Restoring China Cloud

in Community Spirits

China Cloud once lived off the consistent love and dedication of Allen and Sharie, in tight knit, reciprocal relationship. Today, I am blessed to own China Cloud: this beautiful family heirloom, home, and lover.

I hope dearly to be able to feel her gliding on the water, glorious in how beautifully tended she is. To be able to share China Cloud with community; for tea, stories, and one day-artist residencies and workshops.

In order to get there, I know we need your help, and hope to bring you along on the journey with us.

Ways to help Restore China Cloud

All donations are logged and updated monthly on our Restorations page for transparency.

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Labour & Materials

We need skilled labour and materials as well. Help us out by checking out our up to date material needs list, or enquire about donating labour by going to our contact page.

Projects we’ve completed

with the help of your time, donations, and gifts <3

Fundraised to date:

$2720 CAD

    • Full hull maintenance with haul out, painting and rot repair in 2023

    • Interior main cabin: painted ceiling and undersides of cabin tops

    • Painted insides all 66 drawers

    • Bought and installed an antique Fisherman 1 woodstove for the main cabin

    • Painted and reorganized of the hold for ease of use

    • Put in through hulls for bilge pump

    • Put together an electrical system with used donated batteries, 12 and 110 volt to run navigation system, bilge pump and heat in the winter

    • Put together rigging as Allen had it originally

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Restoration process
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Projects on the Horizon

2025

    • Painting masts

    • Sewing new mainsail

    • Sewing sail covers

    • Building all new battens to replace rotten and too heavy ones

    • Redoing all rigging with new line

    • Making blocks

    • Primary goal is to prevent future rainfall from rotting the boat

    • Re-painting cabin sides and other leak prone areas

    • Rebuilding skylight

    • Purchase and install new batteries

    • Purchase and install new solar panel

    • Install lights in key areas of cabins

    • Ventilation system for winter mold prevention

    • Hull paint touch ups

    • Rot checks and restorations

    • Restoring Fisherman stove from rust

    • Rebuild of donated mini woodstove and install

    • Purchasing and cutting new cushions for both beds and settees

    • Upholstering foams

    • Touch ups

    • Interior ceiling and underside of cabin top in forward cabin

  • A hope for this year is to do an Allen dory build, or build another skiff for sailing that doubles as life craft.

2026 +

  • Bringing the decks back to their original wooden look, with weather protection underneath for longevity.

  • Restoring/replacing copper bottom. There are many holes in the copper that need to be filled in order to prevent electrolysis properly.

  • Eventually we will need to do a hull repaint, as well as painting the cabins while likely restoring from rot.

  • As of right now she has a 9.9 Yamaha though we would love an electrical propulsion system that we can use in conjunction with the original skulling oar.

Materials Wish List

If you have something on hand that you think may be helpful but is not on this list, please feel free to reach out!

Sail making

  • Sail canvas for our new suite of sails - lightest weight of oceanus or clipper suggested so far. Open to old dacron sails to recycle.

  • Polyester twines.

  • Mildew-proof canvas for practice.

  • Material for sail covers.

  • Tools needed: seam rubber, larger fids, sailhook, electric hot knife, 50’ tape, chalkline.

  • Sail sewing machine model to borrow.

Battens & Rigging

  • We are either looking for straight long cedar branches and saplings (some will need to be 22’ long) to make the battens in traditional Allen Farrell fashion.

  • OR we have a design ready to go to replicate the strength and ‘whip’ of a cedar sapling. A combination of clear lengths of ash and cedar are needed.

  • Line to replace most rigging will be updated here with lengths and thickness. Looking for new line.

  • Help making blocks.

Galley

  • Small woodstove for forward cabin or a welder’s help to fix a hole in the back of one we were given.

  • Lightweight copper sheets for heat shield.

  • Heat shield protection materials to replace old system.

Foam covers

  • Large Vinyl Sheets for covering all foam on both beds and settees in mold proof covers.

  • Fabric to make cushion covers over top of vinyl ones, looking for warm tones for settees.

Navigation & Safety

  • Marine Radio.

  • New Flares.

  • Harnesses.

  • New set of charts for Southern and Northern gulf islands (contact for list of ones needed, about $1000 estimate).

  • New editions of Sailing Directions, List of Lights Buoys and Fog Signals, Chart Catalogue, Tide and current Tables, Radio Aids to Marine Navigation.

  • Electronic marine GPS or hand me down cellular IPAD for Navionics.

Other

  • Composting toilet for future guests on residency program aboard.

  • Nice small to medium plastic buckets.

  • Small lengths of firewood (contact for sizes).

Electrical system

  • Solar Panels. Preferably, we are looking for flexible solar panels and as new as possible but are open.

  • Set of 2 new Lithium batteries.

  • Note that the electrical system is key to having our automatic bilge pump working again to protect the boat.

Wood Projects

  • Gum-wood and other hardwood, any sizes. Our roller is damaged and not only needs significant care, but due to its state a lot of damage has been done to the bow through chafing, needing replacement.

  • Cedar and fir to laminate for a new sculling oar and boom gallows.

Hull

  • Thick copper sheet/bits however small for patching copper bottom.

  • Replica of ‘red lead paint’, used in many areas of the boat

Winterization

  • Concrobium mold control fogger to keep down the mold for living aboard in the winter.

  • New/unscratched thick plexi glass for replacing leaking skylights.

  • “Dry bed'“ Moisture protection for underneath foams.

Fundraising supplies

  • As an artist, I make lino prints of the boat for fundraising, and am launching a publication. For lino printing I always need:

  • Good quality paper in large amounts-from washi to stonehenge.

  • A table top press weighted for lino, or even wood block printing.

  • Water and oil based Printing inks and Ink colours for tinting inks.

  • Matt board.

  • Lino and Green Vinyl for carving plates.

  • Small gouges carving tools.

  • For documentation and restoration project videos, we are in need of a laptop computer to edit on, laraege capacity SD cards, and good mics.