sonadora

Soñadora is our 1978 Baba 30 sailboat designed by Robert Perry and built by TaShing in Taiwan. It is a stout vessel renowned for its seakindliness and rugged construction as well as it's beautiful lines and comfortable interior. There is a generous amout of teak used on the exterior and interior which some find as a menace and others find as a joy. The former would never own such a vessel.

The interior on Soñadora consists of staved teak throughout as well as teak furnishings.

Home away from home

The opening ports are solid bronze and there is a terrific skylight right above the settee table. She also has a Force 10 diesel heater installed. I've tried a couple of times to get this working, but it usually ended up filling the cabin full of black smoke.

The previous owner had also installed oil lamps which create a cozy warm glow at night. For regular lighting, halogen light fixtures were installed just above the settees. These are prefect indirect light sources and I highly recommend them for any Baba owner.

We bought her in February of 2001. Her previous owners were a young couple who had lived aboard just outside of Portland, OR in a marina on the Columbia River. They had their first child and moved on land. They were anxious to sell so we got a pretty good deal. The surveyor told us we should just turn around and sell and pocket another $10k. I doubt that would have been the case. Besides, it wasn't as though we were buying just a boat. This boat was the stuff of dreams.

When we bough her, she wasn't in bad shape although the exterior teak really needed some t.l.c.

Scrollwork when we purchased her

One of the most endearing features of any Baba is the bow and stern scrollwork. The previous owners preferred to oil the teak. Though there was some varnish, most of it had deteriorated. I spent part of that first spring revitalizing the teak by sanding it down and applying 3 coats of Armada varnish.

It was definitely an improvement, but after 3 years (most of that unexposed to the sun) it was almost completely gone. In 2006, I decided to use a traditional tung-oil varnish (Schooner Varnish). The finish was exceptional and it held up reasonably well though in 2007 I will need to apply several new coats.

In 2006 after complete refinish

I was limited by time as to how many coats I could apply in '06. But, since I had done a lot of surface prep then, hopefully all of that will not be neccessary and all I'll have to do is some light sanding before re-coating.

Another thing we did which made all the difference in the world was to have the hull professionally stripped and repainted from the waterline to the gun'ls. This was done in Portland by the great folks at Schooner Creek Boatworks. Besides being a great yard, they also build boats and have built several of Robert Perry's more modern designs. The previous owner had tried to 'improve' the condition of the bottom by applying a barrier coat and repainting with antifouling.

In the shop just after the old name was removed

They didn't do a very good job and as a result, there were several dozen blisters. In addition to repainting the topsides, we had the crew at the yard grind out all the blisters and let the hull dry out. She sat in Schooner Creek's yard for almost 2 years before we shipped her to MN.

In the spring of 2003 we shipped her from Portland to Hansen's Harbor in Lake City, MN. I was at the marina the day the truck arrived and it was a pretty amazing sight to see. The driver mentioned he had gotten many comments about the boat on his trip. We have found this to be the case even when she's not strapped to a trailer.

Even more amazing was watching Pete Hansen, the proprietor of Hansen's Harbor, remove Soñadora from the trailer using 3 forklifts. Hansen's doesn't use a travel-lift. A small detail I overlooked.

A shiny beauty after new paint

While I was watching Pete's scheme unfold, all I could think about was the shiny travel-lift that Lake City Marina uses just 4 miles down the road. At one point the boat began to roll and I had visions of it lying in the ditch by the side of the road. He repositioned and managed to raise the boat up enough for the driver to remove the trailer. My boat sat there in mid air supported by these forklifts while Pete maneuvered a cradle into position. It was definitely a nail biter.

That first year I epoxied the spots where the blisters had been ground out and repainted the bottom with green Micron CSC. In '07 I should probably repaint the bottom. Micron no longer caries green CSC so I'll search out an alternative. There really isn't much to worry about though in terms of antifouling. The sailing season is short enough to keep that from being a problem.

Some day we hope to take our little escape capsule either down river to the Gulf of Mexico or up through the Great Lakes. We're tentatively shooting for fall of 2010.

Soñadora - Features and Equipment

HULL AND DECK:

Hand laminated FRP hull designed to meet or exceed Lloyds specifications.
Hand laminated FRP and end-grain wood sandwich construction deck and cabin.
Teak non-skid surfaces on deck flats non-skid on cabin top. Teak overlay on cockpit seating area.
Hull-to-deck joint chemically bonded, fastened with stainless steel bolts, cosmetically finished with teak caprail fastened with stainless steel bolts.
Internal cast iron single-ingot ballast, glassed over to reinforce hull section.
Laminated bowsprit with double anchor rollers.

Soñadora - Features and Equipment

HULL AND DECK:

HARDWARE AND EQUIPMENT:

SAILS:

TANKAGE AND MACHINERY:

ELECTRICAL:

INTERIOR: