Sailing – Page 7 – disengage.ca

Back from Hiatus

Judging by the comments, emails and in-person needling at parties and social events, it would seem that people do in fact read my blog. I’m flattered and encouraged, and I apologize for the quiet stretch; it’s been about a month and a half since my last update, and that one wasn’t of much interest anyway. This posting should mark the end of that dry spell and a return to a semi-regular posting schedule.

So, uh… where have I been?

View March 26th 2010 in a larger map

I’m anchored about 300m west of Kitsilano Beach, where I’ve been since February 1st. There are no regular police patrols to worry about, the marine traffic is low, the people are friendly and the neighborhood is pleasant, if a bit homogenized for my tastes, and perhaps a bit remote from most of my regular haunts. The scenery is good, and I peacefully weathered the collective insanity that was the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games without incident. I’ve technically been “legal” to return to False Creek for just over two months now, but in all honesty I’ve been quite enjoying the change of scenery; all things considered, living on Kits Beach is quite lovely and I haven’t felt any strong drive to return to False Creek. I will very likely return to “my spot” near the Cambie Bridge soon, but I am not in any particular rush.

I was told that anchoring out here would get very unpleasant if the weather turned foul, but in reality the only time it’s bad is when the wind comes from the west – there’s reasonable shelter from the north, east and south, but the open ocean is to the west, so even a light breeze can build up a wave system. Rowing back home to Tie Fighter can be somewhat exciting when the wind is blowing hard and the waves are 50cm or more and breaking onto the beach! The first time I tried to row home during a westerly blow, as soon as I pushed off the shore the rowboat was pushed sideways by a wave, where another breaking wave caught her and nearly dumped me completely over, right back onto the beach. Two or three more waves broke into the dinghy in that row home, and by the time I reached Tie Fighter there was 15cm or so of water around my feet. Since then I’ve been making a point of using a massive yellow drybag backpack that my friend JP gave me – whenever the weather report looks dubious I replace my usual Chrome cycling bag with the drybag. I’m certain this practice has saved my laptop from getting wet at least twice.

completely unrelated: random stuff on my table. whatever, blogs are better with pictures.

Gathering potable water was a big question for a while – during the Olympics, my usual water fill-up spot, just under the Granville Bridge, was blocked by a barge holding a three-story restaurant. I never did figure out exactly what the point of it was, but the last time I sailed past there were people seated at a table in the window, being served lunch by a waitress; all three waved at me as I went by. I have been living out of a set of five 4l water jugs for… oh, it must be about three months now. I fill them up once a week or so; I used to use the faucet on the side of the government building near the Cambie Bridge, but now I’ve been using one on the side of the Watermark Restaurant on Kits Beach. The restaurant has “security” faucets, which require a special tool to open an access panel and the same tool to turn the water on and off; neither the panel nor the faucet are any match for my trusty Leatherman tool. Before I figured out the security panels, I had been skulking around in the alleys of Kitsilano looking for an unprotected faucet and feeling somewhat scandalous.

Honestly though, the two biggest problems about living on Kits Beach are both related to the beach itself. For one, there’s really no place to lock my dinghy, so every time I go ashore I have to drag the dinghy bodily up over the tideline. At low tide, the tideline is a 150m slog uphill in wet sand, dragging a 90kg rowboat, a backpack and a bicycle – some days I have to do this three or four times, and almost every time it’s just a warmup for a long, fast bikeride. I figure this makes up for not renewing my gym membership.

Kits Beach in the summer — kits beach in the summertime - not my pic

If I leave the dinghy overnight on the beach overnight in good weather, I have to worry about drunken idiots trying to steal it for a joyride. They usually abandon their mission after they realize the oars are padlocked together and to the boat, but twice now the dinghy has been dragged below the tideline before being abandoned. If I had been another few hours before returning, the dinghy would most likely have washed away, leaving me with a choice of calling in a couch-favour from a friend, a cold, wet sleep on the beach, or a very cold swim home. This won’t be as big a problem in the summer – in fact I’m considering the idea of swimming to and from the boat just for fun.

In the daytime the dinghy faces a completely different problem; several times now I’ve returned to the beach on warm, sunny afternoons to find children playing in my dinghy. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest in principle, but for the fact that the universal game to play with a boat found on a beach appears to be “See How Much Sand We Can Pile Into The Rowboat“, followed closely by “Appropriate The Bailing Bucket As A Beach Toy, And Lose/Bury/Keep It“. I don’t remember these games from when I was a kid, but just for your own reference my dinghy is *very* difficult to effectively clean sand out of, and making a bailing bucket out of an old laundry detergent container has the important prerequisite of first owning laundry detergent. If you are the sort of person who owns laundry detergent, I would be much obliged if you would save the jug for me.

The second problem is the sand itself – it gets in everything! Regardless of how much is in the dinghy, walking across the wet beach my shoes are completely coated in the stuff. I track sand into Tie Fighter on my shoes, then from the salon into the bedroom on my socks, then into my bed on my feet. I have sand in my bed. Do you know what it’s like to have sand in your bed? In March?

thermostats and tea — boiling water serving two purposes - making tea and testing Yanmar engine thermostats

The engine situation hasn’t changed even a little bit. There are three bottles of C-L-R sitting on my navigation table, and one of these afternoons (perhaps tomorrow, actually) I should take the time to run it through the engine block just to see how it fares. I will likely need to use several plastic buckets and re-route one or more of the engine water pumps to get the C-L-R into the appropriate engine chambers. It could get messy.

I did take some time to try to diagnose the problem a little further, and I’m starting to think that at least part of the problem was just that the thermostats had corroded into a partly-open state. I’ve got a new set of thermostats in there now, but given that they’re still in raw water I suspect that I’ll have to replace them yet again before I can call the engine “maintained”. I still have to convert Maude back to antifreeze cooling and get the electronics all hooked up properly, so that I can have alarms and warning buzzers and gauges on the engine again. Soon, Maude, soon.

Anyhow. Hiatus off. More regular updates to come. I promise.

Stress

I started to write a blog post on Friday morning, but by Saturday evening the still-open browser window – the blog editor page with just the word “Stress” written in the title box – had become its own succinct review of the events of those two days. I won’t bore you with the details, but the main point is that after some fast talking, the VPD granted me another couple of days to get my engine going. I spent most of the weekend working on her, and as of now I am reasonably confident (though knocking wood) that she is working well enough to get me the heck out of Dodge.

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.

The Bits In Question

It’s now been about twenty four hours since “the incident”, and the VPD still haven’t shown up. I’m not much looking forward to their visit; it could really only go one of two ways, and those ways depend entirely on who the attending officers are. I figure they will either let me stay – though they may be angry and/or aggressive – or they will tow me out.

The problem with being towed out is that I cannot safely anchor out in English Bay in February weather without an engine – if I drag anchor, I could end up on the rocks, or worse. They can’t – or at least, they shouldn’t – put me into a potentially dangerous situation. That leaves one option: they could choose to tow me to the VPD docks and impound my boat. That would *really* put a damper on my adventures!

Anyhow. I found the part I need. Actually that was easy, as I had already sourced and purchased the part a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, getting another replacement wasn’t so easy, as there apparently isn’t a single water trap in Canada at this time. With some calling around and favours called in I managed to track down a water trap at a marine supply house in Seattle, though due to license agreements they cannot sell it to me in Canada. They did however suggest a shop in Bellingham that they could sell to, who could subsequently sell it to me, and so by way of Sweden to Seattle to Bellingham to FedEx to Vancouver – at significant expense – the part should arrive on Monday.

exhaust system — all the bits I need to replace

The real faulty part, the one that I am 95% sure caused all these problems in the first place, is available in Vancouver. According to the internet, the raw water injector elbow apparently only lasts about five years before rusting out and clogging up – honestly, I should have predicted this, it would have saved me a lot of time and money. The injector elbow is attached to the engine block with a… I don’t know what it’s called, an attacher elbow thing. That thing was seriously rusted, though when I last removed it to check it it seemed fine on the inside, and the guys at the marine store said that they last an awfully long time, so I wasn’t worried. Still, when I went to pull the injector elbow off today, the bit connecting the two snapped off in my hands. Not exactly the kind of behavior you expect from an ostensibly solid steel fitting!

The results of running the engine without exhaust cooling are evident in the photo; a big hole burned in the water trap, the plastic elbows melted, and the bit of flexible exhaust hosing is now somewhat suspect. I’ll likely replace the exhaust hose at the same time, probably picking up a few new stainless-steel hose clamps as well. The funny thing about hose clamps is that about 80% of the time they say ‘stainless steel’ on them but the little screw holding them together isn’t actually stainless, so after about a year you come back to find the band is still nice and shiny while the screw is a featureless lump of rust.

Anyhow. This isn’t even close to what I’m supposed to be working on right now. I have a big webserver rollout with a due-date of Monday, which means I’ll likely be working through the weekend. Back to the grind…

Well, That Could Have Gone Better.

Ouch.

This morning I awoke to a gorgeous, sunny day, an obvious sign that my move out of False Creek would go smoothly. Of course, I neglected to check on the phase of the moon or something and it all went horribly pear shaped – I am currently still at anchor in False Creek, about 500m west of my previous anchorage. I’ve been sitting around doing dayjob work and waiting for the VPD to show up so I can tell them my sob story and pray they don’t issue me a fine or tow me.

This morning I cooked a big breakfast, checked in on work stuff, and prepared Tie Fighter for the grand exit. I fired up the engines – she started (almost) right away! I pulled the anchor; no small task, with months of False Creek grime and growth along the full length of the rode, and noticeably heavier due to the addition of a thick steel cable that I dragged up from the bottom also. The ocean floor of False Creek has a legacy of a hundred years of industrial garbage.

I motored away from my anchorage, a bit nervous, and made it about 200m west before I heard a strange ‘clunk’ and the engine started making a new and different noise – nothing huge, but a perceivable shift, and that’s never a good thing. I went down and checked out the engine compartment, and I could hear a bit of a noise but couldn’t see anything out of place. I later discovered that the secondary water pump – which wasn’t hooked up, but which I had bolted loosely to the engine “just to get it out of the way” – had shaken loose of its mounts and was resting against the beltwheel of the primary water pump, grinding into the bronze housing of the pump.

I went back up to the cockpit and throttled up, and things went smoothly for about five minutes – I could almost see the Granville Bridge, and I figured I could dock there and sort any further problems out before making my way out into English Bay. No such luck; within another minute I felt the engine power drop suddenly, and I saw smoke begin to pour into the cockpit via the engine compartment vent. I immediately throttled down, dove below and opened the engine compartment hatch, only to be met by a cloud of black smoke. I killed the engine and waved the smoke away looking for signs of fire, ready to jump for the fire extinguisher at the first sign of flickering yellow and orange. Fortunately there were no flames, just thick, black smoke pouring out of the dark engine compartment. I thought at first that perhaps I had over- or under-tightened a belt, but as I looked closer I realized that there was a gaping hole melted into the side of the brand-new water trap I had just installed, and the plastic elbows in the exhaust line had both melted beyond recognition. $@&%! The smoke was a combination of diesel exhaust and scorched plastic.

With no engine, floating free in the shipping lanes of False Creek, I was in a bit of a bind. I threw out my anchor and got on my VHF radio.

“Vancouver Coast Guard Radio, Vancouver Coast Guard Radio, this is Tie Fighter, Tie Fighter, over.”

“Station calling Vancouver Coast Guard Radio, go ahead, over…”

I outlined the situation – normally the Coast Guard would recommend me contact a towing company, but given that I was about 500m from their station I thought it might be worth a try giving them a call. About ten minutes later they showed up and offered me a tow, which I gladly accepted. They tied the massive Coast Guard zodiac – the ‘Kitsilano 1’ – to the port side of Tie Fighter and towed me the 150m or so to the nearby anchorage, where I dropped my anchor. I thanked them and sat down to give them all the information needed for their incident report. They left me a copy of the report, so that I can present it to the VPD when they come knocking next.

Anyhow – the long and the short of it is that my exhaust system has been malfunctioning for a while, and now I am 95% certain the problem is in something called a “raw water injection elbow”. The elbow is where seawater that has been used to cool the engine is injected into the exhaust system, cooling down the exhaust and ejecting the warm seawater from the boat. These elbows apparently only last about five years, and lacking a decent record of maintenance on my engine, I have absolutely no idea when the last time mine was replaced.

End result? I’m still in False Creek, albeit closer to the Granville Bridge. A new water trap is about $330 (I know this well, having just bought one last week, argh), a new injector elbow is $390, the connecting bit which may need to be replaced is about $120 and the replacement exhaust elbows are about $35 each. Instead of moving on with my great adventure, I’m now out about a thousand bucks and have a bunch of engine work ahead of me.

Someday. SOMEDAY this engine will be stable and reliable!

Lockdown!

false creek sunset — a lovely farewell evening on the Creek

It is January the 26th 2010, one day past my due date to get the heck out of False Creek – but here I am, still about two hundred meters from the Cambie Bridge. I’ve had visits from the VPD two days in a row, but since I haven’t been able to start my engine there hasn’t been much I can do. Yesterday I managed to get my engine started again, and today I blew a large portion of the day working on day-job stuff and reprovisioning Tie Fighter for an extended stay where there isn’t a grocery store a block away. I’m still here, but I’ll be leaving in the morning. Tonight is my last evening in the Creek for a while, so I figured I’d relax and enjoy it.

I thought I’d update the blog with a few notes on what has changed in the neighborhood over the past month – besides the constant visits from the VPD, that is. As I write this, there is a massive inflatable boom across False Creek, about ten meters west of the Cambie Bridge. There is a gap of about thirty meters across, and that gap is currently being patrolled by no less than four RCMP boats. Still, I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s start from the beginning.

bike path closure — denied access to my favourite bike path!

Southeastern False Creek is home to the newly-constructed Olympic Village. The Village will be home to all the athletes during the games, so of course security is a big question – but the sheer amount of money being spent on this project is astounding. The most recent roadblock to go up, a block or so from my boat, was being staffed by seven people at last check, including three uniformed police officers and four people in VANOC jackets! As far as I can tell, there is a similar roadblock on every road adjoining the Village. The entire area is surrounded by tall steel fences.

Still, this is all stuff you can read elsewhere. This is my blog, and so I will tell (and show) you what I am seeing from the water. For instance, my favourite bike path – the one from Cambie Bridge down towards Science World, past the shiny new Olympic Village buildings, over the boardwalks and sculpted bridge, past the immaculately landscaped gardens and artificial peninsula built for the wildlife – has been blocked off. To get downtown I have to skulk my way through five blocks of alleyways and several blocks of fenced-in sidewalk. I hate riding on the sidewalk.

CFAV Glendyne placing the buoys - intimidating!

Anyhow, about a month ago, a large, scary-looking navy tugboat pulled into False Creek. I did a bit of research and found the tug to be the Canadian Forces Auxiliary Vessel (CFAV) Glendyne, a Glen-class tugboat based out of CFB Esquimalt, near Victoria. The Glendyne put a pair of large, orange buoys in place just short of the Cambie Bridge, complete with orange flashing lights on top. I knew that this would be the beginning of the promised ‘boom’ under the Bridge, but I still hadn’t seen any documentation about what the end result would look like, and so I watched with interest as they set the buoys in place. I figured they’d be back in the next couple of days to finish the job, but once they were finished they motored slowly away and never returned.

Off-topic, one of my neighbors has mentioned that he expects to see at least one military gunboat in the Creek, paired up with the RCMP zodiacs and whaleboats currently patrolling the boomed-off area. I am not convinced, but given the focus on security I wouldn’t be shocked if there were some kind of small, fast Canadian Forces gunboat deployed here during the games.

Anyhow – a few weeks went past without any change to the buoys, but one morning last week I awoke to the sounds of something very large cruising past me. I popped my head up out of the hatch to see a Department of Fisheries and Oceans and/or Canadian Coast Guard (both were painted on the hull) hovercraft making its way slowly down the creek! The hovercraft – which later research found to be the CCGH Siyay based in Richmond – was outfitted with a crane and a large cargo of cement blocks. I figured they were planning to work on the boom somehow, but instead they spent the day lining both sides of False Creek with smaller, lighted channel buoys, indicating the shipping channel in the center of the Creek. This of course was followed by several days of the VPD visiting any boat anchored too far out into the middle of the Creek, issuing warnings and referring everyone to the notice that anchoring within the commercial shipping lane is banned by Transport Canada.

Personally, I think the buoys are actually a nice touch, and I hope they stay past the Olympics. It’s nice to pull into a bay and have your way clearly marked – it makes everything feel a little bit safer, a bit more professional… dare I say “a bit better-managed”?

Anyhow. Sequential Circus 7 was this weekend – it was excellent, thank you for asking – and as such I didn’t spend much time on the boat. When I returned, I found that someone had been busy, and there were now several large black inflatable sausages stretched across the Creek! They’re about two and a half meters in diameter and appear to be made of a thick rubber, with webbing straps every three meters or so, tie-down grommets on those straps, and large metal rings at the end to fasten the sausages together, or to the shore. In other words, the sausages are clearly designed and built to do one thing only: to operate as a boom or blockade over water.

One question we’d be bantering about on the Creek was what exactly they were planning to use for the boom. One guy thought large logs, another thought a very thick rope – I had no ideas, but apparently the answer was easier than we thought.

While rowing back to Tie Fighter yesterday, I made a short detour out to the opening in the boom, where an RCMP whaler was sitting. As I approached, he was quick to lean out the window and let me know that the area past the boom is now restricted waters – as an aside, I have gotten similar warnings from the people manning blockades as I approached them on my bicycle. Seriously? The huge black barrier, the orange flashing lights and the menacing police boat – or in the case of the roadblocks, the seven people in official-looking uniforms, the flashing lights, the pylons, the big orange-striped barrier sawhorses and the police car parked perpendicularly to the road – do other people really not understand these signs? Or maybe it’s just that the barricades are so universally unpopular that anyone approaching them must be some kind of threat. I don’t know. Anyhow.

The officer, once he understood that I was just there to ask questions, was quite friendly and explained that the boom would be closed to all boats except official VANOC-approved vehicles. The boom is apparently scheduled for removal at the end of March, but the officer did not know whether or not the shipping lane buoys would be removed.

Speaking of speaking with officers, I’ve spoken with two different sets of VPD in the past two days, both of whom were somewhat interested in the fact that my anchoring permit had expired. Each time the R.G.McBeath shows up there are at least two officers onboard, and often more. Yesterday there were four officers, none of whom I recognized, and when I explained to the officer doing the talking that I was planning to leave as soon as I could get my engine started, he answered “I’ll believe that when I see it.”. He then pulled slowly away without saying another word to me. In contrast, when they came by today, it was another batch of officers I’d never seen before, and when I showed them that I’d just gotten my engine running again, the officer in charge said “It’s almost 5pm, why don’t you wait until morning before pulling out, it’ll be dark very soon.”. Nice!

Anyhow. I’ve only blown my deadline by two days, but it’s definitely time to go. The only thing I know to expect is significantly rougher waters – False Creek is very protected, and I’m really not looking forward to just how bad the February weather can be out in the open. Rest assured, I’ll blog about it as I go.