completely unrelated: Friday morning I was woken up by yet *another* hovercraft. how awesome is this photo!?

I think I actually know what's going on now.  At some point, X minutes after pushing the engine hard, the cooling water ceases to flow into the exhaust and the superheated exhaust burns a hole in the tubes.  There are a pair of thermostats that redirect the water flow from the exhaust manifold and into the main engine block once they heat up, though the water should then flow into the exhaust manifold and out the exhaust.  I now suspect that the engine block has become fouled with calcium scale, and now water no longer flows through it.  Fixing this will likely require a heavy-duty descaling solution, or perhaps straight-up muriatic acid.  It's a touchy procedure, but there is hope - I may have finally sorted out a way to barter myself some time with a proper diesel mechanic!

More soon.  I simply have too much work to do to write proper, long blog posts right now.

UPDATE: Swapped in an edited version of the hovercraft shot, with levels and curves tweaked by Jason Sims.  Nice one!

A quick highlight reel - in the past three days, I:

• bicycled over forty kilometers and rowed over eight kilometers in total,
• borrowed a truck and drove to Bellingham and back for engine parts,
• had my oil filter spring a leak, leaving me with a couple of liters of used engine oil in my bilge,
• spent over $700 on a new exhaust system, and assembled and installed it,
• ate six cans of sardines and probably over a pound of sliced ham,
• drank most of a bottle of Sailor Jerry, and
• went out dancing.  Twice.

Tomorrow morning I try once more to escape the Creek.  My first destination will be Kitsilano.

Ok seriously, it's fracking cold out here.  The past few days the temperature has dropped further and further, and as I write this it is 6pm, pitch dark outside and -6°C.  I know some of you are reading this from the Prairies or the Maritimes, where the ambient temperature has been hovering around -20°C, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that you also have furnaces and insulation and such.  Tie Fighter is made of 3/8" marine-grade plywood over cedar stringers, with an R-value of... god, I have no idea.  Not enough, anyway.  It's COLD.

click to view larger - can you spot the outline of the (heated) cabin vs. the outline of the (unheated) closet?

I've had some questions posed about insulating the boat, and the short answer is:  I'm still researching.  One school of thought says that the only way to insulate a wooden boat is to use foam rubber, and bond the foam directly to the wood, being careful not to leave any air gaps between the wood and the foam.  The reasoning is that if you leave air gaps, you're inviting condensation, which to wood means mildew or eventually rot.

The other school says that you should never bond anything to the wood, because that makes it much more difficult to notice problems, and a helluva mess to work with.  They say to rather allow it to breathe and stack insulation over top that can have air forced in behind it via fans or blowers, so that the condensation can dry up on its own.

What am I going to do?  I have no idea.  I'm still soliciting opinions from various liveaboard forums and fellow False Creek denizens.  For now, I'm toughing it out and burning several different forms of fossil fuels at the same time trying to stay warm.  When I woke up this morning I had to break up the ice in the sink dishes before I could make breakfast.

Cold aside, I HAVE A WORKING ENGINE AGAIN!  The diesel engine theory class paid off in spades, and I was able to diagnose the problem, correct the situation, and get Maude started.  This was a huge boost to my confidence and self-esteem, especially given the nature of the problem and my previous (complete lack of) experience with engines.

To recap; Maude had started to lose power at some point during my last run up to fill my water tanks.  The change was gradual but immediately noticible; the engine dropped in power without my touching the throttle, which is up there with "sounds different" or "emitting smoke" or "smells funny" on the diesel engine scale of uh-ohs.  Not quite 'explosion', but definitely not good.

The most immediate difference between my response to this problem after having completed the diesel theory class vs. my response before the diesel class is that I now have any response at all other than ignoring the problem and hoping that it will resolve itself.  Carrie once said to me "I don't deal with little problems anymore.  Little problems either go away on their own, or they become big problems.  I deal with big problems.".  I took this somewhat to heart, but I have come to realize that that philosophy can only apply to some aspects of life; in other situations - diesel engines being a noteworthy example - it's best to deal with little problems immediately and with extreme prejudice.  Don't just solve problems, smash them out of existence with the largest hammer you can find.

the fuel lift pump, source of my woes

Maude had started to lose power, and I ignored it.  The next time I tried to go for water,  Maude died about four minutes into the voyage.  Fortunately the incoming tide pushed me directly back over my anchoring spot, or I would have had to radio the Coast Guard for assistance.  Attempting to restart her seemed to work intermittently, she'd start but die as soon as I applied any throttle, which is exactly the behavior one would expect from water in the fuel lines.  The answer there would be to drain the water from the fuel lines, bleed the lines of any newly-introduced air, and then restart the engine - bearing in mind that the "bleed the lines" portion of that answer is an eleven-step procedure requiring three different sizes of wrench.

Needless to say, I was unsuccessful with the bleeding of the lines.  For the life of me, I could not seem to get the air out of the lines; I must have pushed that little fuel lift pump lever tens of thousands of times, blistering and scraping my hands in the process.  Nothing seemed to work!

Fortunately I had signed up weeks before for the Cooper Boating 'Advanced Diesel Theory' class, and so I went to class and paid close attention, asking so many questions that I'm sure the teacher is glad to be rid of me.  Each week I returned from class with fresh resolve and a new set of hints, and spent a few hours poking at the engine trying to figure out what part of the bleeding process I was doing wrong.  Each week I was unsuccessful.

After five straight weeks trying to perform the relatively simple process of bleeding the lines, I decided that I was doing it right and that there must be something actually wrong with the process.  I decided to take each part in turn and track out the problem, just like I'd do with a computer issue.  Eventually this led me to a conclusion:  the fuel lift pump just wasn't lifting fuel.

source of the problems, click for closeup

Long story short, I pulled the fuel lift pump off the engine and disassembled it on my kitchen table.  I found that the input valve assembly was clogged in the 'open' position with a motley assortment of plastic scraps, gelled diesel and hair(?!), which I removed.  This was clearly a result of the stock fuel filter having been removed by a previous mechanic and a third-party fuel filter installed instead, after the fuel lift pump instead of before it.  I cleaned up the pump, tested and reinstalled it, changing the location of the fuel filter along the way - but still I had no fuel flow!

Finally, after putting together a bit of critical information from the instructor along with a tidbit from the guys at Stem to Stern, I realized that the copper washers in the banjo bolts connecting the fuel lift pump to the fuel lines must be letting air into the lines.  I replaced the copper washers, tightened up the banjo bolts, and suddenly fuel began to flow.  I performed the rest of the air-bleed procedure, cranked the engine, and low and behold Maude shuddered to life.

Anyhow.  I have an engine again, though I haven't yet installed the secondary fuel filter I purchased, nor replaced the belts, nor replaced the exhaust tank.  I have yet to change the oil, either in the engine block or in the transmission.  I haven't even begun to reroute the cooling system, changing it over from raw seawater to antifreeze - but all of these projects will come.  I have a working engine, and with a little luck I can keep it that way.  I am no longer afraid of Maude.  The engine is no longer a black box.

Just to add to the stress of the bitter cold, the police have just motored past in their 'R.G. McBeath' policeboat, which is the one they use to enforce the anchoring bylaws - they didn't stop by to chat, but they're weaving in around the anchored boats, making their presence known.  I don't have any idea what is going to happen to those of us squatting here in False Creek.  I suspect we'll all be kicked out prior to the Olympics, but I don't have any good ideas on where to go after that - there really aren't any other good, sheltered anchorages around Vancouver.  The hard winter might shortly become much, much harder.

I'm not sure what the real reason is.  I've been maddeningly busy, the kind of busy where it seems like every spare minute is taken up but nothing seems to be getting accomplished.  Still, that's not to say that life halts, and as such I've got a whole pile of micro-updates that I probably should have been posting all along.  Nothing important or earth-shattering, no crazy adventures, just the usual day-to-day crap.  Each of these stories should be its own update though, I just have to stop procrastinating and letting them pile up.

False Creek at night in the rain. admittedly gorgeous. I love my neighborhood.

To start off with, if you're reading this from somewhere other than Vancouver, British Columbia, you might not realize that it's been raining for something like fifteen goddamned days in a friggin' row. I know that complaining about the rain is one of Vancouver's favourite pastimes, and I knew getting into this that the rain would be something I'd have to face up to sooner or later. It's not actually all that bad, once you realize that "being stylish" and "being comfortable" are mutually exclusive. I've gotten used to living in my tall, bright yellow rubber boots, and leaving the boat without wearing rainpants seems pretty silly these days.  Wet clothes hung up to dry can take days to dry on a boat - my sweaters are still damp from laundry day, which was a week ago tomorrow.

The thing about rainpants and raincoats is that they look pretty dorky, but they really work.  I have yet to find any that are waterproof, breathable, and look acceptable in public - it seems like you get your choice of any two of those features.  I'm willing to pay extra for the good stuff, especially seeing as I use them pretty much every day!  I have one set of Helly Hansen raingear that was quite pricy, but it has already paid for itself many times over just through regular use.  The other day I caught the pantleg in the chainring of my track bike, pulling it almost the entire way around - but when I unwound myself and pulled it free, the most damage was a bit of chain grease; the rubbery material itself didn't tear at all.

see the four or five inches of water in there? that's probably a hundred liters overall.

Every day that I go ashore - which isn't every day, mind you - I have to climb down into my rowboat and bail out the rainwater.  I use a plastic bucket made from a cut-off 1.89l bottle of blueberry cocktail, which I assume to be roughly 1l in size, and to stave off the bitter cold and monotony of bailing, I count the buckets as I empty them over the side.  My record to date is 120l of water in the rowboat from one night of rain.  Seriously!  I need to track down and cut up a bleach jug or something similar, bailing at 1l per stroke isn't the most efficient solution.

One nice thing about my rowboat is that there are large chunks of foam rubber bolted to the inside of the gunwales, which I'm guessing are supposed to keep the boat afloat and upright even if it fills completely with water.  This is reassuring - there are a bunch of other boats in False Creek, many of which aren't liveaboards and the owners don't come down very often to check on them.  Those folks have dinghies locked to the nearby dock, but the rain tends to fill the dinghies up and sink them ever few weeks.   Last week, one such boat belonging to my friend Eric had sunk in this manner.  When I returned home from a night on the town, I heard strange splintering, cracking noises from the dock as I came down the ramp - it turned out to be Eric's dinghy, sunken and trapped lengthwise between the heavy wooden dock and the rocky bottom.  The tide was almost all the way out, but it still had a foot or so to go...  and the noise was Eric's little fiberglass rowboat, cracking and folding under the massive weight of the dock.  Sad, but there was nothing I could do to help.

mmmm, hot cast iron

It has also been cold lately, and as you've probably guessed from my last post, I've been fighting with my furnaces again. The warmth from a diesel stove is delightful... when it works. I heard someone on another forum describe diesel stoves as "more of a hobby than an appliance", and that pretty much sums it up.  Twitchy things, these machines, and at times it almost feels more like I'm learning to play a new musical instrument than trying to heat a boat.  They constantly remind me that they must be treated with respect - as I type this I have yet another slowly-blistering burn on my forearm from touching the wrong part of the oven door while toasting a bagel in the stove an hour or so ago.

When diesel stoves and heaters are working perfectly they're lovely, but when they start to work badly it's a slippery slope... give them a bit too much or a bit too little fuel and they're inefficient, dirty, smelly and can even be dangerous.  I'd been feeding the main stove a bit too much fuel, and it responded by filling up with soot.  The last time I had an overabundance of soot, I used my little wet/dry shop-vac to clean it out.  I was absolutely pleased as punch with the results - until I noticed that every bit of soot that I'd removed from the stove had been blown straight out the back of the shop-vac and all over the cabin, creating a nightmare of a mess to try to clean up.  It was literally weeks before I got the last of it - and actually, from where I sit in the aft cabin right now I can see at least two spots where there is still soot from that fiasco.

This time I did not intend to make the same mistake - I researched shop-vacs and soot on the internet, and came to the realization that the root of my problem was simply a lack of a filter device on the shop-vac.  Since I could not find any information about my 'Stinger' shop-vac on the internet, I made a plan to purchase a newer, more appropriate shop-vac - but when I went to the Home Depot to pick one out, I found that my 'Stinger' had merely been renamed to 'Husky', and the colours changed.  This certainly wasn't obvious from their website!  Fortunately, the Husky model had filters available, and for a whopping $6.99 I left the Home Depot with a filter and a vision of a clean stove.

And it worked!  Well, mostly anyway - the stove is now clean and there wasn't a major mess to clean up afterwards.  It still wasn't a simple or tidy job, and all of my cuticles are still as black as night, but the stove is once again safe and clean-burning.  The only real downside is that the filter didn't seem to get *all* of the soot - I didn't notice any in the air, but when I blew my nose later on I was startled by a pair of jet-black spots on the tissue.  *sigh*.

In other news, I've been spending my quieter evenings watching movies I've purchased from The Sailing Channel - and actually, I'm really torn here.  The Sailing Channel has made their DVD movies available for $29.99 USD plus shipping, or you can download them for $12.99.  Wow!  That is some seriously forward thinking for a niche video company, and I'm very happy to help support them; I have purchased four downloaded movies so far and will likely purchase more.  The part that tears me a little is that for such a forward-thinking company, their website is hideous.  Seriously.

One of the movies, Lin and Larry Pardey's "Get Ready to Cruise", had a bunch of tips that I'd already figured out on my own, but there were two in particular that were each alone worth the price of the video download.  One of the tips involved seat cushions in the salon, which I won't bother to explain here (yet, perhaps I'll blog it when I implement it) - but the other was a simple and effective way to build a shower on a sailboat!

9.5 liters of pure, unadulterated cleanliness

I've been working a bit on that tip, and while I've still got a little ways to go I'm nearing completion.  The premise is simple: use a basic pesticide sprayer, and refit it with a longer hose and a showerhead attachment with a simple valve assembly.  I've expanded on the idea a bit, and replaced the 1/8" feed tube in the sprayer with a 1/4" stainless steel version, which should give me significantly more water flow, making it even more like a real shower.  I also chose a black plastic canister, which should mean that in summertime I can just fill the canister with water and leave it outside in the sun and in a few hours I'll have a hot shower.  In the meantime, I'll have to boil a pot of water on the stove, but given that there's usually a pot of water on the stove for tea anyway, I don't feel like this is a particular hardship.

After you've got the mechanics sorted, all you need is a spot in your boat configured to handle a bit of water splashing around and you've got a shower!  My boat has just such a place - the bathroom, or 'head', right at the front of the boat has waterproofed walls, raised bulkheads and a simple floor to catch the water.

The remaining parts, before I can finally have a shower on the boat, are pretty easy - I need a piece of hose, I need to replace the carpeting in the head with some kind of raised plastic draining tile, I need to fit the bathroom with shower curtains and I need to install a small bilge pump in the bilge to pump out the used shower water.  I hope to get those tasks done before the end of the weekend, but we'll see how it goes.

On the engine front, I think the best money I've spent in ages was the $399 for the Cooper Boating 'Diesel Theory - Advanced 5 Session Program' course down on Granville Island.  The instructor really knows his stuff, and even though the classes come out to about $25/hour, as Trent pointed out a visit from a diesel mechanic is about $120/hour.  I've learned so much about engines in the past few weeks, and it has given me a great deal of confidence in my ability to tackle any problem that should arise on my boat.

rocket surgery!

That being said, Maude still doesn't start.  I've identified the problem; her fuel lift pump is either clogged or the pumping diaphragm has worn out and come apart.  It isn't rocket surgery; I have to remove the pump, disassemble it and inspect it.  If it is still serviceable I need to clean it out, then purchase and install a primary fuel filter before the pump ($100-$200), then bleed the air out of the fuel lines, and Maude should then start.  If the pump isn't serviceable (apparently the diaphragm used to be a replaceable part, but they haven't made them in years) then I have to purchase a new lift pump, which will cost me about $110.  I spoke on the phone with Lindsay at 'Stem To Stern', the local Yanmar service center, and he was exceptionally friendly and helpful.  He was my first contact with that company, and ensured my business - I'll be heading down to their shop soon to pick up the parts, and I'll probably also stock up on fuel and oil filters, zincs and replacement hoses while I'm there.

So what's the holdup?  Well, the fuel lift pump is in a very difficult place to reach without pulling out the whole engine, which is simply not an option at this point.  None of my sockets are long enough to reach the bolts holding the pump onto the engine, and so yesterday I went to Canadian Tire to purchase a wrench to do exactly that.  I figured a single 10mm wrench would do the trick, however when I saw the Mastercraft ratcheting wrenches on sale for $49 for a set of ten, I went for that instead.  Comparing that to $16.99 for the single 10mm socket wrench, $50 was a great deal!

there's the problem...

Of course, the wrench doesn't fit - I mean, the sizing of the socket to the bolt is correct, but the thickness of the wrench itself means that I can't get it to set on the head of the bolt.  I basically need to go back to Canadian Tire tonight to fetch yet another socket - a longer one this time - and then try my best to manoeuvre my hands in between Maude and the wall, remove the pump and then figure out the next step.

Once that's all done and Maude is starting again, I'm not even close to finishing the other work that she needs.  For one, before I purchased Tie Fighter one of the previous owners had had a pump failure while off on a sailing trip, and had to make some emergency repairs - she's been converted to use raw water (ie straight from the ocean) for cooling.  That's... acceptable, at least according to the manual, but not optimal.  There are a pair of heat exchangers bolted to the engine room wall, and a newly-rebuilt freshwater pump is waiting in the wings to be reinstalled.  I'm not sure just how much work that will be, but I'm sure it'll be at least twice as long as my best estimate, which currently is "a Saturday".

Furthermore, I noticed during one of my extended stays in the engine room that the raw water pump belt is very loose!  This is especially troubling, in that it could mean the engine could overheat and eventually fail completely.  I won't have her started up without first replacing that belt.  I do have a replacement belt, I just have to install it - thought that means removing all the other belts first in order to get it on.

Lastly - and the most blatantly obvious to any outside observer - none of the instruments work.  Nada.  Not one.  They're not even hooked up!  Neither is the key ignition or the starter switch, none of the gauges or emergency lights... nothing.  I basically have to rewire them all individually, which isn't actually all that difficult, but will take some time.  Someone in the past has rewired the panel at least twice, probably due to using the wrong gauge wires originally and having them overheat and melt.  I think it's probably better to just rip it all out and install it fresh, so that I know the work is good from end to end.

Anyhow.  That's what's going on.

Well, today marks one of the more 'down' days; there were a bunch of factors, but it definitely started with my own stupidity.  Technically it "started" yesterday but the turning point was at about 2am last night, at least three beers past the "pint of no return", when I decided that my baby sister's suggestion to return to her house with her and some friends for more beers sounded like an excellent plan.  That plan involved riding my bike five kilometers in the light rain with a guitar on my back, drinking several more beers, singing songs and laughing for an hour or so and then riding five kilometers back home in the pouring rain, finally arriving back home at about 5:30am.  I peeled off my soaking-wet clothes, flexed some blood back into my stiff, frozen fingers, and climbed into an icy bed.

At about 7:00am, I got an SMS message from work - something had broken in the webserver farm, and it needed my attention immediately.  Of course, the laptop was in the other cabin, so I had to get out of my (finally) warm bed, get dressed, walk ten feet through the pouring rain to the other cabin where I had left my laptop, and then sit in the cold dealing with a server issue.  Fortunately it was nothing terribly difficult and I was back in my bed in about an hour... just long enough for the bed to have gotten cold again.  At some point during that hour the rain had stopped and the wind picked immensely, howling in the rigging, blowing the hatches closed and making my halyards slap against the mast with a rhythmic cowbell-like sound.

I had only been asleep for an hour or so more when my phone rang - it was my neighbor Shawn, calling from aboard 'And-E', his 26-foot cruising sailboat.  "Hey," he said, "Heads up, that powerboat has dragged his anchor again and just slammed into us, he's headed your way now...".  I thanked him and got off the phone and started getting dressed, and just as I put on my boots I felt the shuddering *thud* of another boat hitting my hull.

It was *freezing* out!  The strong westerly wind coming up the False Creek channel wicked any semblance of warmth out through the weave of my sweater, but I was still a bit too groggy - and quite possibly still a bit drunk - to remember to put on a windproof jacket.  I put out a few fenders, pushed the boat off my bows and let out some more anchor rode.  Fortunately it seemed that just as he hit me, his anchor found purchase in the ocean floor, and as I moved ten feet or so away, he swung back and forth in front of me but didn't come any closer.

Now, that's a really good thing - if you've been following along the past few weeks, you'll know that my engine currently doesn't start, which means that if I have to move the boat, I'm... well, in the interest of keeping this blog clean-ish, let's just say it rhymes with "out of lucked".  I have faith in my anchor; the 35-pound Delta on 40 feet of heavy chain and 300 feet of strong one-inch polyester rope has held me in place through rougher conditions than this - but that's not to say that there's no stress in wondering if it'll hold this time.  The bottom of the ocean floor can change without warning, and False Creek is notorious for garbage and silt.  Recently I helped another friend re-anchor after he dragged, and when we pulled his anchor up we found a one-foot length of steel I-beam lodged firmly in the blades; no wonder he hadn't gotten a good hold!

I watched the powerboat warily for a few minutes - I'd spoken with it's owner a few days prior about his constant anchor dragging, but he'd apologized and shown me his brand new 50-pound 'Bruce' anchor, which definitely should be more than enough to keep a little boat like his in place, so I was pretty sure that if he'd found purchase he probably wouldn't be going anywhere.  I figured he'd be coming back pretty shortly, and so with the powerboat swinging back and forth ten feet off my bow, I went back to sleep.  At this point I realized that it was going to be "one of those days", so I didn't bother taking my clothes off; I just took off my boots and jacket and pulled a blanket over myself.

Well, I got a good solid 40 minutes or so of sleep before my phone rang again.  This time it was Dale, the owner of the other (and nicer) Searunner trimaran in False Creek.  "Drew," he said, "I just got a call from the police, and they say my boat is up on the rocks - are you on your boat?  Do you have a spare anchor...?".  I looked out my front window, and there was Dale's boat, sitting up on the rocks near Monk's.  I do have a big spare anchor, and so it was back out of bed again and into boots and raingear.  I put the heavy anchor into the rowboat and fought the howling winds rowing the 300 meters or so west, dropped the anchor into the water, rowed back to Dale's boat and climbed aboard.  I wrapped the anchor rode around one of the winches, intending to winch him off the rocks, and went to grab a winch handle... nope.  No winch handles.

Fortunately at this point there was a small wave system building, and I was able to rock the boat off the rocks and pull her to safety with just my arms, lying on the foredeck with my legs braced on the stanchions, using the two anchor cleats to gain a mechanical advantage.  You'd be surprised just how large a boat you can move with just a sustained pull!

Once Dale's boat was safe, I rowed back to Tie Fighter to try to catch some more sleep - but of course, there were a few emails that needed my attention, so it was another half-hour before I could return to my bed, which was now once again cold.  I kept the raingear and boots close and buried my head in the blankets - it took a while to drift off, due to the physical activity, but I was determined.

I had finally nodded off and had been asleep for a good solid forty minutes or so when I was awoken yet again by that now-unmistakable sickening *thud*.  I jumped out of bed and threw on my boots, and headed out to find the powerboat crashed into my bows again - this time with a man aboard, doing his best to get his boat untangled from mine.  He apologized profusely; apparently he'd come to retrieve his boat, and in doing so his engines had stalled just after he pulled up his anchor, and they were now refusing to start.  His problem was cooling fluid, or more accurately a lack thereof.  I had some to spare, so we rafted his boat up against my port side and tied him off, and he tackled the cooling problem.  In a few minutes, he was up and running again, and we untied his boat.  He set off with more apologies, sincere thanks and a promise of a delivery of beer sometime soon.

So that brings me to now, more or less.  It's barely 5pm on a Friday, which usually means the day is really only about to begin.  I'm due at a very exclusive techno dance party tonight, but with five hours of sleep and very little physical endurance left I'm not sure how that will go.  The wind has died down a lot, but it's still quite windy out, and the temperature has dropped a few more degrees - thankfully my diesel furnaces are working very well, and the aft cabin is warm and toasty.

Some days are up, some days are down.  I spoke once before about the amplitude of the good-day/bad-day sinewave, but I'm still maintaining that the good days outweigh the bad.  This blog pretty much only reflects one portion of my life also, and suffice to say my romantic interests lately have been equally tumultuous - actually, way moreso.  *sigh*.

I'm almost afraid to have a nap at this point, lest it anger whatever gods govern Friday the Thirteenth and something else comes up - but I think I'm going to give it one more shot.

Fortunately, this is also the week that I began my 'Marine Diesel Engine Maintenance' class with Cooper Boating over on Granville Island.  I've been to one class so far, and I can already tell that the $399 spent on the class was a very, very good idea!  Three more three-hour classroom sessions and one Saturday-afternoon shop session to go - but even after a single class I've gained more understanding of my engine than an entire summer of being around it, blindly trusting it to work when needed.

One interesting part of the class - and in the sailing 'scene' in general around Vancouver - is the age group.  At thirty-three years old, I am no spring chicken - but I am the youngest person in the class by at least twenty years.  I've also noticed this at anchorages and marinas; I have to admit it puzzles me a bit as so many people that I talk with express a longtime interest in sailing and the liveaboard lifestyle.  Is it really the kind of dream that people put off until retirement, at which point you don't have the energy or resilience to take long voyages?  That makes no sense to me, but would explain why so many sailboats sit in the marina and never go anywhere.

Regardless, I cannot take any voyages while Maude is still not starting.  At first I thought it was water in the fuel lines - that still may be the case, but now that I've drained the water from the fuel/water separator and opened the air-bleed bolts, I still am unable to feed diesel through the fuel lines using the fuel lift pump.  I am beginning to think that perhaps the problem is actually in the fuel lift pump itself; these apparently have a diaphragm that wears out eventually, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if mine has worn out.

This weeks' class was mostly about the importance of the lubrication system (ie, engine oil) and the workings of the cooling system (ie raw/fresh water or antifreeze), both of which will require my attention in short order - however, neither of those systems can be maintained without first repairing whatever is going on with my fuel delivery system.  Fortunately next week's class is about exactly that - so if I cannot figure out this problem on my own this week, I have a targeted class next Monday to help me.

Maude is the last major 'mystery' system on Tie Fighter, and I will be her master - or at least her capable attendant.

new LED lighting, and the knife rack

In the 'step forward' department, I've now got all of my lights installed and wired!  This is a huge step; I've been bragging to friends and - well ok, anyone who'll listen, really - that I can finally brush my teeth without the use of a flashlight.  Not that light is really an absolute necessity when brushing one's teeth, but it's nice to be able to visually gauge the amount of toothpaste used, spit accurately into the basin, etc.  You know, the little things.

I think I've written about the lighting here before, but I'll recap anyway.  The lights are custom 12v bulbs that I found at Lee's Electronic Components on Main Street up around 29th Avenue.  The owner (Lee?) assembles the bulbs by hand; each one contains three 1w LEDs (read: bright) fresh from China, each having the interesting property of throwing by far the warmest LED light that I have seen yet.  The bulbs are around $20 each, though he dropped the price a buck or so each when I ordered eight of them at once.

more LEDs - Ikea ran out of white "Beryll"s

As for fixtures to put these bulbs in - I searched long and hard for appropriate mounting fixtures, and had actually resigned myself to hacking together manufacturing my own fixtures from dollar-store components.  The fixtures I wanted would need to be articulated, so as to point the light where I want it, and they'd need to be made of a material that wouldn't corrode in the marine environment, so stainless steel, brass or plastic.  Ideally, they'd also have a switch mounted on the fixture so that I could turn the lights on or off individually.  After searching for the ideal fixtures for a couple of months to no avail, I finally stumbled upon the Ikea 'Beryll' fixture, which met all of my specs, and weren't crazy expensive at $24 each.  Better yet, the Ikea fixtures actually used a 12v wall adapter, so the bulbs they came with were already 12V and the LED bulbs fit perfectly with no modifications at all!

So, pricewise - thirteen bulbs at $19/ea, thirteen fixtures at $24/ea - simple math says I'm into these lights for a grand total of $559, plus taxes.  Let's call that an even $600 and promptly forgot that we ever did that math - honestly, if you keep too close a track on how much you spend on a sailboat you'd very likely have a nervous breakdown.  I placate myself with the knowledge that I'm saving about $1000 on rent, though who knows how long that'll last.  Nothing on a boat is cheap - but having to subject everything to the harsh marine environment certainly makes you aware of how much cheaply made, disposable stuff we use in our daily lives.  I'm starting to notice a growing disdain for things that aren't built to last - my upper lip curls a bit when I see, say, a door handle made from polished but not stainless steel.  Why cheap out?  That'll rust in a matter of weeks if you leave it outside.  Oh, you, uh, aren't planning to ever leave your bathroom door outside?  Well, I guess that's ok then...

As for my second step forward, both of my furnaces are now working!  The furnace in the forward cabin, aka the 'bedroom and bathroom' cabin, has been working for about two weeks, while the furnace/stove in the aft cabin shuddered to life this past weekend just in time for Halloween.  I had planned to install a low-pressure fuel pump to supply diesel to the two furnaces, but after running the furnace in the forward cabin over the span of a few chilly nights, I realized that my little twenty-gallon main diesel tank might be better left to supply just the engine, and decided to reinstall the respective gravity-feed tanks instead.

the diesel stove poses with the propane burner

The diesel furnaces are equal parts fascinating feats of engineering and twitchy, sullen, temperamental old grouches.  With no moving parts, they work by heating up a "superheater" element, which vaporizes incoming diesel fuel on contact.  The vaporized fuel is then drawn upwards by the flue draft into a second chamber, where it is fed fresh oxygen from an intake port and burns clean and hot - these machines were clearly designed by someone who really paid attention in physics class!  The twitchy part comes mostly from the nature of the task at hand; the ambient temperature, the ambient humidity, the viscosity of the diesel fuel (which can vary greatly from supplier to supplier), the amount of carbon buildup in the burners - hell, for all I know, the phase of the moon - can all affect the superheater performance.  Using this equipment is an organic experience, with several knobs, levers and dials to adjust the burn.

Things I have learned since getting my main furnace/stove running again:

• the cast-iron stovetop is lovely for cooking, but very slow.  I'll still be keeping my Coleman propane burner around.
• cooking eggs and/or pancakes directly on the stovetop is AWESOME.
• post-halloween blueberry and Twizzler™ buckwheat pancakes are AWESOME.  maybe I'll post the recipe soon.
• just because you season a stovetop grill with lard one day doesn't mean it's still non-stick the next day.
• the stovepipe may have been cool to the touch all summer, but now it's VERY HOT.  see the toonie-sized burn on my forearm for details.

Probably my favourite thing: the stove stays gloriously warm for an hour or so after I turn off the diesel burner.  Gotta love cast iron!

As for the step backwards - apparently my engine is dead again.  I'm not sure what's wrong with her this time - I noticed a little drop in power the last time I had her out to get water, but hoped that it was just a momentary glitch.  This, you may realize, is absolutely not the sort of thing one can afford to do when one lives aboard a boat, especially if one is noticing some fundamental change in one's only method of locomotion.  Realistically, it's the boating equivalent of smelling a gas leak in your kitchen and hoping that it's just a forgotten egg rotting under the counters or something.

Actually, I have a pretty good idea of what's wrong - the main diesel tank is made of aluminum, and the temperature has been fluctuating quite drastically for the past month or so.  Temperature changes and a not-quite-full metal tank mean condensation, which in turn means it's very likely that there's water in the fuel lines.  This isn't too difficult to deal with, but it does mean that I'm going to have to drain the fuel-water separator and bleed the fuel lines, which on my engine is an eleven-step process requiring three different sizes of wrench.  I've watched a mechanic do it once - several months ago after having almost the exact same engine death happen to me - and with any luck I'll be able to duplicate his work myself.  I hope so anyway, because the last mechanic visit cost me $180 or so.

Maude, relaxing in her cubby

Of course, there's no reason for me to have noticed such a problem while sitting at anchor in False Creek, as I don't often run my engine - my house battery bank isn't hooked up to the alternator, and I have a fantastic Honda EU2000i generator to charge the house bank up to handle my day-to-day work electrical needs.  So of course it took a voyage for me to notice; I had been out of water in my potable water tanks for a day or so, and I needed to travel down to the underside of the Granville Bridge to dock and refill them from the public hose.

Normally when I go for a short trip like this, or head out for a daysail or something, I leave my anchor firmly attached to the bottom of the ocean floor and tie the anchor line off to my dinghy, leaving the dinghy to mark my "spot" in False Creek and saving me the hassle of re-anchoring upon my return.  Re-anchoring can be a real hassle, as you don't really know exactly how your boat is going to swing until you've gone through a tide change or two, and if you've screwed it up you might end up bumping into other boats.  Scratching up your neighbor's paint isn't really a great way to maintain a nice neighborly friendship.

So without hesitation, I tied off my anchor line and set off for the Granville Bridge.  I hadn't even made it a hundred meters yet when my engine began to slow down, just a little at first, but then more and more and finally she came to a shuddering stop.  I raced down below to restart her, and threw the gearshift into reverse to avoid drifting into a neighbor's sailboat.  The best plan of action at this point would clearly be to turn her around and get back to the anchor, so I could figure out the problem without the stress of drifting, powerless, through the busiest bay in the region!  I managed to get her turned about somewhat, but the engine was having none of it, and while she would start she'd die again as soon as I gave her any throttle.

As an aside I have decided that, like my autopilot ("Steve"), the engine is a separate entity, in cahoots with but distinct from "Tie Fighter", the sailing vessel under which she serves.  As such, the engine deserves a separate and unique name; I believe that any machinery that is given great responsibility must have a name in order to have the pride needed to take on that responsibility.  I have decided to name my engine "Maude", a fine Teutonic name meaning "mighty in battle".  "Maude" is also my mother's middle name.

So, drifting free in False Creek with Maude disabled and cranky, I felt justifiably stresssed - though without much reason as it turned out.  The sun was shining, the temperature was lovely, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the incoming afternoon tide pushed me slowly eastwards in a straight line directly back towards my dinghy! When I came within reach I leaned out and grabbed the dinghy with my boat hook, tied off Tie Fighter to the anchor line and breathed a massive sigh of relief.  I didn't have to call the Coast Guard for a rescue!*

(*: well, technically, last time this happened I didn't have to call them either - I broke down directly in front of their outpost, and they came out of their own accord...)

a rainbow at sunset - one example of why I'm still out here

Anyhow.  I have now enrolled in a five-week marine diesel engine maintenance class with Cooper Boating on Granville Island, beginning next Monday evening.  Maude is one of the last big 'mystery' systems on Tie Fighter, and if I'm planning to do any long-term cruising (more on that soon), I need to become both her master and her servant - or at least her family doctor.  Maybe just her trusted friend.  Regardless, we need to able to count on one another to perform adequately when needed, and the first step towards that is for me to learn a lot more about what to do to keep her happy.

Overall?  The nights are getting colder, but the natural scenery is still stunning.  My windows have proven to be mostly weatherproof, and the odd day of sun here and there has allowed me to patch up the remaining leaks as I find them.  My list of needed boat "repairs" grows steadily shorter, though the list of needed/wanted "upgrades" stays pretty much the same length no matter how many I knock off.  The diesel heat is warm, if a bit smelly, my pantry is full and my bed is dry.  My internet works, I'm (mostly) keeping up on my bills, and for some reason I've been a lot more musically productive over the past few days.

I believe I will survive this winter.

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?

At my last major post, I was about to speak at the Open Web Vancouver conference at the Vancouver Conference Center.  My talk went pretty well, I guess - I mean, I definitely didn't win any awards, but nobody walked out either.  I met some great new folks and had a good experience overall.  I know now that speaking at tech conferences is almost exactly like doing live-pa techno in front of a big audience - the more prepared you are, the easier it is to let go and just be yourself.

Since then, there's been... God.  Seriously, where to start?!

I've had repeated, profound musical experiences on the boat, jamming with friends.  Picture if you will a mirror-smooth False Creek, with the boat anchored about fifty feet offshore.  Dan Ross playing guitar and singing, Chad Taylor playing muted trumpet and providing some percussive backup and myself on mandolin and backup vocals - folks walking past, double-taking and sitting down on the seawall to listen, applauding between songs.  Making music on the boat with friends has given me far more joy than I ever imagined it could.  Actually, making music on the boat at all - I've been spending on average about eight to ten hours per week sitting on my deck, playing my guitar and singing.  If there is a greater peace than playing music on the water, I haven't found it yet.

Yarrrr!

I've gone on three epic sailing adventures, the third of which is still ongoing - as of this writing I am anchored in this lovely little bay, surrounded by million-dollar waterfront houses and a beautiful cliff infested with rock climbers.  More on that in future posts - but suffice to say this ongoing solo-sailing adventure is not without its trials and tribulations.

The first of the three epic sailing adventures was with a beautiful woman named Miya who I met at Burning Man in 2008, and who had come to visit me several times over the past year.  Her confidence in my sailing ability was appreciated, though perhaps unwarranted, as we left Vancouver and immediately ran into eight-foot breaking swells just off Point Atkinson, enroute to the Sunshine Coast.  The sailing got a lot better after the first day, but we still had to spend a few days on Bowen Island with engine trouble - mostly waiting around for a mechanic, until we tackled the problem head-on with the manual and some elbow grease, finally solving it ourselves and getting the engine back up and running.  We then cruised up the coast to Secret Cove and Smuggler Cove, where we spent a night before returning to Vancouver.  It was an amazing trip; the ocean opened my eyes and put a good fear into me, and the company was exquisite.  The parting of ways at the end was wistful to say the least.

Drew and Laurel spinning fire on the boat at Diversity

The second sailing adventure was with yet another beautiful woman, Carrie, who joined me on a trip to the Diversity Festival on Texada Island.  Technically we were supposed to sail with a crew of six, but Vancouver being the city of flailers that it is, the crew slowly called in to cancel until it was just the two of us.  The winds were against us the whole way there and back, forcing us to motor around 90% of the tip, so it's debatable whether or not we actually saved any money travelling by "sailboat".  We did get the sails up once or twice, but not nearly as much as I would have liked.  The festival itself was excellent, with us arriving in full pirate regalia to great fanfare, spending a weekend surrounded by beautiful people and great music, and rolling out again on Monday with a grand exit.  Sunday was a bit crazy, as the wind suddenly went from 5kn up to 25-30kn, and Tie Fighter danced in four-foot swells for the night - I now have a lot more faith in my anchor than before.  Another boat nearby actually did slip their anchor, and came within a few feet of hitting us, but we held steady and Monday was much calmer.  Another thing learned: rowing a dinghy in calm waters is one thing, rowing through four-foot waves as they break on the beach is another thing entirely!  I made very good use of the drybags my sister gave me for my birthday.

The next weekend after Diversity was the Emrg-N-See Festival just outside of Salem, Oregon.  I went to this festival with Trent last year, and it was probably the best festival I'd been to to date - it was as though someone had sent a personal invitation to every single gorgeous, blonde, dreadlocked, dubstep-loving yoga instructor on the west coast.  I cannot express how many times I had to stop and shake my head at the sheer beauty surrounding me.  This year was similar, though somewhat diluted, as though every guy who went last year went home and explained the situation to every guy he knew.  I know I did, which is why I was surprised that the crew going down fron Vancouver was much smaller this year.  Regardless, I definitely got my fill of amazing dubstep and bassline music, on very excellent soundsystems.  I also got to take a tablespoon of dancefloor dirt out of my nose every morning, which I am choosing to look at as preparation for this year's Burning Man expedition.

The weekend after Emrg-N-See was Sequential Circus 5, an electronic music event that I guess I'm sort of in charge of.  I say that with some reservation, because the show couldn't happen without every one of the seriously talented and driven people involved - we've got the whole thing pretty much down to a science now, and even with six live acts on a small stage, we continue to be efficient and competent, and we still have a good time doing it.  This SeqCirc was probably the best music to date, though we were up against some very stiff competition.  The capacity of the venue is about 180 people, and we had about 100 people, so while it was never packed, it never felt empty, and nearly everyone who was there at midnight was still there at 3am when we turned the lights on, so I count that as a win.  The next Sequential Circus, SeqCircSix, will be in January.

After recovering from SeqCirc, having a few sailing missions out and around English Bay, and basically settling down and focusing on dayjob work for a while, I took off on my first big solo-sailing trip, headed for Victoria...

I survived the rains of last week without incident. Actually, the rains are a really good thing, as they help by pointing out any spots where the cabin still leaks. I *think* I've got them all now, and it's almost time to start painting! I have to admit, the boat is looking better and better and better - I mean it goddamned well better be, given the amount of hours and money I've been pouring into her. Still, I needed a good project and every hour that I work on her she becomes more "mine".

I spent the whole weekend working on her, again - third weekend in a row of two solid eight-to-fourteen-hour days fixing, upgrading, grinding, fiberglassing, sanding, sanding and sanding. I'm starting to run out of things to fix which is a really, really good sign.

Thursday was a bit odd though - I basically wore out my Mastercraft random-orbit sander. The bearings just "went"... I went back to Canadian Tire to see what they could do about it, and they said not much without a receipt or at least a transaction number. Of course, I can't remember when I actually bought the sander, I think it was around two months ago. Two lessons learned: keep your receipts, and don't buy the cheapest power tool just because it's on sale. A hundred dollars later, I have a new DeWalt sander.

When I returned from the store with the new sander, I arrived at my rowboat and looked out to see a large, shiny, expensive fishing boat tied to mine! Obviously I jumped right in my boat and rowed out as fast as I could to find out what was going on. Apparently the guy lost one of his two transmissions, and wasn't able to get his boat out of 'forward' to steer back into his marina properly, so he quickly dropped anchor and called his mechanic - but apparently where he dropped anchor wasn't the best place, so he drifted right over into my boat. He put out his fenders so there wasn't any damage, but he was still bumped right up against me. He explained the situation

"So," he said, "I thought I'd just tie off to you for a while until my mechanic got here..."

Which he had - his docklines were now tied to my boat, and my docklines had been untied and lay on my deck. Now, I'm a pretty friendly and gracious guy, so I didn't lay into him - still, I'm pretty sure that boarding someone else's vessel without permission is considered a hostile act under maritime law, so at the very least it was very poor manners. I glowered at him some and hurried him along until he realized that he was utterly unwelcome to stay tied to my boat for any longer than absolutely necessary. He made some noises early on about leaving his boat there overnight, but I think my derisive snort got my point across.

To top it off, my anchoring permit, with my cellphone number written on it in sharpie with a message saying "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, PLEASE CALL:" wasright there, posted in the nearest window. If running into someone's boat and having to tie off to it isn't an emergency, I'm not sure what is.

Anyhow. Within an hour his mechanic got there, and they got the boat untied and moved along - I'm not sure if he was fixed or if the mechanic was just a better pilot, but whatever. Barely a thank you, and no hint of an apology. I don't know whether he was just a newbie boater, or didn't consider live-aboard squatters to have the same rights as people from an expensive marina, or if he was just utterly oblivious. Still, I have half a mind to borrow an RV from someone and go park on his lawn for a couple of hours with 'engine trouble'.

The weekend was mostly calm, with twenty-odd hours of hard work in the sun putting a new layer on my tan. I got a tonne of work done on the deck, spent way too much money at the marine store again, and finally installed my LED lighting system. I had gone to Ikea mid-week last week to find the fixtures, and managed to find the perfect fixtures - these ones to be precise, in white plastic. They have a fixture-mounted switch, they accept the LED bulbs perfectly, they have a long cable, and they're mostly plastic so they're ideal for the marine environment. I am incredibly pleased with these lights! I had purchased five, with the intention of putting two in the salon, one over the navigation table, one in the bathroom and one over my bed - but instead I installed all five in the salon and will have to purchase more. WOW though - I do not at all regret the purchase, nor the decision. In one step, the salon at night has changed from "camping" to "home". The light is warm and pleasant, and the difference in the general "feel" of the place is staggering. I will be purchasing another five of these lights, at least. The best part is that even with ten lights installed, I will still only be drawing a total of 30w of electricity to light the entire boat - just about half the draw of a *single* regular lightbulb!

Today, it's back to the grind. We've committed to having one of the gossip sites live and launched in the Amazon cloud by Wednesday. Just in time, the weather has turned sour, and later today and tonight it promises to rain. I've still got a few holes in the front of the boat, so I'll need to cover those with garbage bags or something for Tuesday, but then Wednesday and on through the weekend is supposed to be bright and sunny, so I should be able to get that job finished this coming weekend.

Just in time, too - coming up, I have a speaking gig on cloud computing at the Open Web Vancouver conference, an open offer of a live-pa set in Victoria, a possible second live-pa set at a music festival out on Texada Island (plus I can sail there!), and a third offer of an acoustic live set over on Vancouver Island. Furthermore I have a lovely young lady coming up from Michigan for a ten-day epic sailing adventure in June, a hacker conference in Washington the weekend after that, and I am putting together a live electronic music show on the only weekend in July without a three-day outdoor festival to go to. It never stops!

I have to pick and choose between the musical bookings, because I frankly don't know how much free time I'll have to practice up between then and now - but it's all very flattering nonetheless. Public appearances come with a thrill of adventure, but also with a dark sense of foreboding which drives me to work much harder on my music and performance so that I don't suck. It's one thing to play badly in your living room, it's another thing entirely to play badly in front of hundreds of people!