Tag Archives: Andromeda

Dessert First!

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Detaching the rode from the chain.

This weekend Mike and I had an epiphany. We’re both in our ’50s and it is only now clear to us that our mothers were completely wrong. Also wrong were all the nutrition ‘experts’, doctors, school teachers, Mrs. Kravitz, and any other so-called ‘authority’  or rule-lover who insisted that dessert be eaten only at the end of a meal. Eating dessert at the end of a meal is a risky business. While you are busy filling up on broccoli and brussels sprouts with broiled chicken on the side all the desserts are being enjoyed by people smarter than you who know how to go out and have fun. We will become those people beginning next weekend.

If you think I’m really talking about food, you haven’t been reading this blog for very long. I forgive you. I’m talking about sailing and the fact that we haven’t been having any lately. And why is that? Because we are both hard-working American oldest children, that’s why. We work with almost religious zeal. You’d think we would be raptured at any moment. This must stop. If getting out on the water is the dessert of life, and I reckon it must be if we’re willing to work this hard for it, then we’re going to start eating that first and saving the work for later.

Here’s how these weekends go: Drive to Astoria on Friday night, commence working on S/V Nameless. Drop into bed around 11:00, asleep before hitting the hay. Mike gets up early on Saturday morning and commences to work again. Melissa gets up slightly later and also commences to work. Coffee is made and imbibed. Someone makes breakfast, the only meal of the day that is actually attended to. Work continually Saturday, noticing the sunshine and warm temperatures. Try to ignore it. Go to bed only when the body literally will not obey commands anymore. Repeat on Sunday, by which time the body is screaming in protest (especially the hands. Oy vey. The hands, they do hurt.) Work until almost dinner time, then load the car with this week’s projects and drive home for 3 hours. Feel greenly envious of people who were on the water today.

We had the idea that this weekend we would do work on Saturday, then leave Sunday to go out on the River and play with the boat. Work first, play later. Sounds good in theory. But the ‘play later’ never happened. Here is why:

It’s a little hard to leave the dock with this happening on deck. Mike removed all the chain form the chain locker so we could look it over. This is on our list of ‘must do’s’ before leaving Astoria for Puget Sound. Turns out that the longest chain, which is at least 300 feet, is actually in great condition. The shorter one, which was attached to rope rode, is the iffy one. So he removed the shorter chain and we’ll have that checked out. The anchor and chain on the boat are ready to go. Down below, I was faced with this:

The anchor locker was filthy. With all the chain and rode removed, this was the perfect time to get it cleaned and painted, a job that took better than half the day. Now it looks like this. Got to love Bilge Kote. I won’t bore you with the washing, sanding, and painting. I already lived it once. Why should I make you suffer? Notice that ugly net? This divides the anchor locker into two spaces and ostensibly it keeps one chain from infringing on another. It may have worked well before, but we’re not impressed now. Mike will be redesigning the interior of this space in the future. For now he put Dri Deck at the bottom of the locker to keep air circulating and keep the chain from marring my pretty painted finish. With anchors and chains off the boat, Mike was able to get to the anchor rollers. They are aluminum. Who knew? He removed them, cleaned them up, and lubricated all moving parts. . 

While I worked on the anchor locker, Mike was working on installing the fuel gauge. He was not having a good time. The hole was slightly larger than it needed to be and he’d planned to buy some Star Board at Englund’s. Problem is they’ve never heard of Star Board there. We are unimpressed with that marine store overall. They rarely have what we’re looking for. He spent enough time on this project that he actually got pretty frustrated. Enough said.

Not going anywhere with a cockpit looking like this.

While he was cursing in the cockpit, I did some sewing below. I’ve been working on cushion covers for the salon settees. This is not on our list of ‘required’ things to finish before we leave Astoria, but it’s a soothing project that I can do a little at a time. I have decided sewing these by hand is the best way since these are temporary covers. When we remodel the salon in the future, all will be replaced, so I’m doing these the fast, cheap, easy way. Basically they remain unfinished on the bottom side. That’s where the ‘cheap’ comes in. It saves fabric. I found this fabric for 5$ a yard, which is almost like stealing it. If I don’t have enough for the seat backs, I’ll just get a matching solid color. It’s a good thing I take photos or I wouldn’t be able to remember all the projects we have going on at once. Still waiting for the Bilge Kote to dry, Mike returned to his latest nemesis: the aft head. Recall we took about 30 feet of hose out of the engine room. Mike replaced that with some pvc pipe, connected with regular boat sanitation hose (to absorb vibration).  Finding a way to hook this up to the head itself in a tight space required some sharp turns. In the future we may move the head to the other side of the bathroom where the plumbing will be a straight shot into the oversized holding tank. But for now, we just need a completely plumbed head that dumps into a holding tank in order to be legal on the water. Our forward head goes directly overboard, so we’ll have to take that out of service and ziptie the seacock closed.  Check that off the list.

It’s said you can flush a raincoat down these. We will not be testing that theory.

In the future we’d like to get the bases for both heads sandblasted and let them go green. Industrial art. Perhaps walls of a pale tangerine would show these off well. With the head plumbed and the Bilge Kote dry, Mike returned chain and rode to the locker. While he did that, I began a cleaning project in the area around the aft head. Sometime in the past a previous owner decided that wallpaper and boats went well together. Maybe sometimes they do, but not in this boat, and not in a humid room like a head with a shower attached. I’ve known this was coming but take a look:

EWWWWWW! Just disgusting. There is no other way to say it. One hundred percent of the wall surfaces were covered with black mold behind the paper. Fortunately it was completely dry, having been there for a long time. I’ve been itching to get at this project because I knew it was there and it grossed me out. Since the head wasn’t plumbed we never used that bathroom, just passed through it. Now that we have a head we can use, I wanted it to be clean.

I ripped off all the paper, spraying the backing and walls with bleach water as I went to kill any spores. The paper was put on with what appeared to be standard wall paper paste, something that mold loves. It was the perfect medium, just one big petri dish. I sprayed down all the walls, scrubbed with bleach water with a drop of dishwashing soap, using a big green scrubby pad. That took off most of the black spots and revealed that the walls had been painted previous to papering them. I am going to repaint, so I got most of the black off, then got out my electric sander with dust collector. Masked, with the widow open, I commenced to sanding and the stuff zipped right off. I used the shower head to spray down the walls after wiping them down to take most of the remaining dust off. I’m almost finished with the removal of the nasty stuff. I still have to remove the paper behind the mirror and on the base cabinet. It’s not pretty, but it will do for now.

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In the middle of this, Mike re-routed the raw water vent from the engine. That only took a couple of hours. Meanwhile, the sun was shining. Sunday morning the wind was calm, the river looking almost welcoming. The boat was too ripped apart to do any kind of ‘going out’. In the car on the way home we made a pact of sorts. Next week if the weather is fine, which, in Astoria means that the wind is pretty calm and the river is not gnarly,  we will go out first, and then do our work after we’ve played for awhile. Perhaps we will also eat cake for breakfast.

Skidding Towards Victory

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Note: Apologies if the photos are looking weird on your browser. There is a problem with the integration of WordPress and Picasa and I’m working to resolve it.

We dared to say it this weekend. We dared to say we are getting just that close to being able to bring this boat up to Washington. So close that we are actually looking at our calender and beginning to make plans to take leave from work. So close that we’ve created a list of things that must be done before we leave. These are musts, not wants. We must, for example, have a plumbed head on board. We must make sure our safety equipment is up to date. We must call our boat insurance and add the engine to the policy, and be sure we are fully insured for this part of the Pacific Ocean. We must have good ground tackle. It’s exciting to be making that kind of list.

Mike is like the energizer bunny of late. He has so many projects on his ‘to do’ list, rambling around in his head, that I don’t know how he keeps them all straight. He trouble shoots issues during the week, shops for parts, then when we get to Astoria he hits the ground running. This week a new fuel gauge was on his list of projects. Until now, the only way to actually know how much fuel is in the tank was to remove the cover plate and look.  That’s too much work. Plus, every time you open the tank you risk exposing the fuel to dust and dirt. So he ordered a fuel gauge and set about to his business. In his  mind the most daunting part of the task was making a hole in the aluminum port cover. This little Ryobi drill has more than paid for itself with tasks like this one. 

A little cleanup with the dremel to make the edges smooth, insert gauge into hole, and voila, sort of: 

Next week he will install the visible part of the gauge. It will be next to the engine panel in the cockpit. There is already a hole there, but it’s just that much too big, so a piece of Star Board must be bought to finish it off. Next week that’s on the agenda.

As much as I’d like to sit around reading novels while Mike works his ass off, I, too have projects going on. First on the agenda was finishing up those port screens. Last week I began this project by removing the old screening material and cleaning up the aluminum frames which had old dried adhesive and worn out weather stripping. We won’t need them for awhile, but it will be nice to have them this summer. This week I rummaged around in the attic and found our old window screens from before we put new windows in the house. They had that fabric screen material that I wanted for this project. I cut the screening out with a razor blade and set it aside. Here’s a ‘before photo’.  

I needed silicone to attach the pieces of screen to the frames, and weather seal to go around the outside to provide a friction fit inside the port holes. This week found us at West Marine for something else, so I looked for the silicone. A small tube for 15$? Um. No. I am way too cheap for that. We went to Home Depot and I found a small tube for 4$, but it looked like I might need two. This was in the glue section. I put them in the cart, then toddled off to find the weather stripping. I found that, and just next to it a large tube of what, in effect, was the same kind of thing. Siliconized caulk. 3$ for a large tube. Just goes to show it pays to look around. Considering that the screen material was, in effect, free, the total cost of this project came in at 11$.  I consider that a win.

I put a bead of this stuff around the inside edge, then lay the screen on top and pressed into place. Little pieces of screen on each side will help remove the screen from the port easily. This stuff lays on white, but dries clear. After applying the rubber weather seal, they were done.

A perfect fit!

Next up was a new fresh water pump. If you recall, our brief ‘shake down’ cruise last weekend presented us with a water pump leaking like a sieve. We had researched which pump to use, noting that the old one was a ShurFlo, but we couldn’t tell which model or even how many GPH it was rated. We went with our Bible of Marine Information, Practical Sailor, to tell us what to get. They had done a review of water pumps in their May 2011 issue. I went to the shelf and pulled that issue and read the article, then we decided to go with the ShurFlo 3.0. The article described this particular pump as being the best one for people who want to take a ‘belt and suspenders’ direction with their choice. That’s us.  You’d think we’d want a larger pump considering the size of this boat and the number of faucets. But we don’t want to tax the system by putting too much pressure through it, and we are unlikely to be using more than one faucet at a time.

Down at the boat, Mike decided that the installation of the new pump would be a dandy project for me to take on. He would be working on another small project in the engine room (adding a rubber washer to the brace for the exhaust elbow to dampen vibration) and would be there to coach me and answer questions. He would teach me how to solder. (Be still my heart! Man-cave mysteries about to be solved!) Wide eyed, I asked him if he was serious. Did he really want me to install said pump? I felt the ground shift underneath me just a little as a bit of cognitive dissonance was created. But he looked dead sexy in his new glasses and, well, he believed in me. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

To be frank, the whole thing was pretty anti-climactic. Unscrew the threaded connections to the hoses, unscrew some other screws, clip some wires. Then use same screws to go in same holes, attach the threaded connectors, strip some wires and wind them together, solder, cover exposed wire and ‘Bob’s your uncle’. The worst part was stripping the wires to prepare for soldering.  This was probably the easiest part of the refit yet because it looks like we chose an identical pump. Works like a charm. 

In other project news, I’m in the middle of a temporary re-do of the aft cabin.  I ran into such a good deal on fabric that I had to take advantage of it. I am making covers for the berths. I’m pretty tired of having an aft cabin that always looks messy. After working on messy projects all day, we would like a more soothing environment to sleep in. This is what we had to work with:

We’ve been using heavy sleeping bags as sheets, then using our blankets to cover. The sleeping bags were comfortable, but slide around and hang off the side creating a messy space. They are hard to fold and put away in the morning as well and take up a lot of space. Eventually we will do a more serious remodel this cabin but there are more urgent things on the agenda. So meanwhile I wanted something cheap, easy, and hopefully something we could reuse after the remodel. I wanted to create a covering that would act as both a sheet and as upholstery; something that would give the space a bit of a facelift and our raise our spirits as well.

My thought was to go to a thrift shop and get something to recycle but I was not finding anything that was worth the effort there. Instead I went to Hancock Fabric, which was having a huge sale, and found the perfect fabric, in the perfect colors, for 5$ /yard. It was front and center when I entered the store.  For less than 50$ I had enough fabric to do the aft cabin. For another 50$ I bought fabric to make slip covers for the settees in

the salon.

 

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In our Cal 34 we used a memory foam mattress topper on top of new foam cushions in the V berth and we found it to be a satisfying and comfortable solution. I wanted to reproduce that comfort in this boat. I had twin size memory foam topper from Andrew’s years in the dorm, and a twin size mattress cover as well. These would do for the small berth. (And as an aside, THIS is why I have trouble getting rid of stuff. I’m always repurposing things.) I cut the mattress pad to fit the irregularly shaped cushion and tacked it into place with needle and thread (you cannot see this in the photo).  This will keep the topper in place and provide air circulation between a body at rest and the memory foam. I don’t plan to remove this mattress pad until we replace the whole sleeping unit during the remodel phase. But if I have to, it’s simple enough to snip the threads. 

They I lay the fabric on the berth, cut to shape, pieced it where necessary, fit it using pins, then removed and took it to the sewing machine for finishing. I’m pretty happy with the result and Mike pronounced this berth to be perfectly comfortable. This fabric is definitely a win, and 100% cotton as well. Note that the colors match the pillow cases and blanket that were already on board.P1050196

Next is the double berth (a misnomer if I’ve ever heard one). That will be more difficult because I would like to replace the really worn out mattress. At one time it was a good one, but now it’s not. Since we’ll remodel in the future, I don’t want to spend good money on a new mattress or even new foam at this point. Let the scrounging begin.

Our final work of the weekend: Mike installed the mizzen sail before I even got out of bed on Sunday morning. Then we needed to figure out how to use the Lofrans Falkon windlass and take a close look at the anchoring gear. The windlass works great. We’ve never had an electric one before and both have serious trust issues with such things. Therefore we had to be sure we knew how to do it manually. 

Here’s what we have to work with. This compartment needs cleaning and some minor fiberglass repair, but that’s not on the list of things that must be done before we leave this marina for Washington. This, however, definitely IS on the list:

Would you trust your boat to this chain?

Would you trust your boat to that chain? I think not. The other chain is loads better, but we will be checking each and every link, and we’ll likely replace it before we leave. The latest issue of Practical Sailor came this week. There is a review of anchor chain. Very timely, no?

Finally, we are getting serious about this whole boat naming business. Honestly, it was easier to name our children! I am about to get out the large presentation paper and create venn diagrams, if not spreadsheets. Progress was made, however, when the name of the new engine popped into my head: Hiram. Yes, we have named the engine Hiram after Mike’s Grandfather Boyte, whose nickname was ‘Red’. So there you go. Let it be written, let it be done. Red Boyte lived a long and fruitful life. Let it be so with our engine.

Lady Washington comes a-visiting

Look who visited Astoria this weekend! The Lady Washington.

 

Shakin’ Our Sillies Out

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Do you know why they call the first real trip on a new boat the ‘shake down’ cruise? Well, I don’t know either. But I’m imagining it must be one of two reasons:

1. Because you are shaking in your shoes with high anxiety about the docking and undocking of the boat due to the previous traumatic experience with said boat whereby you got stuck in reverse and left a lasting impression on the boat behind you and also on your heavy steel davit.

2. Because all the shaking of the boat due to engines and being tossed around by water is bound to shake some stuff loose that you didn’t know was going to be a problem. Pick one. I guarantee you will be right. P1050107

Aside from a whole lot of shaking going on, this weekend found us back in business! I do love a long weekend. In spite of the late start on Friday, due to absolutely ridiculous, just-turn-around-and-go-home traffic, we had an entire day and a half and two nights on S/V Nameless, long enough to get a bunch of things done and actually leave the dock behind for a couple of hours. I’m going to have to soothe you with some garden photos in this post because I was too busy talking myself off of invisible, if not non-existent ledges, to take many pictures this weekend. Why? Because I felt sure we’d be leaving the dock this weekend. And that meant we’d have to come back IN to the marina. Docking, thy name is Nemesis. 

Things that got accomplished this weekend include the following: Mike replacing the light I creamed onto the side of the steel fishing boat during the docking fiasco of 2014, I cleaned the starboard side of the deck causing it to look extra spiffy and turn many heads, Shawn aligned the engine and put nylocks on the shaft seal, Mike almost finished the replumbing of the aft head, I took apart and cleaned the dried adhesive off of the old porthole screens, then cut new screens to fit, I took a shower on board for the first time and discovered that the shower works. Let’s see. Anything else? Oh yes! And we took her out on the river for a couple of hours.  Just that.

Osprey feeding it’s fledgling.

I really look forward to the day when I can take this whole docking/leaving thing in stride the way Mike appears to do. Appears. That is the operative word here. It’s fascinating, in a morbid sort of way, how my mind will picture our marina as very small, with tight turning required, and other boats just waiting for the chance to jump our at us. In fact, there is a lot of room for error, plenty of turning room, and the slip is very wide. I have to constantly remind myself of that. I am hopeful this is only a learning curve, and not a harbinger of things to come. Because I truly hate feeling that way.

This time I didn’t even bother to try to drive the boat in the marina. I’ll save that for later when I’m back to feeling like my usual confident self. We got out without incident, all large fishing vessels left safely behind us. The river was flat and fairly calm as we tootled up river at a crisp 9 knots, the sun shining for once. This boat can move! Frankly, my body is still accustomed to Moonrise, our old Cal 34, and 9 knots feels like we’re flying. I actually wanted to slow down. It’s hard to appreciate the scenery with all that speed. And what’s the hurry anyhow?

 

We played with the autopilot and it works well, having only 33 hours on the unit at this point. Mike got the electronics to all get along and speak the same language so we had our depth, speed, and all that. I am glad we got the Garmin chartplotter as all the commands are so familiar to us. We enjoyed having the AIS, looking at the names of all the ships it looked like we would be hitting. Seriously, the system is so sensitive that in an area like the lower Columbia River, if you went only by the warning system on the AIS, you’d think you were in grave danger all the time. Even sitting at the dock. I do like how it will tell you how long before you feel the crunch of impact and become the little ‘wreck’ icon on the screen. So cheerful. It’s nice to be warned. All kidding aside, it’s dead useful.

By the time we turned around, the weather, too, was turning and not for the better. We cruised down river into gusty wind and waves and I prepared mentally and physically to meet my maker. I mean to meet my nemesis. I mean, to do my part in the docking dance.  Now, I had asked people who watch our Facebook page to do the ritual hand clapping, spinning, and spitting so that we’d have an uneventful docking experience. If you were among the spinners and spitters, I am grateful to you and you can take credit for a job well done.  The rest of you…well… you know who you are and I can only hope that if you ever cross the equator you will be prepared with the appropriate rituals at that time.  We got on the dock after only two tries, with no hitting of any other object. Our first try was thwarted by a docking stick, which is supposed to be helpful but wasn’t. We’ll try that again another time and let you know how it goes.

After the first miss, my brain almost went crazy. Neurons were firing at anything they saw.  I had an almost out-of-body experience as I realized that I literally didn’t know what to do. I remember vaguely noticing I was wearing my life jacket and thinking this was probably a smart idea. I had to pull myself together with a stern, “White! Pull yourself together, woman! Go get that stern line and I mean NOW!”.  (I am the only one who can talk to me that way. If anyone else were to try, he would be in serious peril. Just saying.)  Mike was cool as winter. He backed out of the slip, because we were too far from the dock for me to step off, backed way out into the marina, and tried again. This time I was able to step off the boat and get the stern line cleated off, at which point I lost 30 pounds and my blood pressure dropped 50 points. My brain began to receive oxygen again because I remembered to breathe. Anxiety is the biggest bitch in the world. Logic says, ‘this boat has been around a long time in rougher circumstances than this’, but my brain and body say, ‘WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!’. Ridiculous.

Message to dock: I will rule you eventually. I may have trauma lodged in my body right now, but I know how to work it, sister, so I’m coming for you. Eventually.

Tomorrow we go to Fisheries Supply in Seattle to spend the 200$ gift certificate for new dock lines that I won at the Women’s Boating Seminar. This is sure coming at a good time because we can really use some new dock lines. We have the old kind of rope, stiff with salt, and worn in many places. It’s time for new ones. Many thanks to Andy at Northwest Rigging in Anacortes for donating the gift certificate.

Oh, and the ‘silly’ that got shaken loose during the 2 hour cruise today? The water pump. It’s now leaking like a sieve. It looks like it’s original to the boat, so no surprise there. It’s now next on the agenda. We know it’s a ‘Shurflo’, but sure enough, that’s all we know.