to Hawaii a number of times to hang on the anchor in Hanalei Bay where his friend Graham still owns a home. She sailed to Tahiti and through many of the S. Pacific islands. David, an expert SCUBA diver, loved taking MAYAN into the shallow reefs which deeper draft boats simply couldn't reach. (MAYAN has a centerboard and when the board is pulled up she only draws five feet.) "I could just jump off my boat and dive on some of the most beautiful reefs in the world. It was very cool." David recounted to us while explaining the air tank rack build into her cabin. 

David & Graham Nash

For a number of years MAYAN was berthed in Sausalito, CA where she received the set of Peter Sutter sails she still flys. (New sails are on order.) David had lived in Marin on and off for much of his life and enjoyed the sailing community of the north Bay. Eventually, she was moved to Santa Barbara where David had grown up and still lives. "I learned to sail right here." he said as we stood on MAYAN's deck. "I got a little dinghy when I was a kid and I'd sail for hours. I'd go up and down the coast and out to sea until it got too windy. I'm amazed my folks let me get away with it."

Santa Barbara remains a "home town" for David and the folks around the Harbor greet him as one of their own. The best dive Mexican restaurants know him well and it's a town that leaves him alone to just be a sailor, one of the guys.

We had the good fortune to be able to land tickets to David's kick off concert in Santa Barbara last spring. He had just released his first solo album in over 20

David and Beau in front of MAYAN

years, and had the courage to play that entire album front-to-back as the first set of his concert before retuning to play his classics in the second set. The new album, just titled "CROZ", is terrific and stood up to the difficult test of being the first set amazingly well. But, when David kicked into Eight Mile High, Wooden Ships and Guinnevere the place rocked to tunes they knew.

It was difficult for David to part with his muse. There were months of emails and phone calls, conversations about what we intended to do with MAYAN, tests to see if we were the right folks to care for her. Eventually, David was gracious enough to select us. He knows he's always welcome aboard and he knows MAYAN will always be known as "David's Boat".  Sailing into Newport Beach a few weeks after buying MAYAN the Harbor Master commented: "It's great to see her back in our harbor, it has been too long. Will David be showing up?"

David and Jan in the cockpit heading south

MAYAN's History - Her Early Years... continued...

We've received the "General Index or Abstract of Title" from the US Coast Guard and it is interesting reading. Well, for some it's probably a bit boring, but as I read through these scant records of MAYAN's travels I can only imagine the gray waters of the Northeast, the choppy warm currents of the Gulf Stream and the turquoise and blue water of the Caribbean flowing beneath her keel.

Mayan arrive in New York City on July 19, 1948 at 10:55 A.M. as noted on page 336 of the customs book for that city maintained by the Deputy Collector of Customs, NYC. She was almost immediately sold to one Harvey S. Bisbell of St. Thomas, V.I., USA for the price of one dollar. That fall MAYAN headed south to the Caribbean to take up residence in those beautiful warm waters. On November 2, 1953 she was sold again to the Sepico Company of Miami, FL, USA for one dollar. (they re-named her SEPICO II)  Then on May 17, 1962 she was sold to Alice B. Rivaly of Miami, FL, USA for ten dollars; things were looking up and she retrieved her original name. (You don't suppose there was any tax evasion involved in these prices, do you?)  MAYAN was sold to James E. Ottaviano on February 15, 1966, this time for $16,500, which might actually have been her price in those days. Then again to Lee Goodwin, with a price of $10. Then, finally, to David Van Cortland Crosby on May 19, 1969 for $10. June 29, 1988 MAYAN's home port was changed from Miami to Los Angeles.

While David owned MAYAN in Florida he had her "rebuilt".  This picture of her being re-planked in the water is not the way David or I would have done it.

MAYAN being rebuilt in FL in 1988

 But, during that period David was performing with Crosby, Stills & Nash and didn't have the time to oversee MAYAN's care as he would have wished to. Much of what was done would be reversed in 2005, but that's another story. 

 
It's important to keep in mind that when these boats were built it was expected that they'd have a fifteen to twenty year lifetime.  Thus, the use of iron fastenings and more easily worked woods was not only common it was entirely reasonable.  MAYAN, like almost all boats of her era, was iron fastened and her deck was planked in Oregon Pine, what we now call Douglas Fir.  Eventually, the iron rusts and must be removed.  A difficult and costly process.

David Crosby, Owner: 1969-2014

That maybe far too much detail for most readers, but to us it's fascinating. One more entry appears in the USCG records that is of note. On November 23, 1994, as David struggled with addiction and numerous problems he transferred MAYAN to William Bevly B. Morgan. Mr. Morgan was to transfer MAYAN back to David on May 16, 1997 after David was clean and sober. For a fascinating story of these times in his life, we'd recommend David's autobiography: "Long Time Gone" Unlike many stars who haul out gallons of white-wash with which to tune up their histories, David talks directly, personally and explicitly about his problems with drugs, his difficulties with the law over guns, and what it's like to go "cold turkey" in solitary in a Texas prison. For anyone who is a fan of what David has done, as we certainly are, this is a must read. As the owners of MAYAN, there's a copy aboard.
In the pictures to the left, is a happy David who is clean and sober and sailing his boat. Cruising her through the Caribbean, across through the Panama Canal, up to California, with the occasionally trip to Hawaii and Tahiti.

MAYAN at anchor in Hanalei Bay, HI

MAYAN's History - Her Early Years

 MAYAN sailing in Belize, 1947

The John G. Alden yacht design firm of Boston Mass. drew the lines for design number 356-B just after the close of World War II in 1946, delivering them to Paul Allen and his father (of New York City) in early 1947. This was the second design number 356, the first having been built in 1928. Paul Allen, a US Navy veteran, had saved his war time pay and by pooling it with funds from his father headed to Belize Honduras to build MAYAN utilizing the amazing woods of that tropical country. In Belize, Mr. Allen found the Tewes Boatyard and they started construction.

MAYAN under construction 

Tewes was a well known yard in Belize, run by the Scottish Tewes family building finishing boats, power yachts and the occasional sailing boat. Years later Robert Tewes would recount to us how proud his father was to have built a design by the great John G. Alden. While the Alden Register shows Paul Allen as the "builder", it's clear that Mr. Allen utilized the extensive skills of the Tewes Boatyard.

MAYAN under construction

MAYAN was given her name by the Allen family in honor of those who built her and the country in which she was built, a name she carries to this day (following a brief period of being called "SEPIEO II"). Upon launching MAYAN was immediately sailed across the Gulf of Mexico and up the E. Coast of the US to Philadelphia. Howard MacIver, the grand nephew of Paul Allen, joined MAYAN's crew in Philadelphia and sailed aboard her to New York City.

Howard Maclver at age 13, 1948

Howard was good enough to talk with us about his passage as a thirteen year old young man, it was the trip of a lifetime. In New York MAYAN was put up for sale, returning a hansom profit to the Allen family when she quickly sold. Just after the second world war there were few yachts available, and even fewer with a design by Alden and the amazing woods of Central America.

Alden had designed a classic centerboard schooner for the Allens, with a galley forward along with crew quarters for a skipper and two deckhands. She carried a very large ice box to supply up to eight guests who were berth aft in two private staterooms and the main saloon. MAYAN's rig was the same transitional schooner rig Alden had designed for the first no. 365 in 1928 with a jib-headed mainsail, gaff headed foresail, fore staysail and jib. (See first picture in this post) Her shallow draft of five feet with the centerboard raised and her relatively short rig of 63 feet at the mainmast truck, made her perfect for the Inter Costal Waterway and the shallow islands of the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos and the Florida Keys.

MAYAN arriving in NY City, 1949

When Alden re-drew the 356 design, to provide the Allens with the 356-B, he added a deck house in the vein of Patton's WHEN & IF. Fortunately, the Allens decided to build MAYAN with the original low trunk cabin and eschew the deck house which we find to be an awkward design feature despite it's obvious comfort in poor weather.

At this point, the history of MAYAN becomes quite obscure. We are continuing to follow up with Lloyds, the USCG Documentation Office and the records of the Alden company to try and determine who owned her and where

MAYAN alongside in NY City, 1949

she sailed. We'll post more as we learn it.  If anyone reading this site has any additional information to add to the narrative, please feel free to contact us.  The next fact we have is that in 1968, following his departure from the legendary rock band The Byrds, David Crosby spotted MAYAN laying alongside in Florida and fell in love. David was to own her and love her until her sale to us in early 2014.

The Alden Schooner MAYAN

MAYAN

This is the story of the schooner MAYAN.  She was built in 1947 in Belize, then part of British Honduras, to design number 356 which John G. Alden of Boston originally drew in 1928.  The second and only 356 to survive, she was designed as a centerboard transitional schooner to be cruised in the shallow waters of the Bahamas, Turks & Cacaos and to travel the Inter Coastal Waterway from New England to the cruising grounds to the south each year.

This site will provide her history and document her future.  Her mission is to continue her long and successful history as a cruising yacht carrying her family to ports far and near.  Thanks to the love and care that have been lavished on her over the decades, this lovely sixty-seven year old girl is better  and strong that she was when she was launched and is readily to put to sea.