The July Dock Digest- Lots of Really Good Nothing

     "I'm gonna tell 'em that I've got no one to blame..."
                                                   -Sheryl Crow



*I recommend grabbing a beverage- I've got a lot of ground to cover here.*

  So, where to begin?

  At the lack of beginning, I suppose.

  As I am sure you have figured out, Faithful Reader, I have been procrastinating.

  And a near bloody thing it was.

   See here's the thing about procrastination, it's a delay of stages.
  
   It starts with, "I'm (tired, busy, working, sailing, eating, drinking, pick one), I'll do it tomorrow."

   Then "I'll do it tomorrow" becomes "I'll do it this week," then this week becomes next week, next week ends up in the dust and becomes last week, then last week becomes two weeks past, then becomes last month, then  Procrastination Induced Panic (henceforth known as PIP- if it's not a documented disorder, it should be)  starts to nibble the already frayed edge of my writer's psyche, and I begin to wonder if procrastination has mestastasized into writers block or worse...

.... have I run out of things to write?

  Or am I just fuckin' lazy?

   Neither diagnosis is an attractive one, and in either case , the only solution is to sit my fat ass down in front of a keyboard and pound away until I produce something fit for consumption by the voracious hungering masses handful of loyal readers who have, thankfully, stuck it out and stuck by me.

    If I can't come up with something fit for consumption, we still have this.

     So, as Inigo Montoya uttered, "Lemme sum up"

    July was a great, busy month.  But I realized I should backtrack:  Let's review who is on the Dock roster this year, who is on the disabled list and who is missing in action:

     Phil and Whiskeyjack are back, Gordon and QuidiVidi are back, the Irelands are back, Rick is back with 20th hole, (still for sale), Hillary is back, Jordan is back, with a new-to-him ex-Jack Bluenose, Buttons,

  Eric is back with After School, his DS20, a boat muskrats seem to admire:

 Jamie and Tran have upped the Soundbox fleet game with a pontoon boat.  Yes, it may arguably be the coolest boat on the Dock.

    Nancy and Drew are back with their Precision 23, resplendent with refinished brightwork and renamed in Nancy's honour...

Frank and Lorraine are back in the slip beside us with their new-to-them O'day, Keara and Bruce is back with Prolific, two slips down...

   ...and of course Jack is back, splashing a Bluenose...

 ...and with Jim's Carpe Diem returning, that's  4 on the Dock this season- that may be a record fleet west of Mahone Bay... I even got him to take the helm on Karma:

  Speaking of helming Karma,  SWMBO has demonstrated a degree of badassery at the helm.

     The rental SeaDoos are corraled at the foot of the Dock again. 'nuff said.

   John is back to work, cancer-free, and busy, so his Sirius 22 is absent from the Dock this season, although he still wanders down from time to time.


The water level is WAY up.  Two winters with almost complete great Lakes ice-over really helps.  This season, the water level is at least 3 feet over 2013, month for month.  It is a little weird to have to walk UP from land to get onto the water.

The water level is high enough that Hillary was able to safely make a run into Hoover's Marina in Nanticoke, normally a dicey proposition for a boat with a 5' draft.

We paraded in the Canada Day boat parade on July 1....

...finishing 3rd, behind Keara....

which got us $25 and a nice plaque, now hanging in Karma's saloon.

Speaking of Karma's saloon, a number of low-buck projects found their way onboard-  the tv wall was covered in the aft cabin...

and I built a new cabinet to make better use of the storage space in the saloon:

and the cockpit table is finished and installed in the, er, cockpit.

More on that later.

Pottahawk was relatively trouble-free and drama-free this year-  nobody sank in the fairway, for instance.  The return parade was relatively subdued, evidence that all had a good time.

  The weather has been damn near ideal for sailing this summer, so we sailed.  We sailed Ereni, we sailed Karma,

 We discovered what a sweet sailing boat a Bluenose is.

And I am again racing on Cyclone...

....where out crew continues to surprise with their skills including spinn pole surfing:

  And there's lots more going on- stay tuned.

  All told, life on the Dock doesn't suck.

Thanks for taking the time to read the D6C.  If you liked what you read, please Talk the Dock! Spread the word.

Toronto Boat Show 2013, Part 1: It was Fun.

"Four kids on the corner, trying to bring you up..."
                            -Creedence Clearwater Revival



  The opening riff of this post pretty much summed up the "Sail Fest" section of the Toronto International Boat Show this year.  More on that later.

   I've spent the last week or so working to organize my thoughts and impressions of the show this year, trying to separate the quantitative from the qualitative, sussing out feedback from other attendees, attempting to figure out whether my initial impressions of this year's Show are accurate.

   We had great fun with great friends who attended, but the mix of craft on display and the vendor mix in the Marketplace was... underwhelming.  Prices on (almost) everything were up.  In some cases WAY up.  More on that later, too.


   Somebody in the Show's head office must have lost their mind, because this year I was issued press credentials.

   Minor gripe:  Reading the back of the badge, it looks like the badge is also my ticket. Woohoo!  Free admission!

However, to get my badge I had to go to the Press Office...

Which is inside the Show, which requires a ticket to enter.

No biggie, SWMBO and I had already bought our tickets online.



 Friday night, Hilary and Deb and SWMBO and I checked into the Westin, and Saturday morning offered us a spectacular view:

  After a quick breakfast, we caught the shuttle bus to the Show.

 I snapped a shot as we walked in the gate, to try to capture  the scope of the event:

   I got about half of one building in this shot.  There are still two more buildings and a hockey arena converted to an indoor lake.  It is a BIG show, area-wise.

   The first impression I had when we entered was that there were fewer seven-figure big pimpin' moneyboats than last year. In past years,  there were always a half dozen or more  50+ foot power cruisers in the center of the room.  This year it looked like the number had been cut in half.  Still, there were some interesting big boats, like this hardtop express:

 


  While the hedge-fund and gold chain crowd was underserved, it seems like there were a slew more wakeboats and  pontoon boats than in years past.  Some ideas stood out, like this pontoon boat manufacturer who seems to understand the best uses for a pontoon boat:

  A floating bar!

And...

  A floating waterpark!

Some of the wakeboard boats were beautifully finished:

  with bow styling that looks familiar...

   Where have I seen that before?

   Ah!  I remember!  Bertone did it in 1953.

     While some wakeboat styling cues worked well,
others... maybe not so much.

 MasterCraft  had a large display of boats, and I noticed that they sported the mother of all wakeboard towers.








Look at that bad boy!  Cast, jointed, cantilevered and articulated!  Hell, it even has a shock on each side!  Now THAT is bad ass!

  "Er, why?" some of you might be asking.

   I wondered too, so I asked one of the MasterCraft reps what the shocks actually did.

  "They make it easier to raise and lower the tower for storage and transport."
 
    That's it.

  Looks trick, though.


     One of the better changes at the show this year was that the large sailboats were all accessed from one platform.

     That's the good news.

     The bad news is that this was possible because there were fewer large sailboats this year.

     And fewer midsize sailboats this year.

     And fewer small sailboats this year.

     Fewer boats, by fewer manufacturers, represented by fewer dealers.

     Sigh.

   
  This pic captured almost  half of the 30'+ LOA sailboats on display.

   Hunter, Beneteau, Jeanneau, Bavaria, J Boats, Hanse, Dufour and TES all had boats on display, but Catalina really came out to play, with a full handful of boats available for a walk through.

This year there were no powersailers.  No McGregor 26M, no Hunter Edge.  That may be good news or bad news, depending upon your point of view.  Frankly, I figure fewer boats of any sort is bad news.

Some hits and misses from the sailboats on display:

Hit:
Bavaria's stern rail cushions, as demonstrated by Deb:

Hit:
Catalina's cavernous cockpit lockers, and the clever trashbin access:

 Miss:
  Dufour  445 chartplotter location:

 
    Impossible to see from the wheel.  Because Catalina got it right, and because of the quality of the brightwork finish, Catalina gets a...

   Hit:
     Catalina 445 cockpit stack:

     The cockpit table sports the best brightwork finish I have ever seen on a production boat, the chartplotter is well located and it's nice to see somebody put the engine instruments in front of the helm, but not at the front of the cockpit!

Hit/Miss:

Catalina 445 hard-top dodger:

    I like the idea of a hard top dodger, and the handholds are well integrated, however the hardtop's curve is just a little too bowed compared to the cabinhouse top, and the whole thing a few inches too tall to really integrate well with the rest of the boat.

   Still, it's a hell of a package if you've got near on $400 000 to spend.

  Hit:
   Hanse 445 cockpit cushions:

 

    Miss:
      Gemini Catamarans.
     Gemini had a broker, pamphlets and a video on a small TV to show off their new Legacy catamaran.  I know the companyy has seen some upheaval recently, but come on,  this is not how to debut a new boat.

 For the first time in years there was no cruising catamaran at the show.


Stay tuned for our next exciting adventure, as we pick up the pace and go shopping!



"Talk the Dock!"