And we're back....

One of the pleasures of living aboard is the proximity to the great outdoors, which are greater now that air and land traffic are truncated.

Well, it's been some time since my last post. And yet it's been an eventful month here on the good ship Alchemy, now tied to the seawall at National Yacht Club.  We moved back aboard her on April 30th, having left our winter digs, amid the pandemic stop and start. Our club gave us and two other liveaboard boats permission a good 12 days before any members were allowed on the grounds to tie up and, for lack of much else on offer, bob in place. Even though May was a somewhat unseasonably cool month, appropriate bedding allowed a modicum of comfort and we've done a lot of boat jobs whilst waiting for an improvement in conditions that might allow us to get to the East Coast this season.

 

This is now full of dishes and other galley gear. It's been a valuable addition.

So far, there's been a slight loosening of the "go nowhere, do nothing" restrictions to retard viral spread. Our club, after a lot of debate, is skedded to launch those who wish to be launched (and a minority do not), in mid-June, and various Lake Ontario marinas may be open by then, although the policies on "visitors" are as yet unclear; the Murray Canal opens tomorrow, however, on June 1.

Alchemy at her temporary dock; the power's off on the main finger at the moment, so we are on the wall with a glorious 1.5 bars of wifi!

Our first two weeks here were, unsurprisingly, quiet, with only two other boats, both occupied by single men, and the spectral forms of the club manager and yard man making the odd appearance. But there have been repairs and upgrades done (at a proper distance) most days we've been here, and our son has been completing on online computer science course. Most of the time, or so he says.

Pick a slip, any slip.

 Several jobs have been completed; one was the installation of a chain stopper on the foredeck.

Ah, yes, steel boat skippers just love putting holes in the deck. Not.

 Because of the comparative heights of deck, windlass and anchor roller, I had to fabricate HDPE "risers" for the chain stopper, as well as calculate the most accommodating angle of offset from windlass to roller. The idea is that the stopper keeps the "yank" of the anchor off the windlass gypsy and instead transfers those loads to the deck. So this has to be well-mounted, to say the least. While we have a similar chain hook, and the usual bridle gear, this inline stopper seems to us to be a tidy solution.

Tightening the mounting bolts.

 The job went smoothly.

Missing here is the lever and plate used to trap chain links in the groove just visible. Chain can come up, but can't be lowered or payed out without lifting the plate.

 As did the interior work.

Backing plates and plenty of sealant, as was the case for the windlass, finish the job. No leaks detected since installation

 Getting all that chain out of the well and down the hawsepipe was an improvement.

Doing what it's supposed to.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Alchemy decided that the more tender herbs needed a warmer spot in order to thrive. We didn't really see frost in May, however. Well, just a bit.

OK, snow.

The weather was generally a bit discouraging, which probably reconciled a few sailor to a multi-week delay in getting launched.

Yes, snow. In May.

The harbour is behind that squall.

Meanwhile, fabricator extraordinaire Andrew Barlow made me a beautiful SS wind generator mast and matching base. Well, beautiful to me, anyway. I had to modify it to take a 3/4" hole for the wind generators leads to exit the pole. And that meant cutting a hole on a curved piece of stainless steel.

Start with a pilot hole. Actually, start with clamps. The more, the merrier...

Cutting stainless is a bit of a trial at the best of times. It takes slow drill bit speeds, and plenty of lubrication in the form of cutting oil or water to avoid the dreaded "work hardening".  But I must be improving.

The geared-down shop drill press helped here.

As did plenty of oil. No smoking allowed.

Done. I cleaned up the edges until reasonably smooth and we are ready to pole.

Living in semi-isolation in a mostly closed yacht club means no waiting for the showers, but it also means encounters with various fauna. This is either a Peking duck escapee or some sort of partial albinism...friendly little fellow, either way.

I will call you "Quackers".

Aside from the expected sparrows, terns, grackles, starlings, mallards, red-winged blackbirds and gulls, we've also have had visits from trumpeter swans, cottontail rabbits and one fearless mink, who runs past our boat every morning, usually with an improbably large fish in her face.

The little flange turns sideways and the hawsepipe is sealed.

Still on the topic of ground tackle and fabrications, it's customary offshore to bring the anchor belowdecks and to stow the chain low. This leaves a rather obvious hole in the deck, however, capable of letting in undesirable volumes of ocean. The solution is another Barlow-executed gasketed cap for the windlass's hawsepipe. The anchor end of the chain is attached to the wire lead and, if needed as land is approaching, the flange is turned sideways and the chain is hauled onto the deck for reshackling to the anchor. Neat, isn't it?

Us moved to the wall for that sweet 30 amp fix needed to run space heaters.

 A couple of recommissioning issues have surfaced. The March pump used to run water to the Marine Air heat pump/AC unit has blown a seal, which is leaking prodigiously. I have a spare, but it's a rather big effort to take apart the saloon stairs to access the relevant area, so I've been putting it off. While cycling about 10 days ago, I hit a curb cut badly and pulled a few muscles in my back going over the handlebars in a rather undignified, if strictly Newtonian, fashion. Every job on the boat seems to involve wrenching at arms' length, which, to be honest, isn't the sort of physio called for. But I am recovering even with daily doses of boat yoga.

A sign of better days was seen in the club parking lot.

A more serious issue (we rarely use the AC in either hot or cold modes) arose when the fridge ceased working. The compressor is new last year, and I didn't think it was the problem, so I redid the power leads and remounted the 20 amp circuit breaker (less boat yoga now). Then I checked the power leads going to the module. All good and the customary 13.2 VDC was found.

The dreaded module.

I thought that the thermostat might be involved, so I took the old one I saved from The Time of the Flood and hooked it up. Oh, ho, the fridge happily ran. So I pulled out the leads from the control module and found on the ground lead very little bare wire in the spade connector. I stripped it better, folded it over and crimped on a new spade connector. It's been running fine again for four days, and I deem "crisis averted".

It's the little black wire at the bottom. The outages were intermittent, and therefore frustrating, but we worked it out.

Meanwhile, the club is awaking from its slumber. Dinghy docks are back and the various workboats are launched. Even the old and cranky Blue Barge started immediately. I can't recall the last time that happened in spring, actually. May it be a portent of things to come.

Not sure about Junior Sailing activities this summer, though.

I will also note that this May has featured a tremendous amount of strong easterly winds...I believe we had a five-day stretch of 20 to 30 knot E last week. And some pretty vivid weather along with it.

But southerly this time.

 This has cramped our style regarding certain jobs, such as The Great Reflooring. Yes, we are actually getting to more "make the boat prettier" jobs, as opposed to the "don't sink" and "be capable of sailing" jobs. This has consisted of removing old flooring, prepping the surfaces and remediating them as needed, dealing with found rust, grinding, "converting" and repainting with rustproofing. After that laying down ruinously expensive, if very nice, vinyl flooring held down with two-part epoxy seems the easy part.

The silver part is rustproof-painted; the grubby part is rust-converter painted. It's technical.

The saloon is fully done thanks to Mrs. Alchemy's steady hand and art. The pilothouse will be completed on Tuesday and the helm seat and pedestal restored by then. The boat's looking good. Let's go sailing!

Apply glue and Lonseal Teak and Holly as needed.