Marine Forecast issued for Eastern Lake Ontario. Issued: 3.00 AM EDT Saturday 15 September 2007 for the period ending At 3.00 AM Sunday with an outlook for the following 24 hours.
Forecast: ..Small craft wind warning in effect.. Wind northwest 15 knots increasing to 20 this morning then diminishing to 15 this afternoon. Wind further diminishing to 10 near midnight. Showers becoming chance of a shower with risk of a waterspout this morning and ending this evening otherwise fair. Waves near 1 metre lowering to less than 1 overnight. Outlook..Light northwesterlies becoming variable then southwesterlies.

Last night brought high winds and driving rain that prevented John from attempting to leave. However this morning has dawned clear with light winds so far. Today John Bachelor and Dingo will begin the voyage west and then south for perhaps the final chapter of his 365 cruising as he like I has tired of wintering on board. As always trying a place to stow the new bow of the two part dinghy took a little fiddling. As the Joy B filled up Dingo got a small case of pre departure jitters and circled the boat constantly. Finally, all was ready and John set sail, or in this case power for Picton on his first leg west.

I began the job of sanding out the first coat of 238 primer on spots for the stands to go when I move and will fair it tomorrow. This coming week I will need to beg another week here to deal with the welding so there is only one move and when I reach my final resting spot the bottom will be finished and after I do the remainder of the hull and be ready to go in the spring.

Once John was off I spent the day with Terry and Chenoa earning my vet credits. Chenoa is coming along nicely and in reality it has just taken time to finish a hundred small things that kept the boat from being ready and pleasant.

It was dark when I started today providing me my favorite day starter a sunrise to join my coffee and cat as I greet the day. As the sun begins to warm the surface of the water clouds of steam refract the suns rays making this perch one of the best views in the world.

18:00 EDT Sunday, September 16, 2007

I spent most of the day working on the bottom of Defiance. One more time I did the keel bottom crawl putting the image of the seam in my mind. I wish that I had a 200 AMP AC/DC arc welder as I am positive that I can lay a better bead than is on there now. But, that is another day as this will be a lot of welding on the bottom of my boat. Sc--w up, and have a leak that will cost you a couple of thousand dollars to fix by the time you get Defiance back out of the water. This bottom has to be right the first time as once launched the crane will leave before I have a chance to change my mind were something wrong

You can't see what I've done as it was another 2 coats of “Amercoat 238” on the pad areas. As it had skinned off I had to sand it before another coat of primer that turned out to be super hard to do. You do not go out and try to work this stuff very much as the stuff really sticks and rolling out a coat on is a two-hand job. The more I work with this stuff, the more I realize just how tough a product it is. Equally, the technical sheets and MDS are enough to get your attention. This stuff is dangerous and can kill you if handled wrongly. Fortunately, I am working outside, as the fumes are also bad for you. Silica, silica if it is not my fumeilated silica I use as an epoxy filler agent that is also in this Newcoat 114A. I have no question that silica is a key component of the “solids” component of the primer.

I now face a growing infection on a main vein in my right ankle after puncturing it on something during a bush walk; a walk which was in itself a bit too close as the stab was a bad pumper and I a couple of miles to get to the car, loosing way more blood on the way than is safe. However, I need to catch this infection now and know the infection will get up to important stuff ….fast. Today, I will disinfect soak it again and pile on the antibiotic ointment and hope.

The big fish are running at Waupoos. This fine collection of pike was caught in a space of four hours.

Option B?

The only practical way for a boat such as Defiance to exist today with rising marina & insurance costs is with more than one person using it. The Sarah H a 1940’s, 50’ schooner is working as non profit organization. There are companies doing “time share” while financing brand new trawlers on Georgian Bay. Then again, these time share companies have their sales commission mark up to play with.

I would like to see Defiance set up as a Co-Op where the participants are not passengers, but owners-members#.

The general idea being that the Co-Op takes care of the certification training, maintenance and service aspect of the vessels operation providing a ready to go vessel that qualified members could use in the Waupoos cruising grounds. It would be very easy to establish a set of prepared destinations that satisfied the average persons ambitions, while having no operational worries.

*Qualified means that they have the required Provincial and federal papers and have at least 20 hours aboard operating the vessel with trainer and have satisfactorily completed a Cruising test in the operational area.

Tuesday 06:18 EDT September 18, 2007

All in all not a bad day, all things considered. Rufus is back and Clyde has stopped by. Clyde is far too comfortable for an old cat lady not to notice his comfort level around Defiance. Even though I like the boy Clyde’s visits are a bit too politically shaky he has a human home that loves him, so I try to discourage him from spending too much time here. But he keeps stopping by and Rufus on the other hand thinks Clyde is cool as they spend endless hours hanging out together playing tom games.

Once I started work with the chosen Ameron coatings and chemicals, I realize why this stuff is not sold to the recreational market. The “238 Ameron” is serious industrial stuff requiring attentive trade care and observation of all technical bulletins and the MDS. Working with it is no picnic either as it is heavy (high solids) and generally nasty to work with requiring a two handed roller application. The most glaring failure issue has to be measurement of the component proportions as it comes packaged in 5 gallon kits, which I bet are spot on. However, we are trying to mix batches of 750 ML to cover perhaps a couple of square feet, requiring me to make the calculations.

Measurement; have been too crude and we will switch to a digital weight measure of proportions for all future coating/fairing mixes.

Wednesday September 19, 2007

Marine Forecast issued for Lake Ontario. Issued: 3.00 AM EDT Wednesday 19 September 2007 for the period ending At 3.00 AM Thursday with an outlook for the following 24 hours. Wind south 15 knots veering to southwest this afternoon then diminishing to light and variable overnight. Fair. Waves less than 1 metre. Outlook..Light and variable becoming easterlies.

The Canadian Loonie reached 99.9 of a USA dollar overnight. Pretty amazing as I have not seen those sort of rates since I went to college. Go on Canada.

The mornings are spectacular if not cool. I was greeted by Clyde standing in the companionway this morning which brings an entirely new aspect the the fellow hanging around. He has now figured out how to use the cat door and was most perturbed when I put him out. Complexity,complexity what to do to discourage the boy from getting too attached to Defiance.

Yesterday was a catch up on advertising day and I finished an article for Lake Ontario Sailor that will run run in the fall issue along with the AD seen here.

To read the article draft with a selection of supplied pictures, knowing not all will be published. However all ink is good ink and I am hunting a winter project. [ Visit Skiff Article here ]

Thursday September 20, 2007

I woke up to find Clyde curled up on the salon settee happy as a cat could be. Smart kitty, but problematical as he does not belong here and he has figured out how to use Rufus's cat door. I don't mind him but he has a home and I am glad to see that he did not return last night or this morning as this is the County and we don't want political upheaval over a cats criteria.

If there is a steel boat god she was watching over Defiance today. The day arrived picture perfect with bright sun warming the cool of the night. Chris was a bit slow to get moving as a result of two weeks roofing but there is nothing like youth give them a little sleep and they are ready to go again.

Today is the day I confront the steel nemesis of Defiances keel. Two weeks of investigation have discovered Defiance's hidden gremlin. There is absolutely NO QUESTION that the prior owner was short on maintainance savvy and this jackpot is no different. Ever since I owned Defiance I would find water accumulating in the keel, which is a box section seperate from the hull bottom that had to be drained via plugs when you hauled out. I had been over the bottom a half a dozen times could never quite find what was happening. Sandblasting to SPF 6 (bare white metal) was the cure.

This time I found the ice damage the prior owner had covered up by a commercial sprayed high build bottom coating. The stuff is tough and even after 17 years (estimated from verbal accounts) most of the areas that were coated are very good shape. The prior owner obviously had frozen water in the keel (see survey comments from Ian Campbell). Now we know where the problem was and what it did. The ice had cracked a number of welds along the bottom edge of the keel. The last epoxy coatings had filled the cracks up enough to keep 99.9% of the water out, but still a hole in the boat as far as I am concerned, and why this bottom job is being done right with more investigation than a submarine. This baby will be good this time!

Whatever the case I knew this was going to be a big job and it will be. The cure is not that drastic, but a lot of work. The first step was to grind out the old welds along the bottom of the keel edges from bow to stern creating as right angle groove roughly 0.25" to 0.33" deep preparing bare white metal for welding. Thank heavens that I was able to catch Chris as my shoulder would never have stood up to 10 hours of on your back overhead grinding. On the other hand he just does it and does not complain. To be 30 again. By the end of the day the entire keel with the exception of where the supporting blocks are was completed.

For once I got to watch and follow along checking progress as Clyde and Rufus kept watch over the operations. Clyde and Rufus have become great friends and spend a lot of time hanging out together playing cat games which is great as Rufus has always been a bit of a loner.

Marine Forecast issued for Lake Ontario. Issued: 10.30 AM EDT Friday 21 September 2007 for the period ending At 10.30 AM Saturday with an outlook for the following 24 hours. Forecast: ..Small craft wind warning in effect.. Wind light and variable increasing to south 15 knots late this evening and to 25 overnight. Wind veering to southwest Saturday morning. Fair. Chance of a shower or thunderstorm developing Saturday morning. Waves less than 1 metre building to 1 to 2 overnight. Outlook..Strong southwesterlies veering to northwesterlies then diminishing to light.

The weather is warm with high humidity and a thick fog hanging over Waupoos this morning. As I finish up the Blog for the day all bases have checked in and we are moving toward the welding with, Colin Cole who built Bay of Quinte famous boats with Henley Boats due to arrive in the next day or two to run two new beads up both sides of the keel bottom.

I hope the day clears up a bit as I have a chance to go sailing on Chenoa and Terry this afternoon. Instead of being stuck in some inaccessible corner fighting with some wire or nut I will actually be able to sail. WHOOO Haah! Come on wind lets get a little action here.