News From The Front
We finally managed to escape from Shelter Island!
A particularly poignant lesson I've learned in the past two weeks - well, technically I had already learned it once twice this summer, but apparently I'm either a sucker for punishment or a sucker for a "deal". The lesson is that - to borrow from Robert Asprin's 'Myth Adventures' series - when you think you're getting a deal from a dock rat, you had better count your fingers, then your limbs, then your relatives.
"Dock rats" are people who live in the boatyard or on the dock, picking up cash contracts wherever they can. Dock rats who charge cheap rates for carpentry or painting or engine work often do because they've got addiction problems, socialization problems, or are just straight-up incompetent, preventing them from working for reputable companies or starting their own. In some cases it's a combination of all three!
valve cover, showing the damage
Anyhow. I was bitten three times at Shelter Island, hiring dock rats for labour - there were at least another three times that the work I hired them for was of excellent quality, but one carpentry job was botched utterly, one painting job went sour, and now finally my engine repair work has gone south. The technical version? When the guy reassembled my engine after replacing the head gasket, he didn't tighten down a particular lock-nut properly, and within a couple of hours of use the engine vibrated the nut loose and eventually fired a push rod up and straight out the top of my valve cover!
On a good note, despite the fact that the engine is currently not running while I await delivery of the parts from Toronto (parts cost: $15. "overnight" shipping: $85. ouch, but it beats waiting two weeks...), I feel very, very good about the engine! When we removed the head to change out the head gasket, we found that whoever it was that last changed the head gasket actually installed the wrong gasket for the engine!
I'm sure 95% of you have no idea what it means to have the wrong head gasket installed - I didn't know until very recently. The short version? The gasket was completely blocking the passages for the engine coolant, which finally explains my overheating symptoms. Ah HAH! Finally, a big, glaring reason for the problem that's been plaguing me for a solid year!
"Two dollars. No receipt."
The repairs from here will be pretty easy. I've had the main part done already; finding a guy to weld a patch into the cast-aluminum valve cover. This wasn't a problem in a blue-collar fishing town – asking around at the marine stores resulted in a list of seven local guys who could do the job, sorted by price and quality of work. I chose a guy near the center of the list, and when Miya and I found him, he barely said three sentences to us from the time we explained the problem until the repaired piece was back in my hands. I asked how much he wanted for his time, and he charged me a whopping two dollars.
The rest of the repairs I think I can handle myself, there's not much to it. I've picked up a set of feeler gauges; basically a set of strips of metal, each one a specific thickness. I'll use those to carefully adjust the rockers on the top of the engine to their specific gaps, and with any luck the engine will fire up and run smoothly. I will still eventually have to convert the engine back to fresh water cooling, but I'm pretty confident that I can do that myself some weekend.
*sigh*. Well, engine repairs aside, I am overjoyed to finally be back at anchor! Miya and I limped into Steveston Harbour on Saturday night and we've spent the past few days anchored across from Steveston Landing, which is a lovely, quaint little "seaside boardwalk town". There are probably two hundred fishing boats at the public docks, then a fisherman's wharf market flanked by retirement condos on all sides. The first time I visited this neighborhood was a few months ago with Ernst, dropping off my diesel stove at Mariner's Exchange, a consignment marine store - he mentioned that Steveston Landing was a really nice place to spend a day with the significant other, wandering around the docks, taking in the sights and having a nice meal.
Tie Fighter at anchor in Steveston Harbour
One milestone that might not seem like much to the casual observer but that really meant a lot to me - last night was the first night spent under the newly-installed LED anchor light - a legally-required white light at the top of the mast. No big deal, right? In the time I've been living aboard I've noticed that very few of the anchored boats have their anchor lights on at night. As a result a lit anchor light at night has come to mean to me the difference between a well-appointed, properly-maintained sailboat under the command of a skipper with a good attention to detail and a... oh, I don't know. An unoccupied boat? A derelict vessel? A scofflaw? I have always wanted to be one of the boats with their anchor light lit up at night, but between electrical problems and battery issues and just plain not having the light at the top of the mast... I haven't ever been. If I can help it, I will never spend another night at anchor without my light aglow.
The plan from here? When the parts arrive, I will finish the engine repairs and Miya and I will head back to False Creek for a few weeks. We're hoping to sail on Saturday; we're approximately 20nm from home, and if we make decent speed we can be back in Vancouver in about four hours.
What I Did On My Summer Vacation – June Edition
It's been six months since I've updated my blog, and much has changed. So much, in fact, that the sheer amount of things I have to write about has been preventing me from writing at all! I've resigned myself to the fact that many of this summer's great adventure stories will have to remain untold, and that I will just have to tell the biggest story - and in the spirit of 'worth a thousand words', I think the story is best told as a series of photographs, with a descriptive paragraph for each. There are eighty-six photographs in total, and that's after having culled and cut and edited out well over half of them. Most of these photos are lower quality, all that remains from my iPhone's 'Facebook' application.
The short version: I planned to haul Tie Fighter out of the water for a two-week intensive repair and paintjob session, and those two weeks turned into a grueling sixty-five day slog, working ten or more hours per day in the hot sun with a total of five days off over more than two months. Fortunately the weather cooperated, if you count blisteringly hot sun as cooperation...
Without further ado, I present to you "What I Did On My Summer Vacation", the June edition. If you're reading this on Facebook, I strongly suggest you visit my main blog site (http://www.disengage.ca) for the original formatting.
Ernst at the helm
Given the ongoing problems with my engine overheating, I figured it was probably prudent to enlist some help with the travel from Kitsilano up to the boatyard that I'd be working in, Shelter Island Marina in Richmond, BC. They were chosen because they are the only boatyard in the lower mainland with a travelift capable of hauling out a boat the width of Tie Fighter!
towing Tie Fighter behind the Foulkeswagen
My friend John Foulkes offered to give me a tow up the Fraser River with his powerboat, and so Ernst and I sailed Tie Fighter out around UBC and to the river mouth, then attached a line to John's boat (the Foulkeswagen) and headed up the river. Aside from a near miss of the banks during a daring coffee-relay mission between the two vessels, the trip was peaceful and uneventful.
approaching the lift
I spent the night on the Shelter Island docks, then in the morning I motored up to the lifting dock...
travelift lifting Tie Fighter out of the water
...where I was lifted up...
out of the water
carrying Tie Fighter across the boatyard
...carried across the boatyard...
washdown guy in hazmat suit
...powerwashed, and...
- Tie Fighter blocked and ready for work
...finally set down gently on metal stands, ready to be worked on.
At this point I honestly did think that I'd only be out for a total of two weeks, but everyone who asked about it laughed when I told them my schedule and predictions of how long it would take. One guy, a fellow geek, actually recommended I take all my predictions regarding time and money to be spent, add a worst-case scenario, and then multiply it all by 'pi'. Strangely his predictions were the most accurate of anyone.
stuck centerboard, meet physics
The first task was to remove the centerboard, though of course it didn't want to come out. At some point, some previous owner hit some rocks and damaged the fiberglass bottom edge of the board - the wooden centerboard absorbed seawater and swelled up, causing it to stick in the centerboard trunk. Two days, a lot of rocking, some serious leverage provided by halyards and block-and-tackle, and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil later... she came out.
the centerboard finally out
Six hundred pounds of centerboard doesn't move around too easily! Ugh, three different layers of anti-fouling paint, old fiberglass, wood fibers and several years of marine growth - this piece of wood was foul. We drilled a bunch of drainage holes in the board and propped it up on wood blocks "for a few days". Little did we know, it would be there for almost two months.
One of the first major projects was to repair a "tiny, little 6-inch spot of rot" in one of the port ama bulkheads. Of course, we quickly learned that as soon as you can spot any rot, there's a lot more that you can't see... and the project turned into a bulkhead, support beams, an inside panel and several feet of decking!
DR tracing out a new bulkhead
My close friend Dan Ross spent a large portion of the summer out in the boatyard with me, helping to repair the boat. His work ethic and good humour kept me both motivated and sane through the long, hot days on the asphalt.
- DR fitting the replacement bulkhead
- port ama hatch rebuilt, awaiting fiberglass
- Miya on the starboard bow
During this time I also had other friends visiting and helping quite often - here's a pic of my lovely girlfriend Miya working on the starboard bow. At first we tried to remove the old anti-skid paint with sandpaper and then with an angle grinder, but the sheer amount of work to do so was staggering. In the end, we found that methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) was the answer - the anti-skid paint dissolved under the solvent!
- Miya, Teak and DR pulling up the mast
We also removed the mast and rigging, both so that I could inspect and upgrade the mast head equipment and so that we could get access to the centerboard trunk, the largest and most complicated rot problem of all...
- the mast on the ground
- lots of rot in the mast step!
Above you see the mast step, which essentially collapsed as soon as I applied a little pressure to it. I'm very fortunate that it never collapsed on me while I was at sail, though I'm pretty sure that I would have had problems if I'd left this project for another year.
- the rain cover built and installed
As the Canada Day weekend approached, bringing June to a close, the weather forecast showed a prediction of rain. With a quick run to Home Depot for lumber and a tarp, we built a rain cover over the worksite - which had the side effect of giving us some much-needed shade on what would prove to be the hottest days of the summer.
And so ended the month of June. I'll try to add the subsequent posts, with the photos from July and August in a timely fashion, but my world seems to be accelerating currently, so no promises. 
Long Night
Well, that wasn't so bad after all - I mean, I didn't get hardly any sleep, but I did make it through ok.
Watching it now I can see that it's really hard to tell the height of the waves in a 2D video - next time I guess maybe I should get lower to show some perspective. Suffice to say that at the peak of the storm the occasional wave was breaking up onto my deck, which is unnerving at the best of times, but twice as scary at 3am when everything is cold and black.
Because Tie Fighter is a trimaran she is not vulnerable to the severe rolling, or 'heeling', that a regular sailboat would see in a storm like this. Instead she jumps to the top of each wave, but due to the anchor line pulling her into the wind she often cannot ride gently down the other side as she'd like. In a strong wind, her bows point anywhere from 90º off of the wind, and when she's pointed directly into the wind she'll sometimes ride to the top of a wave and SMASH her bows down into the trough of the next, pressing me bodily into my foam mattress.
Due to their width, multihulls are much more vulnerable to "corkscrewing" in a wave system; this means that one bow will head up the incline of a wave, followed by the stern, followed by the other stern, followed by the other bow, while the first bow and stern are already on their way down the other side of the wave. Think of a bowl of soup, and imagine dipping the edge of the bowl in a circle, causing the soup to slosh in a circular wave. Now imagine that you are the soup. Corkscrewing is hell for people with motion sickness! Nights like last night make me realize just how phenomenally lucky I am that I don't get seasick.
Engine repairs have jumped up on the priority list, yet again. I think it's time to just have the engine pulled out and overhauled; it's something that I really need to be stable, and currently it just isn't. I'm now hunting for a boatyard that will do this for me, ideally one that will let me hang around and watch.
Incoming Windstorm!
Once again, it starts.
Environment Canada has issued an advisory for tomorrow, calling for northwesterly winds of 20kn to 33kn. Two weeks ago when the massive windstorm sent seven boats up onto the beach and wrecked several more along the coastline, they weren't calling for much more than that.
really should have rowed over to get a better shot of this
I'm starting to think that Kitsilano Beach might be unlucky for boaters. On Saturday night I left the boat at about 6pm, heading off into Kits in search of food. When I returned at about 9pm there was a new sight in the water; at first I thought it was a small tugboat with a boom of logs attached, but at I got closer I saw that the boom was one of those inflatable booms for containing oil spills, and the "tugboat" was actually the upper platform of a luxury motorboat, with the rest of the boat resting on the ocean floor!
I have no idea what the story is, but I watched on Sunday as the tide went out and a few folks in wetsuits went inside, ostensibly plugged the (hole? burst hose? broken through-hull fitting?) and pumped out the boat. I didn't notice any oil slick, and the boom was gone by mid-morning. The police and the Coast Guard also made appearances during the day probably to check out the damage. I didn't actually see the boat leave, but I did see a couple of tow-boats hovering like vultures nearby, so I assume the sunken vessel was towed away.
this neighborhood is so surreal sometimes!
Tomorrow, bright and early, the forecast is calling for a lot of wind - to put it in perspective, at about 10kn of wind, the waves get up to about 30cm tall and the boat is in constant motion. At about 15kn, the waves jump to about 50-60cm tall, and rowing out to the boat becomes a little more difficult, and at about 20kn of wind I have to have everything in a drybag, as I'm not going to get to or from the boat without getting wet. Tomorrow they are calling for 20kn - 33kn of wind, which will mean breaking waves larger than 1m, probably making it impossible to get to or from the boat.
I know - or at least I'm pretty sure - that my anchor line will hold, but it won't be a comfortable time. According to the weather forecasts, the wind won't entirely let up until the weekend, so if I don't get into False Creek before the big winds start, I am unlikely to be able to pull up my anchor and go until Friday. My current plan is to get up really early tomorrow morning and motor for False Creek, stopping at the dock at the Granville Bridge so I can fill up my water tanks, wash my dishes and give my engine a chance to cool down a bit before motoring down to Science World to anchor for a week or so. I guess we'll see what time the wind starts! If I'm stuck in the waves, I'll be sure to blog about it.
Windstorm Aftermath
First off: I am fine. Tie Fighter is fine.
When I left for Seattle on Saturday afternoon, there were a dozen boats - possibly a couple more - floating just off of Kitsilano Beach. When I returned on Thursday, there were only two remaining in the water; Tie Fighter and a small, unnamed blue-hulled sailboat that I frankly don't remember whether or not it was here when I left.
front-end loader digging out 'Tuesday Sunrise'
Of the other boats, two (Theresa on 'And-E' and Ryan on 'Helen Kate') escaped to False Creek - but seven of the others were washed ashore, with one of those smashed to pieces on the beach and another holed by the rocks and sunk. The popular news outlets reported three sailboats on the beach, but by my tally seven boats dragged their anchors and hit the shore. One boat, a large steel tug, fetched up against Randy's boat and forced her much further up the beach, making it difficult for him to get 'Tuesday Sunrise' back into the water. The tugboat was apparently gone by the morning, possibly due to help from the Coast Guard, or perhaps it never went too hard aground and they were able to motor off without assistance. Earlier today I saw this scene; a front-end loader helping to dig out the area under the 'Tuesday Sunrise' keel so that hopefully come high tide she'll be able to slip back into the water.
this used to be a Piver trimaran
Bob's boat, the name of which I cannot remember, was not so fortunate. His anchor slipped and he was blown ashore, but the waves pummeled his home-built Piver trimaran literally to pieces. There's no salvaging the wreck; he is out of a home. Speaking with Shauna this morning, she mentioned that she had run into a girl on Commercial Drive carrying a pirate flag, and the girl told her that she'd taken the flag from a wrecked sailboat on Kitsilano Beach. Shauna immediately recognized the flag as being from Bob's boat - personally, I think it's incredibly disrespectful to steal from a wrecked vessel when there is obviously a salvage operation going on! I can't help but compare that girl's actions with someone coming upon a burning house with people running in and out saving as much as they can, and that someone taking a souvenir from the pile of rescued items. Had I run into this girl on Commercial Drive I would not have been polite, to say the very least.
anchor rode, frayed and broken
Tie Fighter held up to the storm admirably, with the only casualty being the fraying of the anchor rode and the rub damage to the hull nearby. This isn't as trivial as it would appear, however - the rode itself is a 250' piece of heavy nylon rope worth probably $350-$400 new, but the rubbing has worn through one of the three strands, rendering it pretty much useless. This could have been avoided by adding what sailors call "chafing gear", which usually amounts to a short length of old, used fire hose, cut lengthwise and lashed onto the anchor rode where it chafes against the boat. If the anchor rode had frayed through the second and third strands, there is no question, Tie Fighter would have joined the other boats on the beach - or perhaps been wrecked on the rocks! I rarely have more than 100' of rode in use, so I will be able to cut the rode in half and use the unfrayed portion, but the rode will still need to be replaced in the near future.
Inside Tie Fighter there was almost no sign of anything having happened at all. The dishes in the sink were sitting a bit differently, but none were broken, the chess set and playing cards were on the salon bench instead of on the windowsill where I left them - nothing serious. I think partly this is due to my having been bitten once before; sailing through rough weather only to return below to find all of my tools spread over the floor of the cabin, and having to spend twenty minutes repacking my drill bits and socket sets. Now almost everything I own is compartmentalized using tupperware-ish plastic bins, which fit neatly into the lockers and don't move around much even in the heaviest weather.
Overall, I dodged a serious bullet. Still, this is twice in a row now that I've been away on shore when the serious northwesterlies have hit, and part of me feels like I've missed out! However, when the 20kn winds from the northwest blew up again this morning at 5am and the boat jumping around in the 1m waves prevented me from sleeping, I realized that while perhaps it would have been interesting to be out here in near-hurricane winds, it wouldn't have been anything you could call "comfortable". Sooner or later I'll be forced to face that weather, so there's no sense wishing hardship on myself for no reason.
Recent Posts
- Delicious Ham
- La Paz, At Last!
- San Diego, Round Two
- San Diego
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- Coos Bay, Oregon
- Weather Window!
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Twitter Feed
- mux: I think Pelican™ cases can be used as a pretty accurate metric of how awesome your life is. currently we have four large cases on the boat. May 18, 2012
- mux: tomorrow marks one month in the boatyard, with a few days left to go. today marks the second day in a row that has ended with a sunburn. May 18, 2012
- mux: multiple blisters... from power tools. not sure if this is a new personal best or new personal low. the new swing-keel is taking shape. May 13, 2012
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Other Cruisers' Blogs
- Miya's blog
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