The winter of our content rent

 

He's got a fine head of hair, my nephew. And a very nice wife, too.

Time certainly flies when one is having boat. It's been a rather busy time aboard, abroad and ashore, with blogging updates deferred...but no longer! First up was nephew Ryan's wedding to Alex. Despite a bit of drizzle, a very good time was had. Logistics were tricky for us, however, what with retrieving dress shoes from Trenton and me needing a smaller suit thanks to The Boat Diet Plan: Eat less, move more, preferably on a 32C vessel.

A rare shot of Alchemy's two skippers, not giving conflicting orders.

After that pleasant duty came a scramble to secure a winter berth; to secure insurance for said berthing; to secure shoreside accommodation; and to feel more secure about some neglected sailing skills. So we buggered off to Niagara-on-the-Lake, as one does.

Foofy wind, however.

 ...and to Port Darlington for dinner with sailing pals Matt and D-L...

Sunset and rum, a good combination.

 On a rainy day, I even fit in another trip to see HMCS Haida, of loving memory...

In case one wishes to construct a WWII destroyer.

But other needful things beckoned. Our friend and agent for our now-sold house Suzanne Manvell found us a boat-club-proximate flat in late 2018 in which we stayed for 11 months until we moved aboard in June, 2019. Faced with an unexpected winter stay-over here in Toronto, and not Halifax, we asked her again if she knew of a downtown apartment in which we could stay short-term (we expect to move back aboard Alchemy at the end of March, 2020 with the goal of [finally] leaving Toronto circa April 15).

Unexpectedly, she said "how about my house?" Suzanne had a tenant leaving a first-floor flat and we could start renting October 1, which suited us perfectly. Her house is only slightly farther away from our winter berth than was the last place, and there's a corner of the garage suitable for sailbags, bicycles and dinghy sail rigs.

From stair to door is sufficient for clearing out most of the forepeak, plus bikes.

 The place is spacious and bright. We'd best enjoy it as it's likely to be our last "house" for some time.

Available spring 2020!

 Even the Cabin Boy got his dungeon, suiting his slightly Gothic bent.

He eventually got a bed, firm not cruel.

Meanwhile, we had to wangle insurance. Our carrier insisted that "floating, non-liveaboards" needed a canopy, tent or other covering to cast off snow and ice and discourage top-heavy turtling. Now, we have never done this for Alchemy: we've just shovelled off the decks when needed. But I knew where to go: the good crew of the steel ketch Goshawk, Jay and Rob, who live on Frenchman's Bay and who know their business as they are winter liveaboards.

This is from where I took my design cues, but, as will be seen, I didn't go to quite these sturdy lengths.

Jay and Rob do an impressive, generally bulletproof job because they would know right away were it to fail and because a proper covering makes for a warmer boat.

They run PVC tubing to the decks and packing tape as transverse supports. Then they shrink the cover on with a propane torch both impressive and, if not wielded carefully, destructive. See next post...

The bow of the boat need not be covered.

Everyone has the approach that works for themselves.

This "boom attachment point" I pretty well copied directly.

Having received the collective boat-cover wisdom while we were still at National YC (we moved gradually into the apartment during October as we wanted to sail as long as we could)...

Cobourg looking like a mill pond after a fairly gusty passage and a decision to bail out of a straight shot to Waupoos.

...we learned we weren't going to get approval to stay in the water at our club (it was a longshot) and so confirmed our berth at a nearby marina. 

The weather held until late October, save for some weirdness.

 Our slip was wide, but short. Good thing we had plenty of lines.

This was actually helpful when constructing the boat cover. I put together the Portabote and worked around the perimeter.

We also had an unusual 50-foot powerboat in steel from the 1960s opposite, cutting the breeze somewhat.

I don't see many steel boats on Lake Ontario larger than ours that aren't on the job.

 After some exotic maneuvering, we were ensconced.

Note the sails, bagged, tagged and garaged for the winter.

 This was Hallowe'en. The next post reveals what came next.

Have you never seen a horny teenager?

.And it was scary!

A very moving process

Our agent, besides being an excellent dancer, is also a sailor.

I haven't posted in some time, as for some time, it's been a very busy time. Haulout happened, and with a dodgy repair on a cracked pipe stub, I was fairly cautious about driving the boat even the short distance from our dock to the sea wall for its bi-annual appointment with the concept of flight.

The stick is keeping the boat off the wall . The human is awaiting instructions as to the sling positioning.

Boats are supposed to have "sling marks", bits of tape or paint that indicate where the sling straps (as seen above) ideally go so that the boat is hoisted skyward in a more or less level attitude. The problem with the good ship Alchemy is that I am frequently in the course of our refitting moving fairly significant weigh forward, aft or , as was the case with about 200 kilos of lead shot in bags serving as "trim ballast" in the forepeak workshop, off.

The first attempt suggested my old sling marks had migrated. Photo (c) Frederick Peters

The effect as seen from the water seemed, at best, "bow down".

So we tried again.

The "level best" was eventually located

The reason for the migration of the sling marks was that, despite moving a large number of tools and line to the workshop, I also removed several surplus anchors stowed forward and took off the new 30 kilo SPADE anchor, as there's no persuasive reason why it should remain in place while the boat's cradled on the hard for the winter. The net effect was to raise the bow about seven centimetres, or about a finger's width above its waterline stripe. My old bits of tape were no longer in full effect. Any new bits of tape may also not be correct, if I get the windlass on deck sorted this winter.

An added wrinkle was that Alchemy, having a full keel, requires a "cinch belt" to keep the slings from sliding on the angled leading edge of the keel. But all (eventually) went more or less well, save that the full keel interfered with the sling belt removal more than usual...

Padding about the cradle in this case isn't sinister

...and involved some extra chunks of wood to both support the cradle's keel board and to make a space to draw through the sling. Some crunching of 4 x 4 meeting 16 tons of steel was heard, but she settled nicely.

Done. Onto the next one.

As can be seen, the weather was calm and bordering on warm, which was nice as I had spent the previous day on the club work boat with other stalwart members of the Mooring Committee doing tows and other haulout-related tasks.

Tight to get a ladder and a man of substance up here, but perfefect for those needed to walk to the next boat.

As can also be seen, it's a bit snug to get the boarding ladder up, but on the other hand, I can wedge mystelf most of the way to the top, at which point I can tie up before I tip over. Such is the life of the land-bound sailor.

I always like this angle. It looks...purposeful.

Three days after haulout, I learned from my nephews that my younger sister, Dany Dacey, had died in her sleep at age 54. While this was not unexpected as she had been on the decline from liver disease (and not the self-created kind, either), it still came as a blow, although her two sons, Sean and Ryan, both in their 20s, have been coping well, or as well as can be expected.

She was 19 here, in happier days.

She was very supportive of our plans, although she doubted she would live to see them realized. I am missing her very much. When we started this journey to journey, althought my mother had died, my father (the original sailor in the family) and sister were still alive. I'm now the last one. Certainly, the "do it now" notion is top of mind.

Which brings us back to the enigmatic "For Sale" sign that doesn't actually say that. It's for our Toronto house, in which we've lived for just over 19 years. It's a semi-detached, three-storey "Vic-brick built in 1900 and sits on a typically narrow (19 feet) lot that, thanks to the park directly behind it, has an unusually long (165 feet) lot for the middle of a city. There's also a large (18 by 22 feet and 12 feet high at the double doors) former brick stable being used as a garage, but as we don't own a car, it's full of boats, bikes and mancave appliance, including a radar I'm trying to fix.
 

Which is not the radar I think I'll be buying this winter. This one is.

The house has a great location. The park behind us has been a huge plus and even allows cooling breezes (thanks to dozens of transpiring trees) in the summer. An enclosed porch at the front keeps most of the traffic noise out of the house; we rarely hear the streetcars passing. If we weren't doing this trip, I'd probably live out my days here, but we are, and to be blunt, selling up, even if we buy a place elsewhere in Canada (save Vancouver) could convert a "five-year passage" to "just keep sailing". It will give us options simply renting it out while we are off sailing in search of the edges would not.

"Exclusive", as the sign says, means we're not having an open house and will instead attempt to sell it to a person or person(s) who will meet our (slightly discounted compared to the surrounding market) price with the intention of doing a full renovation, like every other house in our vicinity has undergone, the curious fashion in which one buys a Victorian style townhouse, guts it and turns it into a skylit, pot-lighted, vaguely Scandinavian art gallery. Putting on the open market, or "listing it", in the real estate jargon, would require about $20K of scraping, painting and plastering/drywalling to get it to a faux version of vaguely current. Also, cheap by chic furniture would have to be brought in to "stage it". Then 200 people tromp in. We and our tatty inherited glum furniture would have to be out...you can't live in a house that's been staged, because it must look as if the next owners already tastefully live there, not the grubby peasants selling up. There's no use in doing a cheap paintjob if the walls are getting replaced, particularly if we are still in residence and it's winter, so we're seeking someone who can picture the place gutted and who has the coin to redo it to her taste.

We are living, again, in interesting times. Next, a fresh round of welding things.

Not even at sea yet....

...and already the mutinous behaviour begins!