The following year we had repeated the One Thousand Islands Invasion voyage with even more friends. Another successful getaway, looks like a tradition in the making.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
One Thousand Islands Invasion 2010 -The return
We were in a hurry to get back home from Gananoque. We did it in two sprints. The first Gananoque to Cobourg. We were planning to stop over on Duck Island, but with unfavourable winds reaching it before dark would not have happened. So we endured over night, me in bed and my dad at the helm, LOL. The next day we set sail for Oakville. The day started with out any sign of wind. Then as soon as we got fed up, kicked the engine, the winds started blowing from the east pushing us to our destination.
It was already night when we sailed past Toronto with the wind and waves steady increasing all day long with the eastern wind. The waves were the size of your average house. It was the first time were were sailing into our marina at night, its totally a different experience then the day. The approach was not looking too pleasant with the waves beating the breakwall. On the positive side I noticed I could enter the marina with a half wind. I had the engine running, but the diesel leak was worse then ever despite the extensive network of rescue tape, foam, cork, wire, and clamps holding the fuel filter together. I knew that to get into the marina I would have to throttle pretty hard. Putting that kind of pressure on the fuel system would have surely increased chances of the whole thing exploding, shutting down the engine without fuel. My folding prop didnt help either. My dad was quite nervous so i didnt want to stress him out by telling him we are going to do something new. My boat does not have a furling sail and the sails dont come down effortlessly.
Anyway, we begun to make our move by first getting closer, then making a quick tack to get into position. Then my dad went out on the foredeck to prepare to get the sails down as we normally do. I kept on saying just wait a minute more as long as I could before finally saying; we are going in on sails and once we pass the mouth we are dropping the sails. He was against it, but my plan worked. Despite the enormous waves blasting away sailing with support of the half wind we sailed in smoothly. To our surprise a group of people were out on the tip of the mouth taking pictures of us going in. as soon as we passed the mouth the wind died and the sails dropped down like never before. It had also just started raining as we were going in so the sails just managed to get wet before having to put them away. But at this point we were thrilled getting back home safe and sound having completed our first long distance voyage.
It was already night when we sailed past Toronto with the wind and waves steady increasing all day long with the eastern wind. The waves were the size of your average house. It was the first time were were sailing into our marina at night, its totally a different experience then the day. The approach was not looking too pleasant with the waves beating the breakwall. On the positive side I noticed I could enter the marina with a half wind. I had the engine running, but the diesel leak was worse then ever despite the extensive network of rescue tape, foam, cork, wire, and clamps holding the fuel filter together. I knew that to get into the marina I would have to throttle pretty hard. Putting that kind of pressure on the fuel system would have surely increased chances of the whole thing exploding, shutting down the engine without fuel. My folding prop didnt help either. My dad was quite nervous so i didnt want to stress him out by telling him we are going to do something new. My boat does not have a furling sail and the sails dont come down effortlessly.
Anyway, we begun to make our move by first getting closer, then making a quick tack to get into position. Then my dad went out on the foredeck to prepare to get the sails down as we normally do. I kept on saying just wait a minute more as long as I could before finally saying; we are going in on sails and once we pass the mouth we are dropping the sails. He was against it, but my plan worked. Despite the enormous waves blasting away sailing with support of the half wind we sailed in smoothly. To our surprise a group of people were out on the tip of the mouth taking pictures of us going in. as soon as we passed the mouth the wind died and the sails dropped down like never before. It had also just started raining as we were going in so the sails just managed to get wet before having to put them away. But at this point we were thrilled getting back home safe and sound having completed our first long distance voyage.
One Thousand Islands Invasion 2010 - Continuation
On day two we left Toronto at the break of light, our destination Cobourg. We sailed in gloomy weather almost entirely on one tack into the night. It was a dark, moonless night with the occasional glimpse of some stars. By now the wind had died down but the waves remained rocking the boat. This being our first time sailing at night we decided to take down the sails and motor for the rest of the way. The weak wind also played a role in our decision as we wanted to get to Cobourg as soon as possible after an entire day of steering without an autopilot.
In the dead of night all of the smallest sounds are unpleasant. I wish I had an engine that I couldn't hear because each time it would turn over I would compare the sounds to the previous revolution looking for any anomalies. Having nothing to do but go crazy from the sounds with two more hours of motoring I opened the engine compartment to have a visual inspection. At this point I saw a problem. Diesel was dripping from the engine. I had radioed my friend to inform them of the situation and not to speed off into the distance too far in case our engine died. Nothing could be done at the moment so we were forced to continue as we were now with more anxiety then before until we reached our destination at 1am. The marina was full so we tied up on the inside walls of the marina. At which time an official from the cost guard stationed there appeared requesting some information. The diesel fumes were unpleasant but manageable during the night.
On Day three our destination was Presqu-ile Bay. In the morning before leaving i had climbed into the engine compartment to see where the Diesel was coming from. It turned out that the aluminum ring collar holding the secondary fuel filter, "on my boat the only fuel filter" had a crack running along the thread. Its not a spare part one has so a temporary repair was in order. I had some rescue tape on-board which I thought would be the perfect application. The only problem with the application was the limited space i had to work with for a proper application. It was not possible to apply the rescue tape as tightly as i would have liked. I wish the tape had heat shrinking properties at that point. We fired the engines and it worked, for a while. Because we were unable to get replacement parts anywhere during out trip this was an ongoing issue that had received daily improvements on the temporary fix just to maintain a slow drip rate. At the end of the trip i had a layer of foam mat rapped around, with a layer of 1mm cork mat on the outside rapped with rescue tape, clamped with flange clamps, lots of flange clamps, and solid copper wire twisted to tighten on the ends where i could not get a flange clamp. Rescue tape is great but once it gets diesel on it the material becomes slick and stops adhering to itself.
On day four we were sailing past CFB Trenton. They were performing ac-130 exercises of takeoff and landing. Each time flying over a different boat as if they were trying to individually target us. It made for some good photos and I found the experience better than any airshow I had gone to. We did a stop over at Belleville for the night and to see in vein if we could track down some parts. On day five we had a good sail down the channel system. towards Kingston. On our approach to Amherst Island the weather was quickly degrading and we kept hearing weather storm warning over the radio for our area. It was a west wind and the waves had grown to small monsters. We had our sails up passing Amherst Island with our engines backing us up. We had ground to a crawl going upwind at times manoeuvring in-between buoys in front of Kingston Airport. We made it to Portsmouth Harbour in the evening. The next day we made it to Gananoque where we hung out moored in-between the islands relaxing with our friends.
In the dead of night all of the smallest sounds are unpleasant. I wish I had an engine that I couldn't hear because each time it would turn over I would compare the sounds to the previous revolution looking for any anomalies. Having nothing to do but go crazy from the sounds with two more hours of motoring I opened the engine compartment to have a visual inspection. At this point I saw a problem. Diesel was dripping from the engine. I had radioed my friend to inform them of the situation and not to speed off into the distance too far in case our engine died. Nothing could be done at the moment so we were forced to continue as we were now with more anxiety then before until we reached our destination at 1am. The marina was full so we tied up on the inside walls of the marina. At which time an official from the cost guard stationed there appeared requesting some information. The diesel fumes were unpleasant but manageable during the night.
On Day three our destination was Presqu-ile Bay. In the morning before leaving i had climbed into the engine compartment to see where the Diesel was coming from. It turned out that the aluminum ring collar holding the secondary fuel filter, "on my boat the only fuel filter" had a crack running along the thread. Its not a spare part one has so a temporary repair was in order. I had some rescue tape on-board which I thought would be the perfect application. The only problem with the application was the limited space i had to work with for a proper application. It was not possible to apply the rescue tape as tightly as i would have liked. I wish the tape had heat shrinking properties at that point. We fired the engines and it worked, for a while. Because we were unable to get replacement parts anywhere during out trip this was an ongoing issue that had received daily improvements on the temporary fix just to maintain a slow drip rate. At the end of the trip i had a layer of foam mat rapped around, with a layer of 1mm cork mat on the outside rapped with rescue tape, clamped with flange clamps, lots of flange clamps, and solid copper wire twisted to tighten on the ends where i could not get a flange clamp. Rescue tape is great but once it gets diesel on it the material becomes slick and stops adhering to itself.
On day four we were sailing past CFB Trenton. They were performing ac-130 exercises of takeoff and landing. Each time flying over a different boat as if they were trying to individually target us. It made for some good photos and I found the experience better than any airshow I had gone to. We did a stop over at Belleville for the night and to see in vein if we could track down some parts. On day five we had a good sail down the channel system. towards Kingston. On our approach to Amherst Island the weather was quickly degrading and we kept hearing weather storm warning over the radio for our area. It was a west wind and the waves had grown to small monsters. We had our sails up passing Amherst Island with our engines backing us up. We had ground to a crawl going upwind at times manoeuvring in-between buoys in front of Kingston Airport. We made it to Portsmouth Harbour in the evening. The next day we made it to Gananoque where we hung out moored in-between the islands relaxing with our friends.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
One Thousand Islands Invasion 2010 - Day One
Our destination, Kingston. Our objective, adventure.
We set sail a couple days late on Wednesday August 11 2010. Our fuel and water tanks were full. The waste tank empty, and it was past 1800 hours when our friends arrived on their yacht the Blue Griffon. After they re-fueled we set off. Just moments earlier it was clear blue skies with light wind. But as we crossed the marinas breakwalls a heavy fog plunge and swallowed up everything. I though to myself that this is some kind of bad omen. Since we were running late already we decided to continue to our first stop over at the Toronto Islands. Soon after the fog disappeared as quick as it had appeared. It wast a fast sail due to the North East winds that were unfavourable for us. Mid way the boom went flying after a cleat failure. Luckily there was no one in its way. The traveller was temporarily immortalized and we continued. The starts had come out by the time we had arrived at the Western Gap in Toronto. At night the sense of scale changes and the porter aircraft taxing before takeoff on the runway on our starboard side gave us the impression it was actually an AC-130. Moments later our passage was halted by the porter ferry which took off on a collision course for us just as we were about to enter its crossing corridor. This triggered Egstasea and Blue Griffon to perform a synchronized pirouette against the backdrop of Toronto's night lights. Blue Griffon led us bravely to our nights rest at the Island Park. This year the lake's water levels are very low, as a result the Griffon got its keel stuck in some mud one meter from the wall. We gave her a pull and relocated a couple meters down the wall where it was slightly deeper for the night. This short leg of our trip had proved to be much more interesting than we could have though prior to the start.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Spring Work
My work away from work this spring took place at the marina where I was involved in a lot of hand numbing scraping and sanding. The main objective was to replace two cockpit seacock support plates that had literally turned into potting mulch. I also wanted to fix what looked like minor deficiencies in the exterior of hull below the waterline.
So I climbed under the cockpit into a cramped and uncomfortable position where I started by removing the old wood plates from under the seacocks. This was easy since the wood had deteriorated into mulch like material. This allowed me to pick off pieces with my fingers until the seacocks were free floating. Unexpectedly the next step turned into what felt like an impossible task. Im of course talking about removing the old drain pipes from the seacock fittings. The fittings over the years had cut slits inside the pipe from perhaps the engine vibrations making them impossible to pull off. The limited access and angle of attack didnt make the job any easier. After a couple good hours I finally managed to leaver the pipes loose. In retrospect if I were doing this now, I would have used my new heat gun to soften the end of the pipe. After removing the seacocks i sanded down the uneven surface left by the old glue. I cut out same sized plywood plates and fitted. The starboard plate became a challenge as the hole was not drilled entirely parallel to the interior surface. The plate th
ickness at centre was 5/8" while on one edge it had gone down to 1/8". My intention was to replace the plates with fibreglass plates and sanding it would not have been an option. so i created a mold from which i made a perfect fitting plate for the seacock. Since one edge was only 1/8" I had doubled the starboard plate with another piece of fibreglass to add rigidity. With this done I was ready to start exterior work.
Unfortunately the frequency of bad weather early on had caused many d
elays with the exterior resulting with a rescheduling of my launch date by two weeks. I wanted to eliminate spider cracks that started reaching fibreglass and a nasty looking crack along what I thought was the keel/hull joint and other small things I saw. After a lot of sanding through the layers and layers of fairing it turned out there was nothing but good looking fibreglass under. No lead. I didnt have time to ponder this so i continued with all the other sanding. Eventually I got to an area at the front of the keel about 5 inches down from the h
ull. The area looked like it had sustained a light impact. Probably a log. The filler was saturated with water and had actually turned green. Sanding through it revealed the keel joint. Having a close look at the area I found a 20" long and 8" deep delamination running along the keep joint down the lead keel on either side. 
It was too much to sand out so I sounded and marked the boarder of what was loose. Then i cut along the boarder with a dremel down to the depth of the lead and simply peeled off the loose fibreglass in one piece. Water must have entered through the damaged area, then soaked along the keel joint. This caused oxidation and expansion in the winter resulting with this unexpected problem.
Well with everything sanded down my next step was to apply a virgin coat of epoxy over the areas that would be receiving filler or fibreglass cloth. This was definitely the fun part of the project. For filler I was using west systems fast epoxy along with cylica and micro fibre mixtures. At this point I have also installed the seacock through hulls. I should have taped the outside along with the through hull so the Sikaflex I used would have been easier to clean up. I let it dry first before i cut the excess off. I didnt want to contaminate the surface with too much of the silicone inside the Sikaflex. 
A little sanding and it was time to paint. First came a couple coats of VCtar barrier coat followed by a couple layers of VC17 anti fouling. Well I hope it all holds up. So far the yacht has been in water for over a month and the vc17 has not changed colour. :-)
So I climbed under the cockpit into a cramped and uncomfortable position where I started by removing the old wood plates from under the seacocks. This was easy since the wood had deteriorated into mulch like material. This allowed me to pick off pieces with my fingers until the seacocks were free floating. Unexpectedly the next step turned into what felt like an impossible task. Im of course talking about removing the old drain pipes from the seacock fittings. The fittings over the years had cut slits inside the pipe from perhaps the engine vibrations making them impossible to pull off. The limited access and angle of attack didnt make the job any easier. After a couple good hours I finally managed to leaver the pipes loose. In retrospect if I were doing this now, I would have used my new heat gun to soften the end of the pipe. After removing the seacocks i sanded down the uneven surface left by the old glue. I cut out same sized plywood plates and fitted. The starboard plate became a challenge as the hole was not drilled entirely parallel to the interior surface. The plate th
ickness at centre was 5/8" while on one edge it had gone down to 1/8". My intention was to replace the plates with fibreglass plates and sanding it would not have been an option. so i created a mold from which i made a perfect fitting plate for the seacock. Since one edge was only 1/8" I had doubled the starboard plate with another piece of fibreglass to add rigidity. With this done I was ready to start exterior work.Unfortunately the frequency of bad weather early on had caused many d
elays with the exterior resulting with a rescheduling of my launch date by two weeks. I wanted to eliminate spider cracks that started reaching fibreglass and a nasty looking crack along what I thought was the keel/hull joint and other small things I saw. After a lot of sanding through the layers and layers of fairing it turned out there was nothing but good looking fibreglass under. No lead. I didnt have time to ponder this so i continued with all the other sanding. Eventually I got to an area at the front of the keel about 5 inches down from the hull. The area looked like it had sustained a light impact. Probably a log. The filler was saturated with water and had actually turned green. Sanding through it revealed the keel joint. Having a close look at the area I found a 20" long and 8" deep delamination running along the keep joint down the lead keel on either side. It was too much to sand out so I sounded and marked the boarder of what was loose. Then i cut along the boarder with a dremel down to the depth of the lead and simply peeled off the loose fibreglass in one piece. Water must have entered through the damaged area, then soaked along the keel joint. This caused oxidation and expansion in the winter resulting with this unexpected problem.
Well with everything sanded down my next step was to apply a virgin coat of epoxy over the areas that would be receiving filler or fibreglass cloth. This was definitely the fun part of the project. For filler I was using west systems fast epoxy along with cylica and micro fibre mixtures. At this point I have also installed the seacock through hulls. I should have taped the outside along with the through hull so the Sikaflex I used would have been easier to clean up. I let it dry first before i cut the excess off. I didnt want to contaminate the surface with too much of the silicone inside the Sikaflex. A little sanding and it was time to paint. First came a couple coats of VCtar barrier coat followed by a couple layers of VC17 anti fouling. Well I hope it all holds up. So far the yacht has been in water for over a month and the vc17 has not changed colour. :-)
Thursday, June 24, 2010
New Ports Installed
Here is a picture of my new ports. I hope they don’t break free with out any fasteners. The only thing that im not satisfied with is the filling of cracks around the ports with gelcote that i could not color match to make the repair invisible. But its not noticeable from a distance. I guess ill just end up painting the nonskid once all the other deficiencies in the gelcote are repaired.
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