{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Boats on Under Tree Photography", "icon": "https://avatars.micro.blog/avatars/2026/10/1888455.jpg", "home_page_url": "https://undertreephotography.com/", "feed_url": "https://undertreephotography.com/feed.json", "items": [ { "id": "http://wookmaster.micro.blog/2026/05/24/goodbye-moonbeam-an-eun-na.html", "title": "Goodbye Moonbeam - an Eun Na Mara ", "content_html": "

A couple of years ago, near the end of the shutdown, my wife sent me an ad for a sailboat she thought was pretty. It was an Iain Oughtred designed Eun Na Mara, built in Port Townsend, Washington. Renamed Moonbeam from Suzanne(I was never sure why) I was head over heels on how beautiful she looked on the trailer. There aren’t a lot of these boats, they were never manufactured and any that exist only do because people with a passion for wooden boats went through a LOT of work (maybe 1000+ hours) building one. Because of that I figure I should create an article about Moonbeam for the internet archive and future folks. I’ve heard less than 100 exist in the world.

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Moonbeam was a learning experience, both in owning a boat and growing to be able to handle issues with less stress. The initial sail when I purchased was a wonderful experience with the builder who was kind enough to spend a few hours helping me learn how to rig a gaff. After we got on the water it was a joy sailing her and the three sails are pretty easy to handle. We went out in what I think was Quilcene bay but I’m not certain as I was overwhelmed with learning and well rigging a boat like this is no small task. It was a jam packed day learning to rig and launch, sail and trailer.

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The Eun na Mara design has a foldable main mast you need to stand up, get the stays and lines run and a mizzen mast. The gaff for the main and boom are quite a bit to handle during rigging. Over all when I learned her pretty well it would take me a good two hours to rig up an I would be sweaty and tired. It’s close to that for taking it all down. I drove to port Townsend for two hours, we packed her up and drove to the boat launch, went for a sail after rigging in the hot sun then took it all down and I drove home.

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Considering my lack of towing experience and my exhaustion it probably makes sense when I got home that I backed the mast Into my garage gutter which still has a round imprint today. Luckily no damage to moonbeam.

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What followed helped make me an expert in towing 20 ft trailers, as I had planned to keep her in the backyard and it turned out I had about 2" between the side of the trailer and the gate posts and one entire side of that was with 10ft hedges literally scraping the side of the car as I backed up. I had very little room but managed it. After the first two times took me a solid 30 minutes of adjustments I had it pretty quick. After delivery to the backyard I started on the work. We had purchased in the late summer. I put on new deck paint, cleaned her up real good spent hours varnishing. I had gotten pretty good at this stuff because a year prior I had finished building a CLC Skerry (maybe worth another post).

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But there was one little thing nagging me and it was the deadwood underneath had cracked. I could’t figure out if I had purchased a boat falling apart or not and was panicking, my first lesson in why worry so much. Eventually with the help of some people at the woodenboat forum, a nice gentlemen who was local even volunteered to come look I ended up drilling and putting a lag bolt into the area to hold it together and sealed with some 5200. During this time I learned about the specialized industry (silicon bronze was something I never heard of) That seemed to help stop any further splitting and was the first major thing I had to tackle. It’s easy to write four sentences about it now but I must have spent weeks agonizing over what to do.

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By November I had her in gig harbor for bottom paint accepting I just couldn’t raise her off the trailer in the backyard (another few weeks stressed I couldn’t address the paint easy). It was sort of funny seeing moonbeam on the trailer next to these 50 ft boats but the crew there seemed to love moonbeam and it was a nice experience overall. After a winter on the trailer where I learned some snow quickly destroyed some varnish and wood parts protected by deks olje she was eventually moved to the Des Moines marina with the hope of sailing often. This would mean no boat in the backyard and she was always rigged and ready to go.

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That initial move over though was an adventure. The minute docks were available at the local boat launch in April I decided to drop her in the water and motor over. I was having a hard time finding a window as at the time of this we had a 2 and 4 year old at home and two very stressed parents post covid. So I launched and having barely been familiar with moonbeam tried to get out of the trailer with a 20 kt wind hitting the shore. It wasn’t easy but I eventually prevailed and motored 3 nm over to the marina with that side wind and 3-4 ft waves hitting me broad. I was basically white knuckling it the whole way. One wave even broke over the side. The was the first time I learned the comfort of coming to port when I eventually got to the marina and everything calmed inside the break wall. I also learned on the way home that the tire was wobbling on the trailer which started my next stressful issue.

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The trailer was built in 1999 and I know nothing about trailers so this was another big learning experience. With Moonbeam at the docks I was…incredibly lucky I didn’t have a towing accident. Turned out this thing was in pretty bad shape and I had no idea. But with just the trailer in the backyard I started to dig. My first thought is I need new bearing but it turned out to be pretty difficult to find matching bearings. This thing had some custom hubs that were welded and nothing quite fit right and I also couldn’t replace the hubs. Cue purchasing more tools and spending many hours researching worried about this before taking it to a trailer repair place locally. They also couldn’t replace the hubs without replacing the entire axle quoting me $3500 to do it which was more than the trailer itself. I ended up getting a new custom trailer made from tuff trailer for her but in the meantime I was trailer less.

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During that time my wife had convinced me to participate in the Salish 100, a 100 nm sail/row/whatever from Olympia to port Townsend Washington. Without the trailer I was panicked as I couldn’t go to Olympia. The new trailer wouldn’t be ready in time and sailing to Olympia would take days. After a long time preparing food, water, how to use the bathroom etc I eventually ended up motoring all day to gig harbor to meet the fleet there. I struggle to be social on my own so I’m not sure half of them knew I was there but the Salish 100 website as of today still features photos I took.

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I’ll go into the Salish 100 camp adventure here since I spent a week on Moonbeam -

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First day (for me) Gig Harbor

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The Gig harbor entrance is gnarly if you don’t go at slack tide, a narrow passage with a lot of water flowing through it and it twist on the way through. I managed to get in and had moorage prepared. Sailing in front of Tacoma with Mt Rainier in the background I’ll never forget. The following morning I was up early and paddle boarding about to see the fleet under a cloudy sky. The following morning prep under the cool air and grey sky was a delight along with getting some coffee going. Motoring out I found a windless sky and was motoring for a while but got to enjoy some beautiful wooden boats on the way out before everyone got too spread out in the passage. I recall the wind kicking up and by the time we were toward the end of the passage it was a spicy day. This was my first time timing the ferry and our destination was Blake Island which was now in view.

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Blake Island

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I had never visited Blake Island before, you can only access the state park here if you own a boat as the ferry shut down some years ago. Coming out of Colvos passage I headed to the east side of the island as it looked the quickest route. Heading around to the docks I found it very crowded already. I maneuvered my way out and ended up on a mooring ball. I decided to then go paddleboard a bit on the north side and over to the docks to explore. I wasn’t sure who anyone was but spent some time walking around and got a feel for the island. Walked some trails. The weather was clearing a bit. I paddle back to Moonbeam and spent the evening there thinking the waves were a bit intense and as I learned they are always that way on the part of the island. I was met with a beautiful sunset with dramatic clouds and a rainbow. Sitting on the bow with those colors and an ice cold wind was a magical moment. Sleeping however was not magical as I got tossed by waves I learned come from the ferry and currents and ended up nauseous. I was awake early and ready for the next leg of the trip.

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Kingston

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Heading out early morning with some good winds I don’t think I used the motor all day. It was a downwind sail which when you’re sailing for hours on end is a very nice experience. Today we were met with a dramatic sunrise behind Seattle as we cross between Bainbridge Island and Elliot Bay. This is a hot spot for ferrys so the radios were quite active. On the way I had been speaking to the builder and owner to the only other Eun Na Mara know in the PNW, Marianita. He sailed out and I got a great picture of Marianita but he later ended up with better pics in an article about her and his boat building. We also got a very loud warning from a ferry and scattered quickly as we were crossing the port. As we got in front of Kingston the wind was blowing a solid 15 knots steady and everyone sailing was excited. A chunk of us were doing circles in front of the bay for an hour hollering and having a good time doing small races with each other. It was blowing hard enough to be close to reefing but I kept them all up and got to know Moonbeam in those conditions a bit better. Eventually tiring I headed into port. I remember it being challenging getting the main sail down in those conditions and really wishing I had jack lines. I got into my slip easy enough and got to enjoy Kingston marina which is a lovely place. I also remember the seawall blocking the wind and feeling like it was 100F out.

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Port Ludlow

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The next day would be the most challenging. The morning started off quite nice but I was stuck motoring to get anywhere. It’s straight north for a good 8 nm and maybe 4 miles into that the wind kicked up on the nose. That left us tacking for hours trying to get up to point no point lighthouse before we shifted our heading northwest for a hopefully better tack. It was a long day. Coming up the lighthouse I was met with these large rolling waves that must have been 6-7 ft. I remember I was motor sailing because I wasn’t moving as quick as I wanted close hauled tacking and every time I’d go over the crest of one of these waves my prop would be out of the water for a few moments. and the engine would scream. Those big waves luckily didn’t last long and things were calm for a bit as I changed into a more of a beam reach but it didn’t last long. The wind started hitting hard and I was getting a bit worried so thought I’d try reefing since moonbeam had a nice reefing system. After some fiddling I managed to heave-to in the wind properly but once again I was wishing I had jack lines. It was a real challenge handling the main and a massive pain trying to get the reef in I could get the sail down ok but trying to button up the main when it kept partially filling and spilling over the side was frustrating. I eventually managed it and learned the name “Foul weather bluff” wasn’t just a name (two years later I’d do the Salish 100 again and meet the same exact conditions).

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I eventually crossed the hood canal and made it to Port Ludlow Marina. It was a beautiful little marina though not much around. My family met me here, coming into burner point they were waving at me from the shore. Managing to get my sails down and motor into the marina under the 15 kt winds and take a break was nice. The high winds and tacking left me quite tired as I was single handing and there was no break to be had alone.

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That was the last day of the Salish 100 for me, I had no trailer for Moonbeam and didn’t head to port Townsend. The next morning I turned around. I was up before anyone else to head out with the tide back to Blake Island. I made a decision somehow I could make it 30 nm in a single day and I actually managed to. There was no wind, I was motoring all day. I had been worried about fuel but I learned that little 4 HP Tohatsu outboard sipped fuel as I used maybe 2 gallons. I left Port Ludlow at 5 AM and got to Blake island around 5 PM. I remember it was a calm sunny hot day, wishing for wind so I could turn the motor off. This time at Blake I got to use the docks. I don’t recall much of the afternoon I think I was pretty exhausted from those two days. I do recall the sunrise the next morning because the mix of fog and sun was spectacular and I got to watch and learning that Racoons actually hunted sealife. They appeared to be eating clams.

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The last day was to the Des Moines Marina, a shorter day. I was met with grey skies and a 5-8 kt wind. Outside of avoiding the ferry there was nothing of note. Returning to my slip and packing up moonbeam was some work of course but the end of my adventure had arrived. Of course there generally wasn’t much time to think on it as I had two young kids to keep me busy non stop so life immediately moved on but I’m grateful I had to the opportunity to do it and that my wife pushed me to do it. Up until that point I had never gone beyond doing a day sail.

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Moonbeam proved quite capable as a sail camper for a solo person, if my timing were right my wife would have joined me and having her with me would have made it a shared experience I would have greatly valued.

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Two years later in 2025 I did the Salish 100 again, this time I had a new trailer built for her and did the entire thing. I learned what I missed and how different the south sound is from the north. I got to experience anchoring out overnight which I found to be incredible and going through the Tacoma Narrows was a wild experience seeing the strong current. Foul weather bluff was again a situation for me and I wished I had jack lines. This time I had to pull Moonbeam from the water and pack her up which is no small process, then drive her home for 2-3 hours, quite a different ending than the prior year.

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A few months before that we were met with an opportunity to purchase a 1991 Catalina 28, which had a lot more space and a head. We rarely got out on Moonbeam as a family. No lifelines, two kids who got bored immediately and only wanted to do what I told them they couldn’t do and had no room to move around. I’m lucky I got to care for Moonbeam the years I did, she was a piece of living art. Eventually a nice gentlemen from North Carolina bought her driving across the country and back. He was immediately out on her on the Atlantic and sent me some pics. I got to learn the bitter sweet feeling of selling a boat. The relief of the maintenance being lifted off my shoulders but the loss of an amazing vessel that enabled adventures I never imagined I would have.

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\n", "date_published": "2026-05-24T07:37:33-07:00", "url": "https://undertreephotography.com/2026/05/24/goodbye-moonbeam-an-eun-na.html", "tags": ["Ocean","Wildlife","Rambling","Boats"] } ] }