Once again I’ve been caught in the trap of putting too much effort into a long blog post, only to run out of steam and set the post on the shelf for later completion. Three times now I’ve updated the first paragraph of that post, from “in the past day, I…”, to “in the past few days, I…”, to “last week, I…”. I will return to that post, but I can’t keep letting it prevent me from other writings.
Much boat progress has been made! I’ve finally replaced all of my windows, a non-trivial task to say the least. To do so I had to remove my former windows for a full day – not all of them, but a few anyway. There are three different types of window on my boat, but seven windows overall; four of one type, two of another, and the final window is the front “windshield” window, which for some reason looks directly in to the bathroom. I would remove three, to be used as pattern blanks by the plexiglass window cutting guys.
The downside of removing the windows was of course that it is now Fall in Vancouver and the temperature has been dropping pretty sharply. I have been able to see my breath lying in bed at night, and that’s with the windows installed. Without the windows, I would essentially be spending my workday camping without the smores, and since I’ve been more or less camping all Summer, the novelty of the idea was somewhat lost on me. A call to the window fabricating guys told me that they had the time and the materials, and so Thursday morning I pulled out the three windows and dutifully strapped them to my backpack.
After I rode my bike over to the fabricators’ shop near Hastings and Commercial, they told me that they’d have them finished in one business day, ie Friday, so I would have to spend the night essentially sleeping outdoors. This worried me somewhat, but whatever, I’m an able-bodied man in reasonably good health. Despite my broken furnaces I do have a little Coleman propane heater I could use, so while I was a bit choked I figured I could handle it, flu season be damned. The guy told me he’d call back with a quote in an hour or so, but by 4:30pm he hadn’t called and I was starting to get a little bit worried. I called him back and asked for the quote, which he called me back with, but during that call he also mentioned that there would be a good chance they wouldn’t have them done by Friday evening.
Now, let’s reiterate; I’m essentially sleeping outdoors. It is Fall. More to the point, it is Canadian Thanksgiving, which not only means turkey and pumpkin pie, but also that this would be a long weekend. The man was telling me that I would not have windows until Tuesday?!
In the interests of brevity, I’ll spare you the details. A little wheedling, a little explaining of the situation, and the guy managed to make the windows appear by 5pm Friday. On my way back home I realized that three 1/8″ plexiglass windows weigh approximately 1/5th of seven 1/4″ Lexan windows, and that perhaps I shouldn’t be riding my bicycle with 80lbs of sheet plastic strapped to my back.
One thing I learned while installing the new windows: I am terrible at installing windows. Sikaflex 295 is horrible, horrible stuff.
Another think I learned: duct tape residue may be awful stuff to deal with, but the residue from the new clear duct tape – which, I might add, specifically says on the label “No Residue – Easy Clean Up” – is twice as difficult to remove. I had my previous windows held in and patched against the rain with clear duct tape, and will not use that stuff again for that purpose.
Anyhow. The priorities for the boat have shifted rather dramatically from “make her pretty” to “make her survive the winter”, followed by “make her comfortable”. The windows are in, though the caulking handiwork looks a bit like that of a seven-year-old with Play-Doh. The new Lexan windows, unlike the old, opaque Plexiglass ones, are completely translucent – so now I also need to consider some form of curtains if I want anything approaching privacy.
It never really stops, does it?