August 2010

Written by Jim Moores | 24 August 2010

Dear friends,

It seems that flying and writing go well together for me.  I am flying back from North Carolina.  Just came up to spend the weekend with my family.  Nathan Smith turned 45 and his daughter Nicolletta turned 3!  The cake was “Dora” her favorite cartoon character, baked by her mom.  There were lots of presents, but for Nathan his gift is that they are buying a house.

It is cute, on an acre of land and has a small pond in the back yard.  It is located just outside of Beaufort in a small if not tiny township of Bettie.  There are small gentlemen farms and a salt water bay just around the corner laden with oysters.

It has been my pleasure to watch Nathan grow through the years, from freewheeling bachelor to the family man.  His life is good and he has become a great father.

This month, I have lots of little stories so I am not going to try to make them flow together.

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July 2010

Written by Jim Moores | 07 July 2010

Dear Friends,

The Honey Fitz is moving along well. We’ve been dealing with the drop in the stern and twists in the hull. We always try to look at the causes of problems and fix them as a part of the project. In this case, the stern is 3 inches down and 4 degrees starboard in a downward twist. The Honey Fitz’s staff welder Eddie Cochran and our Chet Gallinari, with the help of project marine engineer Alan Glowacki and I formulated a plan.

Alan’s part was to come up with the design for the steel plates at the sheer clamp running from the last bulkhead to the transom. We cut all the clamps loose and removed the keel bolts.

Chet and Eddie jacked and blocked and untwisted the transom. Now, Chet and our crew have all the ribs laminated, Eddie has been clipping along with his steel work and floor timbers and we have started planking the starboard side again. We stopped when the work was extended from mid ship to the stern. There has been a lot done in the last 3 days. Stephanie just added a movie to YouTube.com/MooresMarine. It can also be viewed through our web site. She’s getting better at making these movies all the time.

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June 2010

Written by Jim Moores | 04 June 2010

Dear friends,

I just picked up a copy of ShowBoats International and the cover has one of the finest photos of Freedom, a 103 foot Trumpy, I’ve ever seen. Inside, there was a wonderful article on Earl and his endeavors and a Q&A with Frank Lynch, the charming, witty owner of the Trumpy Innisfail that my brother-in-law Nathan Smith restored in North Carolina.

Somewhere in the middle was a story on us. When the writer, Grace Trofu, interviewed us, it was supposed to be a short piece to be featured later in the year. Instead, this issue became Trumpy intense and her editors gave her more space.

I was especially touched by the editor’s note from Rebecca Cahilly on our efforts to restore national treasures. It was a nice surprise. The magazine is available at Barnes & Noble and it’s a beautiful glossy, sort of like Town & Country of boating magazines.

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May 2010

Written by Jim Moores | 13 May 2010

Dear Friends,


It’s official. We have had our inaugural cruise on Aurora II. Two weeks of preparation cleaning and sorting to get her ship shape. Our guests were long-time friends, friends who receive the log so if I name one, I would have to name them all.

We had a professional captain run her. I don’t feel comfortable weaving through the multimillion dollar yachts where we are docked and where we work. That could ruin a good party. The aft deck was the main stage, and Stephanie was on her feet all day making sure everyone had enough food and wine as we clipped through the waters of Lake Worth.

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April 2010

Written by Jim Moores | 25 April 2010

Dear friends,

As always, it has been an interesting month. Nate has been beyond busy. The Washingtonian project, a U.S. Coast Guard inspected boat, is in full swing. The North Carolina office of the U.S. Coast Guard has been so impressed with the quality and speed of the work that Nathan and his crew have done on the project that they bring in trainees to show them this is the way it’s supposed to be done.

Nate has grown a great team with his hands-on leadership. He has always been a worker and that’s the way he leads. By showing and doing. His innate seriousness when it comes to the job, a little gray hair and a wonderful young family has rounded Nate out to do the best work of his career.

MMYC is about to make history. In my previous letters, I wrote about the dangers of stabilizers as illustrated by the Trumpy Sea Hammock’s catastrophe. The Trumpy M/Y America will be the first classic wooden boat to have a gyro stabilizer installed.

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March 2010

Written by Jim Moores | 14 March 2010

Dear Friends,

A lot has happened in the last 28 days and now we are in the Ides of March, which I always thought were “eyes of March” until recently.

The Honey Fitz is in full swing. We have made a few movies and added them to our web site but we’ve been way too involved to make a movie a week. Let’s face it, once you see a rib laminated and installed, seeing the next one isn’t that exciting.

A lot of friends have dropped in lately including John and Karine Bermingham, who used to owned the Trumpy Eleanor, and Vicki Goldstein. When Vicki came for a visit, sparks were dropping out of the opening in the hull where Eddie  and his crew were welding on stringers and bulkheads. Our crew has been laminating ribs and cutting out chunks of the hull.

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