Our plan at the beginning of the year was to enter the LO300 race as a test sail. This went as far as paying the entry fee but reality had another idea. At the time,we had assumed that we would have been sailing for a few weeks, that moving onto the boat was a few weeks away and that work was under control.
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Our delayed start to the season and moving on to the boat a month early meant that the 2 week trip to Toronto and a full on race of about 200NM was not going to happen. The boat wasready and we had crew, Lisa and Paul, who are planning to join us for the Caribbean 1500 rally in the fall.
Plan B – head out to Lake Ontario, sail for 125 NM and then sail back.
Lisa and Paul arrived on Friday night, we had a quiet dinner at KYC and an early night. The planned 6:00am start was a little after 7:00am into the early morning calms. before long the winds came up and we were off. Seas past Main Duck were lumpy and about 1/2 metre, by mid afternoon we were beating into 15kts, with one reef and 1 metre seas. The waves were very close together and Kinship hobby-horsed and bounced about quite a bit. These are just the conditions that have produced major seasickness in me, but careful planning to make sure we were all rested, well hydrated and dosed up on Stugeron. This worked, Lisa and I had some issues, but nothing developed past feeling a bit off.
In perhaps the biggest step of our plan completed so far, we have moved aboard full time. Our house is in the hands of our house sitters and we are mostly settled in on the boat. We have packed away clothing, food, supplies and the boat is still floating above her marks so we will count that as a success. We did not take many photos of the transition, but here is one.
We follow a number of blogs and vlogs, one of our favourites is Gone With The Wynns, here is there take on moving onto their new boat from an RV
The Wynns are making a fast switch from full time RVing to full time sailing, buying a boat and moving on board in a matter of weeks. We sort of sneaked up on it over 18 months, so we had less to do, but a bigger transition from land to sea. The boat has swallowed a huge amount of stuff and we still have space for more. That said, friends have one more car load for us, but I think we have places for most, if not all that gear.
All has not been sweetness and light in other areas, we had quite the unfortunate Canada Day weekend where some unkind power boaters decided to have a 3 day party inches from our boat. This is likely going to result in a relocation from Confederation Basin to Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, we just need to try out the dock we have been offered.
And then we have pumps. Boats have a lot of pumps and we have had more than our fair-share of issues in the last week. We have been trying to find out why our bilges have more water in them than they should. We had all the floors up and under the last but one, we found a leak coming from the foot pump that enables you to get water from the tanks without using power. This was a happy moment as it explained the water in the bilge and it was an easy, throw-money-at-it fix. So in goes a new pump and we are good to go, right?
Not so fast! to test the foot pump we needed to fill the water tanks to pressurise the pump to make sure all the connections we good. When you fill our tanks the vent sends the excess to the bilge. So we fill the tanks and all is well, well with the foot pump. We notice that the bilge pump is running and running and running. This is not normal. so I take a look at the pump and it looks like the bearings have failed 🙁 I just need a new pump, more throw-money -at-it, but an easy fix, I am waiting for the new pump to come in and it will be installed by the weekend. So we are good to go right?
Not so fast! we have water in the bilge we should pump out. We normally used a manual pump located in the galley for this task, but for some reason I thought to use the pump in the cockpit that draws from the same place. Kathleen grabbed the handle and pumped, nothing happened. OK, so I need to rebuild the pump, no big deal, other than accessing the pump from the sail locker. So good to go right?
Not so fast! I got the pump out, opened it up for the rebuild and find that the interior of the pump is destroyed. The casting had corroded so badly that the rubber flaps that make up the valves would not seal. New pump required 🙁 So off we go to Marine Outfitters for a new pump. After about 45 minutes spent in the sail locker, the pump is installed and we are on the way to being good to go.
In retrospect it was great that the bilge pump failed when we were looking at it, we could see the issue and get it fixed at the dock, if this had happened at some other time, it would have been a bit scary, the bilge alarm going off, the pump turning and but the water level not dropping. We might have assumed that the issue was a leak and not the pumps. On the other hand, I don’t want to dwell on the amount we have spent on pumps in the last week.
A few weeks ago we had a visit from Mark and Liz on Saving Grace, a Saga 43 based in Toronto. Mark and Liz have been living aboard for a few years and at long last are head out on their adventure. The plan to spend the summer in the Maritimes and then head out to the Bahamas for the winter. Mark, Liz and their crew Sam arrived in Kingston for a couple of days of sightseeing and relaxing before heading off down the St Lawrence. Saving Grace and Kinship were docked next to each other and it was great to see 2 Sagas together.
It was a great reminder for Kathleen and I that eventually you get through the to-do list, or at least the important things on the list and then you can leave. Mark and Liz are going to have a great time and you can follow along on their great blog by clicking the screenshot below.
