Monday November 8, 2004 12:38 EST

It's all here. All my stock side by side. Sort of a historic occasion in light of my decision to push ahead with the Ontario Waterways Release CD, & photographic postcards and signed laser prints with at least a dozen ready for Christmas 2004 sale.

Sometimes there is no way left but forward. Welcome to "catfish" the official home for Cruising Canada for 2005.

It is official I will pull together all my stuff anad set up shop in Catfish. Whatever boat work I undertake between now and spring there is little chan ce of any long term return that is more sustainable that what I have put 6 years into already.

Defiance hull inspection November 2004

Starboard side aft quarter keep plating: There is a outward distortion of the keel plating extending from the aft engine room bulkhead to the next station a distance of roughly 6 or 7 feet long with the maximum % of the keel height reaching perhaps 70% at the widest point of the distortion. The maximum outward distortion is perhaps 0.5 to 0.75�.

After sounding the hull thickness in the questioned area has proved to be of more than adequate thickness, however the concern was as to how the water entered the keel in the first place.

It took me a couple of days to click in as I did a good stint of bilge diving until I remembered what I had originally taken to be a abandoned bilge pump was in fact a standpipe to the keel left open during construction to provide a way to ballast the hull after the keel was attached.

There is little deterioration in the standpipe and the cure is as easy as a proper 2 1/2" black irom pipe cap. Nor should I be shocked at the pure stupidity of the fool who came up with this ingenous system.

For as mickey Mouse as the contraption was it was quite a fight to get it open and discover the seceret of Defiance's bilge. The blue plastic and mountings were in fact nothing more than a piece of 3/4" plywood cut to roughly 1 1/2" diameter screwed onto a old spray paint can top and held in place with pipe nanger strapping.

There have been some amazing discoveries aboard this boat courtesy of a man who called himself and engineer and should not have been given a kiddie car let alone this vessel. Considering that this was the only thing preventing water from leaking into the keel the moment you got more than a couple of inches of water in the bilge answers the HOW?

One more piece of junk to add to the idiot bin. I swear I am going to package up all the foolishness and send it back to the prior owner with a thank you note.

And so ends another day in paradise.