Welcome to the Jungle

                             

                       "Hey man, thanks!!!!!!"
                         -The Tragically Hip


           So, here it is, August 14th, and the weather is hot and sweaty.
         
           Just like yesterday.

           The forecast is hot and sweaty tomorrow.

           In fact, the forecast is hot and sweaty for at least the next week, with no relief in sight.
       
           No wind.  Might as well take a nap.

         ***************

           *Yawn.*

           *Stretch.*

           Uh-oh.

          Great googley-moogley!!!!!    How the HELL did it get to NOBLOODYVEMBER  DEDAMNCEMBER already?


          This has definitely moved me into the quarter-finals of the World Procrastination Championship  (Playoff schedule to be announced shortly, maybe.)

     *sigh*


         Well, in the words of Inigo Montoya,

       "There is too much.  Let me sum up."

         It's been an interesting few months.

          Might as well begin at the beginning, way back in August:



          Completely off the Dock, but worth mentioning, because it was such a unique experience- SWMBO and I got to see The Tragically Hip play the Air Canada Centre on August 10.

          I have never felt so damn Canadian.

   
   See, here's the deal:  The Tragically Hip is like Canada's house band.  They aren't the soundtrack of our 20something to 40something lives, The Hip is more like the score:  always there, always in the background, sometimes swelling to take the spotlight, and, sometimes, taken for granted,
 because they were always THERE.

There was always another tour next year, another album, another chance...

.... until there wasn't.

  The band's quirky writer and frontman, Gord Downie, announced in June that, well...

... he was dying.

  He had a brain tumour, and while the prognosis was clear, that he was a dead man walking, there was some time.

  The band decided, as a band, (because make no mistake, even though Gord was the face and voice,   these five guys were a unit, playing together since high school,  nigh on 35 years,) to launch one last tour.

   What followed was a uniquely Canadian event- a concert tour that was equal parts concert, party, wake, and tribute to Gord.
(Yeah,  I think every Canadian calls him Gord- it's that kind of band, he's that kind of person, and we're that kind of people.)

Shows sold out across the country, and by the time the band rolled into Toronto, it was obvious this was no gentle victory lap of greatest hits.
 

   I am lucky enough to work in the radio industry,
   Further lucky enough to work for a small network run by a guy who loves what he does, and likes his crew-  he held a contest for employees, giving away a pair of tickets,
   and I was lucky enough to WIN!

  Thanks, Jon!

 

   From the opening chord of "Courage (for Hugh Mclennan)", that dead man walking worked that stage for almost three solid hours that night in Toronto.  Gord was occasionally teary eyed, and some say he looked frail,

   but he flat ran that room.

   And if you didn't tear up at least once, you weren't there.

   How big a deal was this concert tour by the best band you've never heard of?

This is where things really get Canadian.

   The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, often maligned, often unappreciated, often viewed as an anachronistic irrelevancy in the 21st century, lived up to it's name, reclaimed it's role as CANADA'S media, dropped the bomb, and then dropped the mic:

   The CBC stepped up and  decided to bring the party to the people, by broadcasting the final show live, on all of it's platforms. Television, radio, online, on demand....

.... for free.

   So, we saw The Hip again, on August 20th, at the Marina, broadcast on a sheet hung in one of the pavilions at the foot of  Dock One, along with a hundred or so others...

 ...and over 11 million other Canadians .

   And if you didn't tear up at least once, you weren't there.


     Paul, Johnny, Gord, Rob and Gord:  Thanks for everything.

                                                        -video courtesy of VEVO and YouTube




     As noted earlier, the summer of 2016 was hot.

     The winter of 2015/16 was not cold, nor long.

     That made conditions perfect for a bumper crop of Dockgrass, aka Eurasian Water-Milfoil.

      This shit is evil.  It grows rapidly, it grows long, and it grows tenacious.  During the month of August it quite literally clogged the fairways of the marina. It wraps props, snags centerboards and generally acts as a hazard to navigation.


Typically, after backing out of our slip and leaving the marina 2 knots slower than usual,  a quick blast of reverse would clear a ball of weeds from the prop that looks like this:

    We are responsible for keeping our slips clear of weeds, so every couple of days, our Dock looked like this:

   That's two days worth of growth, in two slips.

   Down the Dock it's even thicker, as wind and wave action tends to push the floating mass into the corner, where the Dock meets shore.

   The marina has a dedicated harvester, but it's one machine fighting a losing battle- it's payload is relatively light, so the bulk of running time is spent transiting to shore to offload into a 40 foot bin, then transiting back to the fairway in play, and then back to unload...

   There's no easy solution, so we bear it and keep sailing.



   I have a suspicion that Dockweed hastened a soon-to-be discovered problem aboard Karma.

   SWMBO and I took an extended Labour Day weekend  and on Friday decided to make an afternoon run to Pottahawk and back.  We motorsailed out, making good time, clicking along at a happy 5-6 knots in 8-10 knots of wind.  Motorsailing, because I'd been having some concerns about our engine-  Karma had felt down on power in recent days, so I thought a good 2-3 hour  run wouldn't hurt.


    We scooted past Port Ryerse, then past the site of Bushstock, a new 2 day music event in the 'folk....

Then sailed past Fisher's Glen...

...making good time, we continued past Normandale....

 ...two hours out, we spy Turkey Point to starboard...

... as the beach trailed behind our transom we turned to port to cross the gut that separates outer Long Point Bay from the Inner Bay, and headed to Pottahawk...

  It was a damn near enough perfect day for sailing- decent wind,  and fairly typical bay chop, but we had the Bay pretty much to ourselves- in 20 miles-ish of travel, we saw just a handful of other boats.

 
We reached Pottahawk, turned to port again to head for home, and with the wind on our nose, it was all engine now, so we furled sails and throttled up to 2/3 throttle, call it 2200 rpm, which gave us...

... a blistering 3 knots.

Huh- maybe the headwind is stronger than it feels.

So nudging the throttle to 3/4, about 2700 rpm, we found ourselves pounding along at
.... a blistering 3 knots.

Which shortly decreased to 2.8, then 2.7, then 2.5 knots

"That's not right," methinks.

Throttling back, SWMBO and I chugged along at a now steady 2.5 knots, and troubleshot:

 Maybe a ball of weeds around the prop?

SWMBO throttled down, shifted into reverse, boat speed jumped to 4.5 knots,  no telltale mulched weeds arose from under the boat.

Back into forward, back to 2.5 knots.

Huh.

I go below, retrieve the service manual for our mighty Yanmar YSM-8 powerplant and start reading.

Shit.

The transmission on our iron genny has two "friction discs", essentially clutch discs  that do the job of taking the 8 hp created by the engine and transferring it to the prop shaft to drive the boat.  One clutch disc handles forward go, one clutch disc is tasked to handle reverse.

Guess which one is used more?

Guess which one signals it's decided to retire by no longer transferring all of the engine's mighty 8 hp into usable propulsion?

Yeah- obviously the reverse disc was still good to go, but the forward disc would go no mo'.


Yay, problem diagnosed!  But, there wasn't a damn thing we could do, except motor along at 2.5...

...2.4...

...2.3 knots.
...and dropping.

Oh well, lots of time to surf for replacement parts on my phone, which led me to discover that, like many parts for boats built when John Lennon was still alive, the friction discs in question were rumoured to be No Longer Available.

Great.

Five and a half hours of feathering and nursing the throttle after making the port turn at Pottahawk for home, we limped into the marina, in the dark, inching into our slip at 1.5 knots.

I stopped into  Bridge Yachts on the Tuesday after Labour Day, and requested they find the part, if possible.  Three days later I got a call- they found two discs.

The last two YSM-8 friction discs on the planet allegedly.
In Japan.
They would be here in three weeks.
I ordered them both.

Meanwhile Karma lay forlorn in her slip.

Where Karma largely remained, until Phil and Corinne and Compass Rose towed our burdened beast up the river to the Bridge Yachts yard  at the end of October.

The last two Yanmar YSM-8 friction discs on the planet finally arrived....  in the third week of November.

I'll deal with it in the spring.

The great thing about owning a fleet is that, while the big boat may be down and out, SWMBO's ride, Ereni, was more than happy to stretch her legs.



Ereni is no faster than Karma-  in fact, if you belief PHRF, that sleek little race-pedigreed one design daysailer is owed a little time by Karma-

but she FEELS faster.

It's like stepping out of a cabover Kenworth truck and stepping into an E-type:  The same speed feels entirely different.

Sailing Karma  is fun.

Sailing Ereni is FUN.

  Brutal honesty time- too often, sailing Ereni  is a bit of a shitshow.   The mainsail reefing line too tight, or too loose...

....the topping lift hung up on the backstay....

  Her sails are blown out, her bottom is fuzzy, she needs new standing rigging, new running rigging, new mainsail tackle, her fuel tank relocated, her brightwork brightened, the list of what she needs goes on and on...



  .....but when we get it right, it is pure magic:

    So, that brings us (mostly) up to current- the boats are on the hard, largely put to bed, all gear is now occupying our dining room and den, waiting to be stowed away, and the winter punchlist has begun. Hopefully, I can bring you up to speed on that little ball of mission-creep before the boats splash for the 2017 season.

In the meantime, if I don't talk at you in the meantime...


   Merry, Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year, to all y'all.




    Thanks for checkingin, and as always, please, "Talk the Dock!"

Spring has Sprung... Right Into Summer pt. 2

      "But where we are going, Oh it hasn't fully, fully been told..."
                                               -Ruby Velle and the Soulphonics





       So, where were we?
Right:  Boat is launched, boat is sinking, boat stops sinking, yadda yadda, Karma glides into her slip with no further drama.  

  With one boat launched successfully, it was on to the rest of the fleet.   With a little help from the crew of  Boats....

...we got our commuter dinghy, Chameleon, to the marina and into the water.

Then, we tackled Ereni, giving SWMBO's Bluenose  a quick and dirty makeover... and a black nose in the process, to cover some of that quick and dirty.  

  Ereni  is due for some serious  hull refitting this winter-  the brightwork needs to be brightened, the hull needs to have some blisters ground/filled/faired, and then we'll refinish the deck and topsides.  But, we think we'll keep the nose treatment, and add some nose art- SWMBO and I agree we both kinda dig the vintage "rat rod' vibe.

Over the two full years we've lived with, and aboard, Karma, we've developed a pretty good idea of our wants and needs, and have fulfilled many of them along the way...

... and created new ones.

  Our reefer install has been a well-received luxury, with an unintended consequence- power insecurity.

   We have 3 40w solar panels that live on top of our bimini, feeding a single Group 24 house battery and a Group 24 starting battery, also charged by the 35 amp alternator on the inboard diesel. Last season, this system proved sufficient....

... barely. 
     If the solar panels underperformed for more than a day, some motorsailing was required to top up the batteries.  We were careful about energy usage, charging electronics only during the middle of the day, being judicious about illumination, vhf and instrument use, etc. and never really had a power crisis...

    But still....

    This season, I made the decision to add more power and more power storage. Here's the plan:  add another 100w of solar power, in the form of a semi-flexible 100 w panel installed on the dodger, then combine the 2 Group 24 batteries already onboard into a two battery house bank, and add a third Group 24 battery for starting, locating it just aft of the transmission in the engine bay. Next year, we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries, if we find that the 160 amp hour capacity of the house bank is not enough We decided to isolate the starting battery from the charging circuit- we opted to install a Xantrex Digital Echo Charge. 

 To quote the manual:
 "The Digital echo-charge automatically switches ON and OFF, charging a starter or auxiliary battery without affecting the main house battery bank. The maximum charge current is 15 amps when the starting battery is 1/2 volt to 1 volt DC less than the house battery...  When the input voltage is 13.0/25.5 volts DC or higher, echo-charge automatically switches ON. The LED glows a steady green. When the input voltage is lower than 13.0/25.5 volts, the echo-charge automatically switches OFF, and the LED blinks green. The output voltage of echocharge is limited to 14.4/28.8 volts. When it reaches 14.4/28.8 volts, the charge current will decrease, maintaining a float condition. "

  So, I bought a bunch of obscenely priced cable, less obscenely priced wire, a battery and assorted electrical parts and pieces and tools and stuff and dug in, on the hottest day of the year....

   
  ... and everything largely went together better than I expected....

.... once I pretty much gave up on the original plan.

I cut and stripped and crimped new cable to wire the existing batteries in parallel...

 ...and that is pretty much where the original plan ended.

A "a semi-flexible 100w panel installed on the dodger" became a semi-flexible 100w panel mounted on the foredeck. temporarily laying the panel on top of the dodger and measuring output demonstrated that there was just too much shading for the panel to generate anywhere near it's potential output. Because of our boat's design, and our usage, the foredeck gets little traffic, so I decided to see if the "you can even walk on it' claims about semi-flexible panels were true. 
   The install was pretty straightforward, once I wrapped my head around drilling 3/4" holes in the deck.  An hours worth of work saw two of the aforementioned holes drilled, some wires run, and the panel fastened to the deck with, and all fittings sealed with, 3M 4200.  

The new panel got a new charge controller, to complement the existing bimini bank charge controllers, then the controller output for both the bimini solar bank and the foredeck solar bank were driven to a distribution block and thence to batteries... 
   ...Which were not happy at all.
    Note to self:  always check polarity before connecting 100 w panel to new charge controller.
    Then check it again.
    Then check it again.

    I didn't, and wired the panel to the charge controller backward, and didn't realize my error for 48 hours.    
   I bought a new charge controller, and now the batteries happily charged away...  but wouldn't hold a charge.  Well, 5 year old lead acid batteries are due for replacement anyway, so "Next year, we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries" became "TODAY we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries."

   (Note to those of you playing along at home:  Golf cart batteries are about the same width and length as Group 24 batteries...but about twice the weight.  Getting them up onto the boat, then down into the boat, then down further into the battery bay, was an exercise that, in retrospect, would be less danger-filled if one is wearing steel-toed boots, not flip-flops.)

So, new batteries go in, cabling is connected,  and power flows!  Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that "add a third Group 24 battery for starting, locating it just aft of the transmission in the engine bay." is a non-starter.  So, the new batery gets located slightly farther aft, under the aft cabin berth.  The Xantrex Echo Charge install was a breeze- the instructions were clear, the manual was well-written, and all of the supplied bits and bobs were of good quality. 

  Was it worth it?
   Yep. 

   We now generate more power than we can use  and store most days, and have had no problem keeping ahead of our loads even during our very hot July, when our refrigerator was running much more often than it's typical 30% duty cycle.

    As we have realized the need for more power, we also have been grappling with our need for more space. the S2 8.0C is a cleverly designed boat, pulling 26 feet of accomodations out of a 26 foot LOA hull...  but that means that on-deck and cockpit storage is  non-existent. Coaming pockets would be a big help for line management- sheets would no longer be all over the cockpit benches and underass, an uncomfortable proposition during a crash tack.  I did some measuring, found a pair of fire extinguisher pockets in the clearance rack at a local chandlery, and a little mahogany and varnish and cutting larger holes in our boat and screws later...

Our cockpit is slightly more organized.


  
Also seen in the above picture, behind the compact sportsdawg, you can kinda spy that scrap mahogany was also used to craft risers, to raise the height of the bimini slightly.

Below, little has changed, other than a new trawler lamp,  cushions that are 1" thicker and comfier, and new Low-Buck back cushions and throw pillows have been added:

  
   We lucked out at our local grocery store (I shit you not- the grocery store)  and found outdoor furniture cushions and pillows in the right colours,  and amazingly, the right size, for half price.


    Life is good, and more comfortable than ever...and the sailing's not too bad either.


Thanks for having a read.  Pass the word-  Please "Talk the Dock!"

  
  

Spring has Sprung... Right Into Summer Pt. 1

        "This heat has got right out of hand..."
                                        -Bananarama



    * I started writing this post on May 30th....how the HELL did it become the end of June????

      Spring has sprung...

      ...  and then  more Summer came along and kicked it's ass.

    Check this- May 13th, we had sun, rain and temps around 15 degrees on the c scale.
                        May 14th, we had 30 knot winds and 6 degree temps.
                        May 15th, we had snow on the Dock.

                       SNOW.

                       Note that I did not opt to do any boatwork on those days.  Nope, not me.  I had a list of things to do but...


                       I opted out.  I called it on account of weather.

       SWMBO and I got a lot done in the weeks prior to splash, including, new carpet, new foam for the cabin cushions, and a new Low-Buck swim platform...

Karma hit the water on the first Friday of May, one of our earliest launches ever....

...and  she promptly decided to start to sink.

I was toiling away at my day job, making local businesses locally famous, so SWMBO was supervising the launch solo.  As I was on my way to the boatyard, toiling completed, I received a cryptic text message:

"Water"

 Hmmm...
Is SWMBO thirsty?
Is  she telling me that the boat is now in the water?
Or...is she telling me that the water is now in the boat?

Then, I received another cryptic text message:

"Hurry"

So, I hurried.

I got to the yard, and spied SWMBO in Karma's cockpit, pumping away.  Turns out, "water" was , in deed, coming into the boat.... at a worrisome rate. "Hurry" was appropriate, as the sole was awash, and SWMBO was usunre where the water was coming from.  I hurried down the companionway ladder, tore open access panels,  checked the stuffing box (fine) and then the raw water strainer (decidedly unfine, water streaming from the top of the reservoir).

     I closed the seacock so the water stopped hurrying into the boat and  removed the strainer and found that the o-ring seal was no longer sealing.

    It's Friday, it's after 5, nothing is open that is going to have the part that will solve this problem.  As I was pondering the paucity of options, Skipper Andy wanders past, headed to Cyclone, docked at the Bridge yachts yard this season.  I yell, enquiring rather loudly whether he may have any sealant materials aboard.

   Turns out he does-  and it is appropriately named:

  a strip of caulk later, and we're back in business, leak free.

  Thanks, Skipper!!

   It turns out that the water strainer seal has likely been quietly leaking, unseen, for several years-   the strainer is located in a corner of the engine bay and the leak was  not visible.  But, that unseen unknown leak meant that we had to be vigilant to pump our smallish bilge ever 3-4 days.   Since  resealing, we now pump our bilge every 7- 10 days, with little to show for the effort.

  So, boat no longer sinking,  we fire up the trusty Yanmar YSM-8 and set off downriver and around the corner to the marina, and we survey what's new on the Dock.

   Turns out, quite a bit.

    More to come  in Pt. 2.



Thanks for stopping by.  Please "Talk the Dock!" and pass the word.

New Gear Installation: Keeping Our Cool

     "You want paradise..."
                    -Foreigner



    First, a little personal history:

    A decade ago, in the era PB (Pre-Boat), SWMBO and I (okay, mostly SWMBO) decided that we needed to replace the shed in the backyard of Stately Jones Manor.  The shed was...

... less than stately.

    Hell, it was less than intact and decidedly unsafe.  Although uitilized as shelter for our underused and oft-neglected lawn and garden equipment, that equipment was now doing double duty holding up the shedding shed.

   Clearly, we had to do something.

   We knew we didn't want an aluminum panel -and-channel nuts-and-bolts utilitarian box.  We wanted a stately wood shed that would be an attractive addition to our backyard, not just a holds-our-crap blight.  We also knew we didn't have the ambition or the skill set to build a shed from scratch, and didn't have the ready cash to buy a pre-fabricated shed, or hire a crew to build one for us.

   So, we procrastinated and pondered, as the existing shed grew ever less square and vertical and closer to the ground.


    Perusing the sale flyers in our local free throw-away newspaper, we discovered a local lumberyard had attractive affordable, stick-built shed kits available.

     A  shed KIT!  Perfect!

   I built model kits as a kid, I had assembled damn near a houseful of IKEA furniture, I could definitely build a shed from a kit!

   We went to the yard, picked a design we liked from their catalogue, and were assured that our shed kit would be delivered in time for the weekend.

   Perfect!  We can have this thing assembled before Monday!

    Friday, as promised, a truck from the lumberyard pulls up, and deposits our shed kit in the driveway of SJM.

 

  The "kit" consisted of a big pile of lumber, three bundles of shingles,a bag of nails and screws and hardware, a door, and 2 pages of poorly photocopied plans.


     "Kit", my ass.

     We got it done, and it still does it's job ten years on, but it took a lot longer than a weekend, and it took more manpower than SWMBO and I.

     This project taught us some skills, and taught us that we could do it

      Ever since, however, I have been dubious of the ease of assembly of any  DIY "kit."

      Flash forward to the summer of 2015:

      Karma, like Whiskeyjack before her, has an icebox.   For 8 seasons, we schlepped bins and blocks of ice down the Dock, and dealt with the daily ritual of emptying catchbottles of  meltwater.  Iceboxes are simple systems, and do a more than adequate job of keeping food and beverages cold. It was a good system on Whiskeyjack that gave us no reason to complain.

   On Karma?

    Not so much.

    First, Karma's icebox is oddly, trapezoidally, shaped.

 This meant that the bins that we used to hold iceblocks and contain meltwater on Whiskeyjack didn't fit.  Not an insurmountable issue, it simply means that ice blocks have to be loaded into the icebox naked, and rather than meltwater being caught in a bin, is allowed to drain from the icebox...

....  into the (shallow) bilge.  Not ideal.

    At the beginning of this season, i redirected the drain into a catchbottle, which required emptying daily.  Again, not an insurmountable issue, but one more daily chore, albeit not onerous... unless you're away from the boat for more than a day in which case the catchbottle no longer catches and overflows onto the carpeted sole.

     Again, not ideal.

    Lastly, the shape of the icebox limited iceblock placement, which in turn limited food and beverage capacity.

     Yet again, not ideal.


     So, refrigeration became a topic of discussion.  Said discussion boiled down to:

     Will it fit?

     Will it work?

      Can we afford it?


     Will it fit?  Good question.  An S2 8.0C is a roomy boat with lots of storage, but just as the icebox is weirdly shaped , so are many of the lockers and bins.  Lots of research and measuring told me that installing a typical refrigeration system's compressor and condensor and stuff wasn't going to be simple or easy.  Measuring inside the icebox, and comparing cold plate sizes online,  our options were limited.

     Will it work?  Good question. Regular Readers know that we are off the grid on the Dock- no water, no shorepower.  Our electrical needs are supplied by our solar panels- so, anything electrical that we add to our boathome has to work within the restrictions of the available battery and charging capacity.

    Can we afford it?  Good question. Tallying the costs, we were looking at an expenditure of anywhere from $1200 to $2200.  Ouch.  This would be our first four-figure boat project in, like, ever.

    So, after pondering, we realized that we didn't think it would fit, weren't sure if it would work, and didn't figure we could afford it.

   Then I discovered the Dometic/Waeco/Adler-Barbour Coolmatic Cooling Conversion Kit.

   Note that last word.

  It's dreaded kit status notwithstanding, it seemed to tick all of our boxes-

   Dimensionally, it fit- instead of being a internal evaporator/external compressor/condenser set up, the Coolmatic is an all-in-one unit measuring about 10"  x 12".  Cut a hole in the side of the icebox, screw the unit in place, run some wires, done.

   That "about" becomes important later.

   It wasn't too taxing for our electrical system either- the advertised draw was 4 amps, with a 20-30% duty cycle.  In theory, that means it draws less than 1.5 amps per hour, and this would be the largest constant draw on the boat- our lighting is all LED, and the only other energy use is charging electronics. so our 120 watts of solar delivering an average of 60 amps/day should keep us ahead of the charging curve.

   It's not a cheap system, but at $799 (on sale), even with tax it didn't break the psychological 4 figure barrier.

   So, we pulled the trigger, and ordered one up from our friends at Binnacle.com .

    4 days later,  a day earlier than promised, a box showed up.

   Once unwrapped, our kit is revealed;

 Okay, looks pretty much plug-and-play.

 Here's the plan:  

 1.  Measure and mark the cutout in the side of the icebox.

 2.  Drill pilot hole.

 3. Cut out panel with jigsaw

 4.  fit cooling unit into hole.

 5.  Screw into place.

 6.  Wire into distribution panel.

 7.  Enjoy cold beverage.

  I figured it would be an hour's work, tops.

  SWMBO and I emptied the icebox of contents, transferring said contents to a cooler brought aboard expressly for this purpose, and I embarked on step 1.

  Jones's 4th Law of Boatwork- no plan ever survives past step 1 unchanged.

  My initial plan, based on the measurements I had taken before buying this kit, and the measurements quoted in all of the manufacturer's literature,  was to install the unit on the aft side of the icebox.  Now, with my new Coolmatic in hand, I discover that the aft wall of the icebox was 1/4"  too narrow.

  Well, shit. 

  Okay, so I need to mount it on the forward side of the icebox, and hopefully it will clear the sink and still have decent ventilation around the fan and cooling fins.  

  So, I careful trace the cut-out, according to the template included in the installation instructions, drill my pilot hole, and discover that the forward wall of the icebox is 4" thick...and my drill bit is 3 1/2" long.

  Well, double shit.

   Did I mention that I decided to jump into this endeavour during the hottest week of the summer?

At this point I am 2 hours in and soaked in sweat. Time to call it a day.

   Day 2, I cut out the inner wall of the icebox, gouge out all of the insulation ( this icebox has about 3" of insulation), then get out the sawzall  and carve out a hole in the panel between the icebox and the sink cabinet.  

 I gently slide the Coolmatic into the icebox...

  ... and it doesn't fit through the icebox opening.

   SHIIIITTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!

   Okay, new Step 4(a)- out comes the jigsaw, the ice box opening is enlarged (which means the icebox lid will no longer fit. Son of a ....)

  Now the Coolmatic will slide into the icebox...

....  but not slide into the freshly cut hole.  

   I am beyond profanity at this point.

   So, Step 4(b)- test fit, retrim, test fit, re-trim, test fit, retrim, testfit, retrim, testfit retrim, testfitretrimtestfitretrimtestfitretrimtestfit...  it FINALLY fits.

   I am now 6 hours total into this job, in 90 degree heat.  Look up "masochist" in the dictionary- See that picture?  That's not me, that's some other poor sap, because I was still installing a FUCKING REFRIGERATION "KIT"!!!

  Once the "kit" was installed, the rest was relatively straightforward- screw the reefer unit into place, seal it up with some caulking, trim the icebox shelf to fit and reinstall, clean everything up (again), wire it up, and put everything that came out of the icebox back into the icebox...

   ...Then build a new icebox lid.  I repurposed a cutting board, added some styrofoam insulation to the underside and some foam weatherstripping, and called it done.

    

    From start to finish, I had 9 hours into the job, over 3 days. 

     (To be fair, Dockneighbour Frank bought the same unit after seeing ours, and he DID get his installed on his O'day in under an hour. Having a uniform sized icebox with a big lid and easy access makes a ton of timesaving difference.)

   But, the end result is worth it.

  This unit is quiet.  It is quieter than the fridge in our kitchen at SJM.  Power consumption seems to be in line with specs.  In the spring I will rework the lid/opening flange to get a better seal, and add some more foam board to the lid for better insulation. The contents of our reefer (can't call it an icebox any more)  are kept acceptably cool, with the dial set to 4, but adding a little insulation and improving the seal can't hurt.

I'd do it again.  we now have more room in our chillybox, no more lugging ice, and no catchbottles to drain daily.

The economics are subjective, and a bit of a toss-up.  In the short term, it doesn't make sense, from a cost-savings standpoint.  A block of ice would last three days in our icebox on average, and if there were serious perishables onboard, we would load in two blocks at a time. At $3/block, call it $150/season.  Over 10 years, however, assuming the cost of ice doesn't rise or drop, that's $1500 that we don't have to spend on ice, by spending $800 (plus tax) on a refrigeration "kit"  So, long-term, it makes sense.

 It also means that, while our current electrical system is keeping up,  I am now considering adding a second house battery and another solar panel, just in case. 

  But, that's another project, for another day.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

 


 

It's THAT day!!!

     "Oh, I've been missing you, and the way you make me feel inside...."
                                                                 -Gregory Abbott


    Finally, SWMBO and I can stop looking homeless.

    Winter here in Southern Ontario is a time of slumber for our vessels, stored on the hard, and, for sailors, a season of  dirt-stranded planning , forethought, and inevitable procrastination...

....  which means all the jobs that SHOULD have gotten done during the depths of winter get compressed into a frenzied fortnight of forced labour leading up to splash day....

... which means every spare minute is spent in the Bridge Yachts boatyard, punching through all the planned punchlist projects that were  pushed off by the punishing winter...

.... which means that one is always travelling with a vehicle packed full of tools, work clothes, paint, epoxy, generator, ladders, wood...

... leading uninitiated onlookers to wonder if we are indeed living in our Ford.

  As usual, we fell prey to mission creep.

We knew we wanted to remove the carbuncle, a dead depth through-hull transducer installed ahead of the keel:

   Which we did.  Beveled, backed, filled, and faired...

  While slathering on eleventy-seven coats of Interprotect 2000, we realized that this would be a good time to repaint the blue boot stripe, which clashed with the bottom paint, and if we're going to do that, we might as well removed the worn cove stripe...

... which we did, and then realized that, without a cove stripe, NextBoat's already generous freeboard looks beyond generous- it looked like Liberal spending in the 905 prior to an election.

...So clearly a new cove stripe was in order in addition to the boot stripe:

Since we're changing colours, red bottom paint is out, black bottom paint is in...

  with the stripes and the bottom looking good, it behooves us to clean and wax and buff the hull and make it all shiny.  Which we did.  Leaving us to finish installing the head, hoses, pumps, tank, new hose clamps on cooling hoses, and a list of more unsexy nobody-will-ever-see it stuff the night before we splash.


   We got it done, and NextBoat is now hullwet.

   NextBoat is also no longer NextBoat.

   Before:

  Now.  Please meet Karma:

The weather was nothing but cooperative in the weeks leading up to launch.  The last two weeks have been dry, sunny  and warm, culminating with HOT weather during the last few days before Karma  was launched...


....which ended the moment she began her transit from the yard to the Dock.

   
     (Frank and Lorraine were on hand to watch and take pictures)

By the time Karma  and I passed under the lift bridge, the clouds had rolled in, and long sleeves had been donned.  We figured we'd get the boom hung and sails bent on at the Dock, rather than waiting another half hour for the next bridge opening.
 

   
   (Okay, she ain't pretty, but she's purposeful)
  It was a prudent move.
 
    By the time we had cleared the river mouth and made the turn to port to the marina cut, the temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up.

     After tying her up safe in our slip, we realized rigging could wait.

  Within minutes the winds picked up, the temp plummeted and we were deluged.

   It hasn't warmed up since.

   No matter. We're back in the water, where we belong.

   We're home.






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