It's alive, again...

Just a brief one today. As part of the Drive to Reboard, 2020, we do the annual Tightening of the Hose Clamps. This is an exercise in preventive maintenance, as it claps eyes on our stainless steel hose clamps that keep the hoses on the dozens of barbs...which keep the water out of the boat...and which aren't always as stainless nor as clamped as we would prefer.

This consists of issuing to my wife and myself two socket wrenches and three (7, 8 and 9mm) sockets and methodically crawling about the boat tightening and peering, sometimes with headlamps, to Suss Out Current Events. Special attention is given to below the waterline (BTW) points, where the stakes are a little higher (and the boat, lower) should a clamp or two fail to keep hoses in place before the crew notices an issue or hears the bilge pump cycling. We also have a chance to examine these areas for corrosion or even paint fatigue, and apply touch-ups before problems occur.

Apart from the obvious areas of standpipe-related seacocks and galley drains, there are quite a few points on the engine (exhaust fittings, waterlock muffler, fuel supply and return, oil filter setup, etc.) that need to be assessed and serviced. Some of those, like an oil or coolant change, were done last fall and the need to do them again will depend on hours put on the engine this season. Others are simply "as needed"...for instance, there's a "calorifier" setup whereby we can get hot water to a sort of wall-mounted kettle that provides us with heated water from our tanks...that's been a relatively low priority we can do at dock some time in the next month.

So, about a hundred clamps (not an exaggeration) later, we felt it was time to fire up the engine to clear out the winter coolant. Gratifyingly, the Beta Marine 60 fired up immediately and the cooling circuit worked as it was meant to. Huzzah! Please pardon the dusty helm...it's on the to-clean list.

Flat, but out

A pleasure cruise in Hamilton Harbour was vetoed by the skipper due to inclement weather conditions.

As it was both a holiday weekend and a rare three days off in a row for the hard-labouring Mrs. Alchemy, we took the boat to Hamilton to visit friends. Hamilton's about 30 NM WSW from Toronto, which means "head to wind" most of the time. So about a five-hour motor.

The day was near dead calm, with occasional fog and mist, anyway, and I had a reason to want to motor. Alchemy has two keel tanks of about 50 gallons (200 litres) capacity. Both were filled to their respective brims in 2009 before I went into a cradle for a few years to replace the engine, the entire drive train and other needful things. The diesel at that point was primarily intended to keep the tanks of black iron from corroding. I got it from a marina that I knew didn't sell diesel with ethanol in it. I had yet to spec out the new engine, but I had already heard of the ethanol additive effect on deleterious gaskets and seals and its tendency to absorb moisture from the air.

The interesting part came after I had installed the fuel filter system and had stopped (basically) using a siphon from a jerry can, which even in my mind was asking for it. The diesel from the aft tank looked good. It seemed to work. After cleaning the pickup tube (a tiny bit of gunk was found), all seemed to be well. The diesel purred. The boat moved. All was well. I regularly mixed in new diesel and kept that aft tank full.

But I didn't address the forward tank. That was filled with nearly nine-year-old, pure diesel. I topped up that vintage fuel with fresh diesel (if ultra low sulphur, which is another issue). Then I ran the fuel  from that tank for an hour at dock (at about 1,300 RPM; I'm not a monster) Again, no issues.

So it was with some trepidation that we departed circa 0800h yesterday. While I knew I had a "good tank", I was keen, frankly, to burn off as much old fuel as I could. As it turned out, the Burlington Bridge, a lift bridge that allows the only access to Hamilton's large harbour (and which we've seen before on our now-sold first boat), only opens on demand and every 30 minutes. My new plotter told me if I could steer tightly, we would get to the piers in front of the lift bridge at 1228h. Yikes. Apply throttle!

So, flat out through flat water it was. I like my hydraulic steering just fine, but under motor and plenty of it, the rudder tends to drift slightly and corrections applied are not subtle. While I don't think this is a problem, particularly, I will be inspecting the fluid levels and the state of the seal. And the purchase of an autopilot, because steering by hand in calm conditions is actually a bit of a drag.

The photo at the top indicates why I didn't take our hosts out for a boat ride. It poured and blowed a fair bit, but the evening and our dinner and convo were great. The next morning, we left the literally brand new and mightily impressive docks of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club with a lesson learned: the prop walk I use to slip Alchemy's stern to port side with a quickness isn't such a benefit when leaving from a starboard docking. I had to do some awkward spinning between rows of boats to get out. The solution(s) were: to have gone in stern first and docked to port; to have walked the boat back nearly to the bow of the boat in the next row, and then steered to port in forward; or to have done the previous move warping off against a line. Ultimately, no harm, no fouls, no buffer required, but I dislike giving a show before my coffee's settled, and the need to make a bridge opening (it's about a 30 minute motor from the YC to the bridge) by a specific minute (we did) makes for unseemly concern.

Mrs. Alchemy mulling over autopilot brands.

Sea state: Stateless

As can be seen, it was another windless day (although it improved at the last stretch and we motorsailed with a more or less effective jib adding a couple of knots).

How to Avoid Huge Ships: Lake Ontario Edition.

Both legs of this otherwise minor journey, I took an interest in the doings of the little AIS targets on my VHF. The CPA calculation is the one I find most useful in AIS monitoring. When we sailed yesterday in moderate fog, we of course noted that plenty of boats did not have AIS and therefore required careful watchstanding (we have as yet not installed a radar). But there were quite a few that had it going, and even the scant data delivered by our AIS-equipped radio gave us a heightened awareness. Not to mention notifying us when the large lake freighter had started to move off its pier at 90 degrees to our course. Handy, that. 

Water scene with duck.

We were just missed by another line of thunderstorms and made it home tired but happy. The Canada Day Weekend involved an enormous rubber duck (see photo). Patriotism continues to baffle me.

My god...the harbour...it's full of duck!

Pride goeth before the flow

The Pride Flag at my very downtown boat club

I interrupted today's labours, which involved passing on some companionway hatch dogs to my excellent fabrication for pondering and modification (they are a little over the top along the length) to attend a brief flag-raising ceremony in honour of Pride Month. Now, it's true my yacht club has a demographic not only pretty pale, but also one in which after nearly 20 years, I'm still one of the younger sailors...a disturbing thought, maybe...given my rapidly greying hair. But it is also true that there's several gay men and women, a few of whom are couples, who are members at the club and avid boaters as well. Of course there are. There almost certainly always were. We just called them "bachelors" in the past. Or maybe "married to the sea". But the times have changed, Toronto is an extremely gay-positive city (it wasn't as late as my 20s), and hey, flags, parades, merriment.

The Commodore looked tickled, as well he might, as it was a beautiful day to be hoisting a flag and not being indoors at a budget meeting. It was also (finally) showing signs at the seawall that the waters that have plagued us with their abudance are in retreat. There's only five or six centimeters of water over the bricks of the inner basin wall now. The swans and geese look a bit put out, but the members hope to get to damage control shortly. D Dock is in terrible shape and the breakwall keeping the lake out is still submerged, although it can be faintly discerned dragging at the waves.

From the Big Book of Amish Sailing

Some time ago, I purchased a hand-cranked fuel pump. I intended to plumb it to transfer fuel between keel tanks and the (provisional) day tank I hope to install post-filters. But I've changed my mind a bit on that score and may just use the Walbro FRA-1 inline 12 VDC pump I bought to overcome a potential rise problem from the keel tanks to the engine. Turns out not only does this measure seem unnecessary, but the diesel's fuel pump seems to do just fine dragging fuel up from the tank, further up to the filters, and down into itself. I rarely have to use the filter setups integral pump, and there's no sign of strain in the pressure gauge. So I realized I'm up one old-timey manual pump.

I rooted around in my "plumbing" tackle box (my spares are stowed more or less by function: plumbing; electrical; wire reels, impellers and filters and so on) and found enough correct pieces to try making a Jerry Can Aid. My deck fuel fills are located less than ideally close to the double upper stays; it's a tight fit and tipping a full 25 litre diesel jug has always been a bit fraught and problematic, even with a tall funnel. I thought leaving the diesel jug on deck and hand-pumping would be cleaner and less alarming.

Going with the flow. I doubt the carp knew what I was doing.

And so it came to pass. Less splashing, only a couple of drops away when I was done, and this little simple device really passed the fuel rapidly: about 40 revolutions for 21 litres into Aft Tank. I may bother to get fewer, more correct pieces and use this regularly. Squeeze bulbs are for outboards!