Après le déluge

Oops, looks like I missed a zinc priming spot on the trailing edge of the thrust-bearing yoke.

Just a small, quietly pleased post about water-tightness, a subject of enduring interest to the metal boat owner.

Above is a picture of Alchemy's main bilge a couple of days ago. Note the tablespoon of water aft. This is the first water I've found in this spot, the lowest in the boat, since launch. I suspect it's seepage from under the companionway dropboard (just a piece of Lexan, really), down the stairs and through the ungasketed engine bay hatch. I do not believe it's ingress from the PSS Shaft Seal. My son reports no other damp spots indicative of outside water getting in.

Not a dismasted Alchemy, but a bus trying to head upriver to spawn little cripple carts.

In light of recent events, this is somewhat of a big deal.

Last Monday evening, Toronto received a downpour of record-breaking intensity. For those readers of a certain vintage, the tally in rain (if not wind) exceeded that of Hurricane Hazel, the previous anecdotal benchmark for bad weather, by half a centimetre. That's a lot of rain. Unlike in the '50s, thankfully, no one died, although certain aspects of the event were a touch biblical.

Little snakes on a flooded train

The ground, already sodden from previous recent rainstorms, basically gave up and refused to absorb any more sky juice. Despite my own efforts to divert water from the eavestroughs away from the house, we had my basement office flooded, if only to a minor degree, by water coming up through the floor, indicating that even seven feet below grade, the dirt itself was essentially, if only partly, liquid. Other people, including on the other side of our semi-detached, had it worse, i.e. deeper, and Cap'n Matt in Mississauga designated his basement a fuel dock, now with carpeting. After the upwelling came extensive unplanned (and afterwards planned) electrical blackouts; as I had the trusty Honda 2000 at home (on a shelf above the wet garage floor), I ran it to power the fridge and a small, venerable chest freezer until the power returned Tuesday evening. Cost (excluding initial purchase, of course): about 0.75 l of gasoline.

Our fridge was not, therefore, a coffin of toxic death.

My steaks are important to me, not to mention my ice cubes. See the worried look on the person above? Her fridge was off long enough in Stockphotoville to start her food rotting. No wonder I'm aiming for a big house bank.