One of the reasons for starting this blog was to have the opportunity to interact with more Jason 35 owners, and here's a great example. Below is a comment on an earlier blog post from the owners of the Jason 35 Velic. It has some great information, so I wanted to bring it out to the front. In the future we may try to have a branch off of this blog that's solely dedicated to Jason 35 facts and information, but for now, it'll have to be mixed in with our personal experiences. Enjoy!

I thought I'd left a post, but it seems to have disappeared, so here's another try. (We don't have a blog or a web site of our own.)

You're right, there isn't much information out there about Jason 35s, probably because there aren't many Jason 35s out there. I believe fewer than 60 were ever built by Miller Marine. We had difficulty locating owners to interview when we were considering the Jason 35, among other boats, as a larger boat for ourselves. We did eventually contact a few other owners - two in Washington, one in California, and one in either Arizona or Nevada (I can't recall which state right now), and were able to take a day sail with one of the Washington owners.

After we bought our Jason, we also met and consulted with Ted Brewer about some of the modifications we wanted to make, but especially about the excessive weather helm that some of the earlier Jasons had (and which we knew about in advance and used as a bartering chip when negotiating a purchase price). This was a real puzzle to Ted, and he had spent many hours recalculating the design specs and examining the plans to find an error. He never found an error and, in fact, the numbers all crunched perfectly - there should have been minimal weather helm, as is desirable and was intended, and why the boat exhibited such heavy weather helm remains a mystery. Thus confirming my theory that boats are, in reality, organic creatures subject to the sort of mysterious quirks we all are afflicted with. In any case, once the problem was discovered, subsequent boats were manufacture with the mast moved several inches forward of the original design location. This alleviated the weather helm to a great extent.

We moved the mast on our boat after we brought it home, as we had planned to do, and this, in conjunction with redesigning the mainsheet system, vastly improved the weather helm. A new main will be the final step in resolving the weather helm issue, but we're able to use the new mainsheeting system to flatten the current old sail pretty effectively, when needed.

We've made many improvements to our Jason in the years since we bought her, beginning with the standing rig and including replacing the entire main companionway and the foredeck hatch with newly built ones. We've moved our efforts below during the past couple of years and are currently wrapping up an interior remodel that will add to our safety at sea as well as enhancing our stowage capacity. All this while both of us are working at "day jobs" full time and still trying to get some sailing in. It's slow-going, working after hours and on weekends, but very satisfying to see the improvements. I have a suspicion you know very well the feeling I'm talking about!

So we'll keep checking in on your site, to see how things are progressing for Pisces. If you'd like to know more about some of the things we've made on Velic, just ask.

Best regards.

Thanks again!
In terms of the weather helm, Pisces has a short bowsprit (~3 feet) to help alleviate this problem. She certainly can be very heavy on the helm, but we're still learning, and in large degree I think some of this might be due to the fact that we're coming from a much lighter boat with a fin keel and spade rudder and therefore are just not used to the feel of such a big boat with a tiller...We are definitely still learning, and still seeking out those moments when everything clicks together, and Pisces is happy charging along in the groove. If you have the time, I'd love to hear more about your new mainsheet system. Stay in touch!

Over the weekend we built the actual toilet section of the head rebuild. I had wanted this section in wood--preferably aromatic cedar--I had images of a beautiful room filled with fine woodwork and craftsmanship, put together with relative ease. My actual woodworking skills were not what I remembered them to be from the glory days of high school woodworking class. FYI: woodworking is not like riding a bike. I definitely forgot a lot.

However we are happy with the result. It is infinitely preferable to a marine head for two primary reasons: no plumbing to stop up underway and a full size toilet seat. Marine toilet seats are remarkably uncomfortable.

We ended up using oak for the primary construction and two boards of aromatic cedar as slats in front. The seat hinges up (to one side) for both bucket removal and so that guys who wish to pee standing up can do so.

I have been surprised at the amount of negative responses we getting about pulling out the head and replacing it with a bucket. While I wouldn't say that I prefer a bucket over a normal indoor household toilet, here's why I think it's better than other marine options:
1) Head with overboard discharge: When you are at sea and pumping overboard this is essentially a mechanical bucket with the chance to break and flood the boat through a seacock. When you are in port this is worse than a bucket because you are pumping overboard whereas we plan to use Wag Bags which allow for biodegradable (and discreet) disposal.
2) Head with holding tank: At sea this is worse, because although you can pump out your holding tank, owners almost always add in chemicals to keep the holding tank (and boat) "smelling clean." In harbor it is more convenient than a bucket with wag bags...until you have to find a place to empty it. Additionally, on Pisces the holding tank is underneath the v-berth (underneath my side). So, if we're using the holding tank while in port or anchored, we'll also be using the v-berth, and the idea of sleeping on top of a tank full of dirty waste is not particularly appealing.
3) There are other options and variants of the traditional marine head, all of which are too expensive for us to realistically consider.

Basically there is no good option, this one just strikes us as the simplest, cheapest, most reliable one.

The room is really coming together, which is exciting. Our next steps in that room include trying different methods to hold the tool boxes in, installing a drawer, teak grating for the pan, and re-plumbing the drain overboard via hand-pump (which has a dual benefit: we can remove and fill both seacocks in the head, but still shower :) ).





To be continued....