dandylion

After years ashore, the Captain is back afloat! It came about somewhat oddly. I wanted to get another San Francisco Pelican and do some extensive sailing, single handed, in the San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands. Mrs. Captain was not terribly pleased. Having just survived the adventure of Kermit the Motorscooter, she was reluctant to see me now take off alone on pretty open waters in a 12' open boat. I wasn't concerned, myself as I have a lot of faith in the Pelican design. Anyway, at this same time, our friend and foster son Brent expressed an interest in a larger boat than his 23' sloop. Ann's idea: we buy a bigger boat for all of us.

After much shoping, we came up with a good deal on an excellent little custom built Miller 28. The Earl Miller Boatyard is on Bainbridge Island. Some years ago, he built a small number of 28' sloops. This one, Hull #12, launched in 1974, was sold as a bare hull and deck casting to a high school shop teacher. He specified extra thick fiberglassing and finished out the interior himself in solid teak and handled all of the rigging and deck equiping. While he didn't get overly fancy, keeping things basically simple, everything is first rate and the boat has recently been gone through by the last owner..

Other than getting the boat out from Lake Union through the Government Locks to salt water, we have had no adventures on her yet. I'm still outfitting and adapting to get everything the way I want it. Here are some pictures. We had just unloaded a batch of equipment and not stowed it all yet, and I am still splicing up all new lines, so there is considerable mess about, but you can get the idea. There are no pictures of her under sail yet. That is one of the hardest shots to get, since you are always on the boat. You have to go sailing with another boat and do picture taking for each other.

Starboard side	Port side - Note identification logo midships
Close up of id logo	Stern, with stern id logo
A closer view of the stern, giving a bit better view of the cockpit and instruments	Cockpit viewed from the cabin top
The main cabine, looking from the gangway. It's very hard to get interior views of a boat, you can't get far enough back. Basic layout is full berth to port, with removable table, 3/4 berth with footwell to starboard. Note the kerosene furnace on the starboard bulkhead. You are actually looking over the galley, which I couldn't get into this view. Looking forward, you are looking through the head and foulweather gear locker and into the forepeak, which is double vee berth, but is presently full of sails.	This is a closer view forward.
I thought this half-hull model, showing the boats hull shape made a real nice picture all by itself.	Here is a view aft in the main cabin. Alcohol stove and galley to the left, a very large quarter berth to the right... presently full of unstowed equipment. Two cylinder Yanmar diesel engine is behind the companion way steps.

Except they weren't. It turned out that Mrs. Captain was no longer interested in sailing and that I was not physically able, having lost a lot of my sense of balance due to some neurological problems a few years ago. Since the only real sailing i could do was single-handing, and I wasn't really safe on deck, we turned "Dandy Lion" over to Brent, as we had "Sunday Morning" years ago. Brent kept Sunday Morning under a shared use arrangement with someone else who paid moorage and helped with maintenance. in the summer of 2007, that person crashed on rocks and Sunday Morning (then named Tupapau) was no more.