Winter 2012 - Of Shrink Wrapping and Varnish

Time marches on...

It is almost three weeks since we left the boat on the hard in Port Severn. As you will see from the picture below, she's been all shrink-wrapped. It's the first time we've done this as the cost has always been prohibitive. Especially down in Toronto. But since we got a more north-friendly price on our winter storage package, we decided to bite the bullet this year and wrap her up. We have been doing a lot of wood-work and gel-coat renewal this past year, so the additional protection is warranted probably. 

Mary Mary in her shrink-wrap

The 'bright-work' (all wooden and varnished surfaces) is a continual job on a Grand Banks and we have only just figured out a good combination of stains and varnish that seems to work quite well. Except for areas that we didn't get around to giving enough coats to during our summer on the Trent. These are starting to show signs of degradation already and we may even have to do some surfaces from scratch. But it is hard as stink to get yourself to be sanding and varnishing all the time where there's so much laying around to do. If only we could figure out how to get the cats involved somehow. Maybe with little brushes on their tails.

We have found that with the teak we have that  a good combination of steps is as follows:

1.      Clean the wood with either teak cleaner or mineral spirits

2.      Sand the wood to base, then fine sand

3.      Then a coat of protective oil (we have been using Australian Timber Oil, neutral tone, basically except when we couldn't get 'neutral' and had to use 'honey' which is slightly richer in texture but not really noticeable over all)

4.      Then 8 coats of varnish with fine sanding in between each coat. (We use Epifanes for this; a Dutch product.)

Hand rail with three coats of varnish

After this you maintain it by keeping it dry when possible and once a year find and repair weaknesses. When we get back to it in 2013 we'll try once again to be more disciplined with it. Anyway, that's the theory.

The End of the Trent-Severn Waterway

366 Kilometres - 43 Locks - Approximately 45 Days

I'm writing this post from the relative comfort of my home office, warm it is true, but bewildered and becalmed by this return to 'civilization'. We have been back for ten days now, have tried to bring our heads back around to life in the big city and the certain knowledge that it will be at least 7 or 8 months before we can take to the water again. (Although we are going to Bonaire in the Caribbean for a dive holiday in January.) Such is the life of a Canadian boater until the time comes when you can live-aboard in the south.

The boat is on the hard at the Starport Marina in Port Severn where, because of favourable rates, we will also get her shrink-wrapped this year for added protection. We arrived at the marina on September 25th and spent almost a week there before actual haul-out (including my birthday, where I found out about the dive holiday, a generous gift from the beloved bosun.) During this time we winterized and I returned to Toronto briefly for some voice work. The weather is a mix of sun and rain, mild during the days, cool at night. Nice enough but not the Indian Summer we'd hoped for.

Getting to the marina from our location when last we posted involved descending the Big Chute Marine Railway and then motoring to Port Severn and the last lock of the Trent-Seven Waterway... Lock 45. It's been a great ride.

The Big Chute marine railway car arriving upstream

The Big Chute is quite an adventure and a wonderful way to wind up the trip. You motor around to the blue line on the wall near the railway and wait for the lock masters to deliver the big car that you will travel in over the road and down to the water on the other side. Then you motor in slowly and when you're in position two slings are brought in under the boat. The car then slowly moves up the rail, the water runs off and the boat is left resting on its keel on the car floor. The slings just act as a balancing device for a boat this size. The whole car, boat cradled within, then travels out of the water, over the road and begins its slow, steep descent down to the water on the other side.

Looking out from the car to the water down below

Sitting on the bridge as you are hauled over the rise is a truly strange experience and quite disconcerting, particularly when you breach the rise and for a long, uneasy moment, can't see anything in front of you. Sort of like cresting the top of a roller-coaster hill. Onlookers are watching us and taking pictures and we joke with them nervously, shouting the old carney phrase... "Do you want to go faster!!" When you descend on the other side the boat is on a bit of an angle downwards and you get the sense that with a bit of a nudge the whole boat would slide right off the car. There is no forward gate as you can see in the picture above.

Unfortunately, because of our port battery issues, we are unable to start the port engine quickly enough on the other side so I take the boat out slowly just using starboard thrust. The wind, which has been gusting mightily at around 30 km/hr for the last day or two catches the bow and it is only by the narrowest of margins that the stern rail avoids rubbing against the left side of the car as we exit.

We stop in the centre of the bay, take a breath, re-start the port engine and continue on.

The journey from Big Chute to Port Severn is short but the day is sunny and the protected channels leading to Severn are pretty and show us some of the best aspects of the anatomy of the Muskokas. We take the adventurous route through the gap at Basswood Run on the Gloucester Pool where we find the waters lower than expected but with caution we make it through unscathed. Don't try this with a draft of over 4' though.

On route to Lock 45 and the end of the trip

At Lock 45, Port Severn, we tie up and investigate the lock and some of the surrounding area. We have seen the tiny village when we transported the truck to Starport Marina from Orillia, so we know the area a little already and don't venture far. We have decided, since this is the last lock, that we will lock through and the day before haul-out, come back through again to get a pump-out at the upper Starport Marina as one last kick at the can before winter.

Landing at the lower Starport marina becomes problematic as the wind has shifted and is bearing down on us at around 20 km/hr and adds to the approximately 3 knot current spilling out onto Georgian Bay from the dam. I have a rough time bringing her into the tight slip we will be using. It's the last of several in a line running east to west and immediately to the west of this last slip the rocks rise up in an instant. As I'm manoeuvring in, the wind catches the stern and starts to pull the props frighteningly close to the rocks so I abandon the bow-in approach in favour of the stern. This takes away the threat of prop damage, but now the exposed, larger surface of the bow and bridge begin to take us once more into the danger zone that is only about ten feet away. The dock hands that have come to help us are braying and Brooke slips as she attempts to leap to the pier with a line and hangs from the side, precariously, for a moment until she regains her footing.

Click to Enlarge

Finally the boat is wrangled into the slip and tied tight and we breathe easy once again. It turns out that right now the water is lower than it has been for a long time, in some cases the person questioned can't remember it ever being so low. This means that the small basin that the marina is situated in is even smaller now in terms of navigable water area. Immediately after landing, two fellow boaters that had helped drag us in inform us that they are at the marina because they had tried to navigate the channel that leads from Georgian Bay into the lock area and had damaged their props on the rocks. The strong wind and current apparently had pushed the day-markers off of their positions. We wonder what this will mean for us next year when we attempt to leave the Trent Severn by that same channel. Especially if the water hasn't risen any with the spring run-off.

It is Tuesday and the next few days will be spent winterizing the boat and for one day I will return to Toronto to do some work. On my return we will complete the process, celebrate my 59th birthday at a restaurant named the Dam Grill and then on Monday, Oct. 1, we will haul-out. We have decided that, owing to the low water levels, we won't return up through the lock to the marina located there for a pump-out. Instead we will take advantage of a portable unit that they have at the lower Starport. That means that we truly have seen our last boat trip of 2012.

One of the unusual local rock markers... a bicycle rack complete with bicycle

The wind dies for a day or so but rises once again, just in time for me to have to manoeuvre out of the slip and over to the travel-lift bay some hundred yards away. The water is even lower now and in order to take the boat from the slip over to the bay, I will have to bring the boat out of the slip by at least the length of the boat  (36') before I can start to turn to starboard. (Refer to diagram above.) This because of the tight slip we are in. Attempting to turn before the boat was truly out of the slip would cause the stern and swim platform to swing to port, striking the dock end. Directly in front of the slip, about 60' away, is a line of red danger buoys that are strung up in front of a shoal of mud and rock that is usually beneath the water but now looms out ominously from the receding waters. That means I will have about a 20' buffer in which to turn the boat and avoid disaster.  Not a lot of room for error under these circumstances.

The dock hand who will be hauling us out comes along to the dock and reassuringly tells me that if I can't control the boat better than when I came in the other day that I will surely be dashed to bits on the rocks over by the travel-lift bay. Yes, I say, that would be bad. But I am not so much worried about bringing the boat in by the travel-lift because the rocks there are up-wind of the bay. I am more worried about getting the boat out into the basin and making a turn before the wind and strong opposing current takes her.

This is the sort of thing (when you know in advance what the problems are probably going to be) that makes you lose sleep. It reminds me of when I was just learning the ropes, down in Florida on the Okeechobee Waterway, and had to negotiate my first locks with limited skills at manoeuvring and an inexperienced first mate (Mister Bruce) to help. After a near-disaster in the first lock there, I could barely sleep the night before having to enter the next one and my daytime was little better, being filled with dread of the next lock to come. But the thing of it is, I guess, that you are left with no choice as Cappie. What has to be done, has to be done. And you learn.

Anyhoo, we cast-off for haul-out and sure enough, the bow starts drifting to port and close to the rocks as I attempt to turn to starboard. I am quickly running out of my 20 foot buffer dead ahead and my 10 feet or so to port. I attempt to throw the engines into a port forward/starboard reverse manoeuvre where I feel more comfortable applying more thrust, but the yaw continues as I drift downstream. I am rapidly running out of time and space, so I decide to reverse momentarily to give myself more room off the bow and then I'll gun it forward while turning to starboard. As the stern closes in dangerously close to the dock that I am attempting to leave, the people there are shouting warnings that I register but don't have time to acknowledge, nor to explain to them what my plan is (this all happens in about 30 seconds but seems, of course, like an eternity). I manage to get away from the dock with help and finally the bow starts to respond to the wheel and I complete my 90 degree turn to starboard with about 5feet to spare between the port hull and the red marker buoys. The rest is a piece of cake comparatively as it just remains to pull into the travel-lift bay. The only concern there is depth but it turns out all right and the Mary Mary is lifted out of the water on a slightly wonky angle and rides over the bumpy tarmac to its resting place behind the marina buildings.

The excitement and scare leaves us both shaking somewhat. I remark to Brooke how a strange thing happens when operating the controls in an iffy situation. The  two gear levers (port & starboard) only have three positions (neutral, forward and reverse) whereas the throttle controls are fluid and just slide from idle to full. You operate the gear levers with your left hand and the throttles with your right. But I sometimes find myself pushing on the gear controls harder and harder as I wait for the boat to respond. This even though, of course, once the lever has been pushed into forward, pushing it harder doesn't accomplish anything. Even while I am doing this I realize that it is just me 'willing' the boat to do as I want and faster. But it is hard to resist the urge not to shove on the already utilized lever and shout "come on, you bastard!" as you attempt to avoid some imminent threat. I guess it doesn't really matter to the manoeuvre but its a pretty good indication of your tension level.

Mister Huxley tries to encourage Cappie before haul-out

We spent the rest of the day cleaning out the boat and loading the truck full to the brim with our clothes, the items that will be needed at home, left over food, etc. And, of course, Mister Huxley and Mister Hattie who naturally have slept through the entire event.

 

September 27th - This posted by Brooke

Motoring along

It was a bit cold this morning when I slipped out from beneath the covers. Or, more precisely, was tugged out by Huxley’s insistent meowling. She spent a good deal of time under the duvet during the wee hours.  Adrian left for the city yesterday just after noon, which partly explains why it was extra cold in bed. He had two recordings to do, one session yesterday was at Pirate Studios where he records a series called Almost Naked Animals, voicing characters named, Shrimp, Radiation Rooster and Mouse Howie, and this morning he’ll be playing Armand, the very theatrical Sasquatch in a show yet to be aired called Camp Lake Bottom recorded at Studio 306.

Mister Huxley takes Cappie for a walk

The other explanation for the cold is that it is the end of September and the frost has hit.  And it’s taking a while to heat up the cabin because the shore-power breaker keeps snapping off. At first I thought it was because I had the kettle on, and then realized that the house battery is charging from shore and that requires about 75 amps.  Another thing I’m thinking is that the pump for the water-cooled heating system may well be clogged and is working too hard.

Rory in snow gear as temperatures for September crash

Yesterday I checked the strainer basket for the fridge pump. The fridge had been making more clatter than normal and the trickling sound was more noticeable than the usual strong, smooth and quiet pour—and, if you’ve read the blog to now, you’ll know that we’ve had a lot of weed issues this voyage.  The fridge-pump strainer basket was completely stuffed with weeds, and I had to remove the intake hose to flush it out as well….so I wonder if there might be the same issue with the strainers for the heater and maybe the generator and engines too.  After coffee I’ll have a look at the heat pump baskets at least.

Adrian had sanded the last of the trim while I was away in Prince Edward Island, and so I  put a coat of Timber oil on some of it (which we apply before the endless coats of Epifanes varnish). Couldn’t do much of that work though, because of my crummy neck and shoulder muscles. The overhead work is especially bad because it seems to pinch some nerves and gives pins and needles in my hand.

The house battery is charged to its supposed 12.6 volts, so I’ve switched off the charger and am trying the heat one more time before going down into the engine room to draw up the cold, wet, cloggy strainers.

The bilge pump and cold, wet, cloggy freshwater strainer baskets

These last few days have the horrible hanging doom feeling. The feeling when you know there’s to be no more voyaging, only packing and preparations for haul out and winter and 8 months before you leave port again. We have the 25 litres of oil at the ready for the winterizing and the new oil filters. And Adrian is bringing back several large jugs of antifreeze.

Actually there will be one more short voyage, back up through Lock 45 to the pump-out station to clear our holding tank. 

And we’ll likely relish every moment of that jaunt.

These summer months seem so much richer than the rest—even the tough or dreary days are fragrant with the joy that comes with 'doing'. I will miss the coiling of the heavy, wet lines in the rain, the swapping fenders for various dock and lock walls, the discussion of approach choices, taking turns clunking around in the engine room jump-starting the port engine from the starboard battery with the torturous Jumper Cables of Death (they weigh about 25 pounds, are 12 feet long and impossible to keep untangled).  

I really will miss that.

Mister Huxley and I  enjoying the voyage

Maybe it’s because it is hard physically, and often challenging mentally, and while there are many things in our life that are taxing and anxiety ridden and, yes, dreary (certain auditions), this hard physical work on-board and the experience we’ve gained — often with  certain accompanying skills — is a source of supreme pleasure for me. And it is something that, for the most part, we do together. We have puzzled out a number of system issues this year. It took us several hours over two days, but together we fixed the fuel-lift pump issue on the port engine before this spring’s launch; and, before launch we installed new window sliders in three window casements, as the old ones were growing forests of moss, and in the process we each broke the same window, (Adrian broke the pane when removing it from the frame, and I broke the replacement pane while re-installing it). We scraped, sanded, caulked and painted the aft head and the stateroom. Adrian did the lion’s share of the sanding and varnishing of the teak rails and trim and refinished the top of the big salon table, while I learned to sew futon covers, pillows and a pile of pleated curtains, then a screen for the salon door and a cover for the barbeque.

While underway we took turns in the engine room to fix (repeatedly, mind you) the air conditioner when it was 37 degrees Celsius inside; and also repaired what was sometimes a strainer issue and then became a wiring issue on the refrigerator when it was 38 degrees inside (Both the AC and the fridge are water cooled, and the water in the canal was 80 degrees this summer, so as a coolant it wasn’t doing the trick); there were so many other tasks and triumphs, but I can’t remember them all now, except to say that the marine surveyor gave us glowing report and said he’d never seen a cleaner bilge…. 

Rory says "OMG, it's hot outside!" (Yet he still dresses in black)

(We know after the issues in July that we need a whole new battery bank. Adrian has deduced that we don’t have the proper working isolators, as the system is continually draining the batteries. The electrical set up is old and the mess of wiring is the result of too many hands, so we may have to get an expert in to simplify that whole system.) 

With the work we do ourselves, I love being able to actually see, hear and feel the result of our own labour. It ain’t the same when you do a performance, this work is in no way ethereal. It’s solid and right there in front of you:  well-greased, shiny-ish, and running smoothly…with occasional help from the torturous Jumper Cables of Death.