Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
I have decided to reinforce the mounting blocks with a bit of fibreglass tabbing. I also epoxy the block I had to remove, back together.
IT was a good day to get this bit of work done and now – it is done!
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
Before going forward with the installation of the tanks I need to do a final test fit. I need to make sure that the mounting blocks are all ok, and then mark them for drilling to accept the bolts that will secure the tanks.
The port side tank is such a tight fit, it is very difficult to install the tank as it is. If I had made it a bit smaller it would be less problematic but we made the tanks as a mirror of each other assuming that both sides of the boat would be the same. It was not a disaster as it could have been but it sure is tough to get the tank wedged into place. That’s not a job I want to do again any time soon. Well, I mean after they’re permanently installed.
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
In an unexpected turn of events, the tiller came apart. It simply delaminated. Time and water took their effect on the old resorcinol and it failed. I deduced that given that one laminate had already come undone the rest would soon follow.
So I took the tiller down to the shop separated the laminates that had let go and then used a wood chisel to separate the remainder.
After sanding and removing the old glue I used epoxy to glue the laminates together again. I’m sure they won’t fail again in my lifetime.
Then, in preparation for the finish, its time to sand sand sand.
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
Now that the tanks are ready to install I need to create some means of holding them in place. The solution I chose was simple enough. I created wooden blocks that I cut to shape when I tested the fuel tank fit. With the blocks epoxied into place I will drill a hole in them and simply put a lag bolt through the tang on the tank (say that 4 times fast….ha! you sound like a train. 🙂 ) and turn it into the block.
That should hold `em. Right? Right! These babies become a difficult problem later on, but nothing that DPB can’t handle!
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
The tanks have been built, but before we install them in the boat it would be most prudent to do a bit of a test on them. A test to make sure that we don’t have any leaks and a test that proves that they won’t come apart with a billion gallons of diesel fuel inside them.
The test was relatively simple. We plugged the various bungs with plugs and then used one of the bungs to accept a compressed air fitting.
With plugs in place we charged the tank with air and then sprayed all seems and bungs with soapy water. The idea being that if there’s a leak, even a little one, we’ll see bubbles forming.
Spoiler alert – we found zero leaks! 😀 And that’s a very good thing. Isn’t it?
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
Right! The fuel tanks have been mostly assembled. The next step is to weld in the various bungs required.
The bungs were: fuel fill, fuel vent, fuel pickup, fuel gauge, and drain.
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
The time has come to start building the new fuel tanks. It is such a pleasure to get something nice and new and functional built to put in the boat. It was a bit disappointing to be unable to go sailing because of old corroded tanks. I didn’t see the corrosion on the port tank, but I knew that the starboard tank was badly rusted out. It only makes sense that they would both be in bad shape. But I guess naive optimism kept me from realizing that we’d need to replace both tanks.
In this video we use the pattern that we’d made from the old tanks adjusted for the ability to install and remove and make the pieces necessary to put the puzzle together. Getting the basic tank made was only the first stage of the job.
Feel free to share any insights below…
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
Arrrrr me hearties. Welcome aboard.
The less romantic and idyllic part of boat ownership is the not so picturesque job of cleaning. All boats need cleaning. Some get cleaned, others not so much. It’s sad to see neglected boats. And I see a lot of them.
The case in point: Little Bear. The fuel tank holds are nasty. The starboard side must have been leaking for years. The foam around the tank is soaked in ancient diesel and the engine pan that it sits on is stained by diesel and rust. That’s gonna change. Today.
I do apologize for the audio quality and the sheer boring aspect of this video but I wanted to show that it’s not all exotic destinations, white sand beaches, bikini’s and buff bodies. To get to that point a lot of work and associated sweat needs to happen.
So I’m putting my scrub brush where my mouth is. Ew. That was a mistake. But I think you get what I mean.
As always, fair winds following seas, and God bless.
All picture credits go to Doug McKinnon Vice Commodore of MBYC. He said that he and the club Secretary Treasurer were down the end of the dock and someone on shore started shouting and waving at them. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong until they interpreted the waving to mean ‘look at the gangway!’. It only took about 10 minutes to to from normal to ‘oh my gosh! we need to vacate NOW!’
Fortunately there was no serious damage to the gangway or the dock itself nor were any animals hurt in the creation of this blog. None of the boats were damaged as the river is fairly protected from the wind that hit White Rock.
Locals are correctly saying they’ve never seen a storm like this one.
December 20th 2018 brought disaster to the sister club of MBYC that I belong to. On that fateful day, a storm such as had not been seen in living memory hit the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The lads over at the Lower Mainland Yacht Club moor their boats on the float at the end of the White Rock pier. They have (had) seven boats in all.
All seven boats were either sunk or so badly damaged in the storm that they were written off.
According to BC Hydro, the December 20, 2018 storm was the most damaging in the Crown utility’s history making it larger than the August 2015 wind-storm that affected the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley, and larger than the 2006 wind-storm that hit Vancouver Island and devastated Stanley Park in Vancouver.
The damage:
A good shot above of how the waves surged over the breakwater battering the float and the boats tied to it.
Above the boats are starting to break free and bounce down the pier.
Making their way towards the shore.
Above – being forced through the pilings on the pier.
Almost through..
Clear of the pier & on the beach..
Salvage…
Not where she’s supposed to be…
Badly busted up.
An arial view of the damage post storm. That’s about 100 feet of pier missing and a sunken boat in the gap.
A sad day for the sailing community.
White Rock Council is predicting that the repair to the pier will be northwards of 5 million and probably closer to 6 million dollars. The project likely won’t be completed till August 2019.
This storm affected my boat as well. While the wind and waves didn’t really affect the sheltered little cove where I moor my boat, the storm surge sure did.
The river has a dyke built along it to protect the low-lying farmland from flooding. It was built many years ago. The builders clearly didn’t anticipate the kind of surge that this storm bought along with it. The water was within about a foot of breaching the dyke.
Little Bear’s mooring buoy is in the deepest part of that section of the river. When I calculated the length of chain I would need I based it on High High Tide plus a few (about 5) feet. It didn’t occur to me that there may be a surge of any sort. We just don’t get storms like that. Well, at least not till now.
The tackle on the bottom is about 1100 lbs of steel & concrete. Under ‘normal’ circumstances this is plenty adequate to hold the boat. However, as the surge came up the chain and buoy reached their limit. Added to that is the relatively short pennant I have to attach the boat to the buoy and the boat simply lifted the tackle off the bottom. It would never have dragged but pulling straight up was absolutely no problem at all. So my boat, with it’s buoy & tackle drifted. Toward shore. And other boats that are moored in shallower water.
Little Bear ended up bumping into a trimaran. Between the trimaran and the shallower water she stopped drifting toward shore. The following day I hustled down to the river to assess the damage and rectify the mooring. Understand that Little Bear has no fuel tanks at the moment so her engine won’t run!! In a pinch I could have filled a jerry can and stuffed the fuel hose into that but with time and circumstances it was easier just to tow it.
The chap who owns the trimaran was also there. He helped me with a tow and we moved Little Bear to an empty mooring much further up river. His boat didn’t have any damage at all and Little Bear only suffered the indignity of a bit of scuffing on her new shiny paint.
It could have been worse. Much worse. Look at those pictures! Some of those boats I know quite well. Every spring they haul out at my club’s facilities for maintenance, bottom cleaning etc. Now they’re gone. I still have a boat. And she’s safe and secure. Thank God.
Next week I’ll post what the water around the club looked like… stay tuned.
Living a Family Life of Adventure!
Sailing, yachts, adventure and sailing around the world!
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A journey to horizons unknown
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Wake For Me 