BACK TO THE LAKE!!!!

After two years, we are back where we started.... Sort of...  Yesterday Andrews Trucking picked up our boat and drove it the Ship Shape Marina in St. Catharines...  We were warmly welcomed and given a spot to get the boat put together.  All going well, we will launch on Monday and sail home next Thursday or Friday...

It has been an exhausting couple of days.  First I want to thank Bill S., and Glen B.  for all their help getting the boat on the trailer at the farm...  It was an early start as we were told by the trucking company to be ready at 6:00am.  Well we were but the truck and the crane didn't show up till 7:30....  Oh well...  By 11:00 the truck was pulling out and heading for St. Catharines.

I took the bow and stern pulpits from our house and met the truck at the marina.  Thank you SO much to Martin L. for his awesome help yesterday when the boat arrived.  We worked till about 8pm then Martin went home and I turned in for the night on the boat.  By then we had running water but no toilets (we need to be in the water to get water to flush with).  It was a little cool at night but this morning it warmed up quickly and Martin came back and spent THE WHOLE DAY helping me again...

My son, Steve and my father in law, Ed also came all the way down to St. Catharines for the whole day and Greg G. came this afternoon....  THANK YOU SO MUCH for everyone's GREAT help...

AT 7:30 pm we called it quits for the day and I drove home to Cambridge.  After church tomorrow I will return and finished up the jobs that need to be done before we launch. Ship Shape has promised to launch us and get our masts up at 4 pm on Monday so I will likely stay on the boat Sunday night and get my work done from there so I can be ready when they want to launch us.

Depending on weather we will either sail/motor to our slip at the RHYC (Royal Hamilton Yacht Club) on Thursday or Friday next week... Stay tuned...

The jobs that got done in the last 24 hours are:  The lifelines are re-installed, the bow and stern pulpits are installed, the main mast is re-rigged and has new running rigging, and the mizzen is about half ready to go.  The plumbing system is started up and we only had two little leaks.  Remember we have not tried the system since I replaced it last year...  I would say it turned out pretty good!  I got the binnacle and the helm electronics installed and everything there seems to be working well.

All in all, it has been a pretty productive few days... Now I need to go to bed and get some sleep!

Again THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who helped us yesterday and today, and thank you to the kind people at Ship Shape who have made things go so smoothly....

CHEERS!

HELP!

As you all know Shelley and I have been re-building our boat for the last 3 years. This Friday the trucking company has agreed to move it back down to Lake Ontario from Guelph. It will be brought to Ship Shape Marina, 10 Seaway Haulage Road, St. Catharines, Ontario.

If by some miracle I can get it ready to go back into the water by Monday I can save almost $1000 in storage and other fees from the marina.

That means the masts need to be put back together, the lifelines and bow pulpit and the arch all need to be re-installed.

The boat should arrive in St. Catharines early in the afternoon on Friday. I plan to be there when it arrives and will stay overnight and work all day Saturday. My plan is to come home Saturday night for work on Sunday Morning. Then Sunday afternoon I plan to return and stay overnight until Monday when hopefully they can get me launched and the masts installed.

Then on Thursday May 3rd or Friday May 4th (weather and work dependent) I plan to sail the boat to Hamilton to our slip at the Hamilton Yacht Club.

SO..... If any of you think you can help me (ESPECIALLY THIS FRIDAY OR SATURDAY) in ST. Catharines, please let me know. I will pay for your gas to get to St. Catharines and feed you and water you.

My back has really been giving me grief over the last month or so and I could REALLY use any help anyone could give me... I have all the tools etc. necessary to get the jobs done. I can also give pretty simple direction so experience is not a prerequisite....

If you are still reading this, Thank You. And if you can help us, THANK YOU... If you can't, no worries....

Please let me know if you can help....

Cheers,
Kyle


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

We Are Cautiously Hopeful....

It may be that the load restriction has been lifted for Ontario roads!....  That means that next week we may be able to move the boat to the lake!  Lets all pray that all the stars line up and everyone co-operates, and we get the crane company, the trucking company, the farmer, and the marina all in place and see Blowin' Bubbles move to St. Catharines next Thursday and or Friday....

Once we are at Ship Shape Marina in St. Catharines, we need a few days to install the bow pulpit, the lifelines, the stern pulpit, the new arch, the binnacle, the cockpit helm, both masts and all the rigging....  We will sure have our work cut out for us!

After all of that we will sail the boat to Hamilton (The RHYC) where we have our seasonal slip for this summer.

As it stands now the cost should be about $700 for the Crane, $3000 for the truck, $1000 for the marina and about $3000 for our slip... Yes, just shy of $8000!!!! OUCH!

We plan to take the boat out for a few weeks this summer to shake everything down and fix any problems before we leave for good on July 1st. 2014....

Over the last few days we sanded and bottom painted to aft portion of the boat.  We have decided that as long as we are in fresh water we don't need to add a second coat of bottom paint.  So we will save our last gallon till next spring and get it on before we head out.... This should save us about $300....

Today, with my brother in law's help we got the boat ready to transport... We secured everything that might move on the deck and added a 2x4 from the pilothouse to the steering column to make sure nothing gets snagged on our way to the marina.  The height limit on Ontario roads is 13'-6" - we are 14'-10", which could cause some problems....

Next, we loaded the lifelines, fenders, the spinnaker pole and all the other bits and pieces on to the boat so they can make their way to the lake.  The last job for today was to install another tool box into the workshop in the focl'e....

The Boat Is In One Piece....

Today, Shelley and I went to a farmer's breakfast at church this morning.  Boy, they sure cook great food for $7...  When we left we went to the boat and found that most of the ice was melted and everything was OK.... When I checked the bilge, I found a bunch of water in it.  Unfortunately, it looks like the scupper on the rim of the lazarette doors froze and water seeped into the lazarette and then into the bilge...  It looks like I will have to check the door seals when things warm up.  We don't want water getting in those doors...

After checking the boat we went to an old friends, Bob & Heather.  Bob taught scuba diving with me a few years ago and they are now both retired and have decided that they don't want to dive anymore....  As a result they graciously sold us their 2 regulators and dive computers...  We now have 5 regulator sets and have completed our dive gear set-up... Yippee!

Our last adventure today was to pick up a spare 2000 g.p.h. bilge pump on sale at Princess Auto for (can you believe this?) $29.95!  The same pump anywhere else is over $100....

We also ordered a spare 4000 g,p.h. pump from Defender.

I just can't imagine having a problem and not having a bilge pump to make it go away....  We now have 2 electric bilge pumps in the engine room and a manual "gusher" bilge pump in the lazarette.  We also now have a replacement for each of them on the boat....

Will Winter EVER End!!!!

Seriously, it is hard to take global warming seriously when in the middle of April we are being overwhelmed with an ice storm....  Today I went out to the boat to make sure that my temporarily installed windows were holding up through the below freezing temperatures and freezing rain storm that we have endured for the last 36 hours.

When we got there, this is what my brother in law and I found:

With an inch of ice on the boat I didn't even attempt to get up on the deck...  It is safe to say that there must have been an additional ton or two with all the ice buildup...  We chipped off what we could with a 2x4 and hope now that warmer weather is on the way....

There was some good news today.  The folks at Bomon in Lavalle sent us the final drawings of our new front windows...  As soon as they came I phoned them and they will get started building them next week!  We can't wait....

In order for these windows to fit properly, I will have to flatten the camber (curve) on the top and bottom of each opening.  To do this I will use the jigsaw and cut a very straight line horizontally about an inch from the top and bottom of the cutout,  Then temporarily install the window in what will then be a flat surface.  The cut (and the old holes)  will get fiberglassed and epoxied back together, sanded then painted to look like it was always suppose to be that way.... It will take some time, but I hope it will look and work well when I am finished....

The last bit of good news this week was that a very nice couple form the east coast have purchased our Bauer dinghy.  They are coming to Ontario in May for a wedding and will take it home then...  In the mean time, as soon as the weather clears up a little I will move it from the farm to our back yard so it will be ready to go when they get here...  I have to say that Kijiji is an awesome way to sell stuff....

Getting Ready For New Front Windows!

As you know from my last post there seemed like an insurmountable problem with the front windows....  Over the last few days, a few people have helped with some great suggestions, thank you...  That said, on Friday evening I was googling marine windows and found a company in Laval Quebec who specialize in that kind of thing...

I thought, what have I got to loose by contacting them, so I sent them an email explaining my predicament and my budget.  Yesterday, the president of the company emailed me and gave us a more than fair price on replacing the old ones with tempered glass and marine grade aluminum frames....

So today, following his instructions, I removed the old windows and created cardboard templates of the openings.  Then I went to Purolaltor and couriered them to his company where they will, in the next 4 - 6 weeks make us awesome new front windows....

It has been raining for the last few days and is forecast to rain for the next few days, yet for the few hours it took me to get everything apart and them back together today, the rain let up and everything was dry!  I'm calling that good karma....  Now that the windows have been removed I had to use metal adhesive tape to temporarily re-install them...

The company is called BOMON.  and they seem like really wonderful people to work with...  I'll keep everyone up to date with our progress....

Just before I went back to work, Shelley and I finished getting the aft cabin ready to go...  We think it looks pretty good!

Making The Most of My Week Off Work...

I took this week off work so that I could get the boat moved down to St. Catharines and get it launched.... But as I mentioned in my previous post, that isn't happening so I made up for the lost time by getting some work done that would have waited until we were at our slip in Hamilton.  I had about 20 boxes of stuff in the basement at the house and over the last few days I have been taking them to the boat and putting the stuff away.  With the boat where it is, there is a little more effort needed but each day this week I have been plugging away at getting this all done.

Here is a rundown, in no particular order of the jobs finished this week...

I got all the scuba gear sorted out and put away in the dive shop.  I think that we will be in good shape when we are underway as everything seems to be pretty secure...

I also installed the solar vent (fan) in the new shower.  This should run continuously and keep the moisture and mould at bay.

I also got some of the little electrical jobs out of the way.  Both handheld VHF radios npw have a home and their chagers are connected to the 12 volt system on the boat.

I also got the new fan installed beside our bed and replaced the fan at the nav. station...

There is a large storage area behind the table in the main cabin.  This week I organized all the stuff that will live in there and even find there is a little room for a few more goodies....

If you look in the top left corner of the picture below, you will see that we now have a home for all the service and instruction manuals for the boat.  We have many of these on disk so we have saved a ton of space on shelves for manuals that we can look at on the computer or iPad...

This week I was able to get the workshop re-organized and discovered that the cupboard that we store stuff in was incredibly damp.  To remedy this, I drilled 2 holes in the door and installed vents.  Lets hope this solves the dampness problem...

The last thing that I noticed this week is a really big problem.  After replacing the front windows in the pilot house 3 times, the newest widows have cracked! (like the rest)... I am at a loss as to what to do to remedy this.  Tomorrow I will measure the openings and see if there is a hatch that we can buy that will fit in the opening....  the way things are right now is NOT a good thing...

If anyone has any ideas... Feel free to share them...