By noon Jim Stegmuller — former soldier, former merchant marine, former cop and three-time former husband — has been sweating it out on the dry dock at the Ala Moana Marine Boat Harbor for five hours along with his helper, Roland Chen.

With five more hours to go before he calls it quits, Stegmuller is looking forward to the moment in about three days when he can start painting his 40-foot pilot utility boat, Lahaina Pilot. Painting's the easy part, he says. It's the scraping, sanding and grinding that's a mess.

Stegmuller's boat is almost as salty as he is.

"Oh yeah, this thing does have some history, all right," he says with a chuckle.

"This is the last wooden boat ever built for the state of Hawai'i. It was called Honolulu Pilot No. 4. It used to be a pilot boat in Honolulu Harbor and it was built in 1968 by the Funai boat builders here in Honolulu.

"I can tell you there have been some parties on this thing."

Stegmuller, 50, a Maui County buoy maintenance contractor, bought the boat a decade ago to use for his towing and salvage company. Every two years he brings it to dry dock to be cleaned.

"The hard part is protecting yourself from the dust," he says. "They're real strict about dust containment and not making a mess. There's a lot of cleaning as you go. We use sanders with vacuum devices on them."

Stegmuller has been a boat owner since he was a teenager. He has fond memories of fishing with his dad on Maui. He dreamed of one day figuring out a way to make money with boats. He succeeded, he says. His company does well financially.

Soon as he's done at dry dock, he's off to Lahaina, Maui, where he lives in the shade of a large banyan tree.

These days he not only enjoys being on his boat, he's fond of simply being near it.
"The boat's pretty much right here in the front row in Lahaina Harbor," he says. "And I live right downtown, in the historical district. My apartment is 720 feet from the boat. It's the most convenient spot in town."

His hands show the weathering of his hard work: He uses the boat for his towing and salvage company.