Tick Tock, still no dock

Weather sure has a way of toying with one's agenda. After having the week before last off but not able to get the boat in, the marina had hoped to be able to get me launched last week. I hoped they could hold off until the weekend so that I could be there for it, but either way was fine with me. I had gone up last Saturday and run the motor to get it warmed up, so to speak, after all.

So this weekend I went up and, well... waited. Well, for a lot of things - water, dryness, charging, to name a few.

I arrived Saturday around 11 AM, and upon entering, I could hear this constant high-pitched tone. Weird, that's the noise my power inverter makes at low voltage. So, I pulled up my Victron bluetooth app to check my batteries. Bring on the collective gasp - 5 volts. Have you gasped yet? For the uninformed, I have a 12v battery bank. And with batteries of such, in order to maximize (or - NOT KILL) your batteries, the recommendation is to not drop below a 50% state of charge. And I most certainly dropped. I was confused, VERY confused, when I saw the readout. That is, until I glanced up and realized that I had left my bilge pump in full running mode. For two weeks. We can get into the fact that it's wired wrong at any other point in time.

I have a 100 watt solar panel that did it's damnedest but after three days straight, judging my the history graph, it just couldn't take any more. I did my best to position it better throughout the days to maximize capture, and was getting about 85 watts most of the time. It did put a big damper in my wanting to use my laptop at night though. I don't have access to power where I'm on the hard, so I've always relied on the batteries, and never usually have a problem, but when you obliterate your battery with a constant drain, well, there's only so much you can expect. I even went so far as to hook up my emergency jump pack from my car to the bank just so I could power up the inverter long enough for about a half hour online. I gave up.

So what else to do, while waiting. I walked around the beach a few times, and watched the travel lift get stuck trying to retrieve a boat from it's stands to launch. This makes me less hopeful for my own prospects. I'd like to think where I am is a little more hardpacked than the grassy area of this other one, but it's still disheartening. I then decided to re-mount my fishfinder which is basically my depth reading, and that's it, onto a swing arm in the cabin so that I can move it in and out and not have it outside all the time. It isn't that it's not weatherproof, it is. But the area in which it was mounted, was in dire need of repair. There was an old regular piece of thin plywood that was just caulked into place to cover old instrument holes, and it all just needs help. So by removing it, it frees me up to eventually fix that. Last time up, I did glass over the inside of the holes, and this time, I started filling them with thickened epoxy. A little more to go and I can sand, fair, and paint that area and finally make it less awful looking. But regardless, I mounted the fish finder in the cabin on a swing arm, and fed the wire out the little access board I have. Should I mention that I wish I had brought a saw with me?

I also mounted a little voltage meter I ordered off Amazon for a few dollars. I'd prefer something fancier but it would really be overkill for what I use, and the money spent on one would be almost enough to effectively double my battery bank and another solar panel. And that is definitely planned for this summer.

I put a couple coats of Urethane on the table. And waited. That was all my weekend was, really. Oh, Sunday morning I got up and pulled the floor of my GL apart to see if I had water ingress. Nope. A story for another post, but it was something to pass the time with. And at the end of Sunday afternoon, still no water beneath the hull, and only a 75% battery bank by that point. I called it quits and headed home.

And 45 minutes later, turned back around to come close the hatch that I forgot to take care of when I left. Oops.

One step closer. Or six.

As we still wait for the waters to subside - which could be a while - I decided that with the coming week off of work that I had intended on spending on the boat, would still be started in spirit. So here's a slight timeline breakdown of what happened.

Saturday:

I loaded up the car (truck, SUV, whatever you want to call it), and headed up to the boat. I didn't need to take anything other than clothes and a ladder since I had left all my tools up previously. So the first thing I noticed on site, was that there's still plenty of water on the ground. Lake Ontario this year, as with all the Great Lakes, is suffering from much greater levels than normal. At last check, Ontario itself was almost three FEET higher than normal. And considering the shore isn't usually three feet above water level, it has led to lots of flooding and water issues. Fair Point Marina is no exception. Luckily, they use floating docks, which are less impacted, but the grounds themselves are. Compared to a normal year, only a fraction of the boats are in their slips, and even the launch area has been under water for a lot. Here's a map of the grounds. My boat is where the yellow circle is (that's not my boat, but it's where it stands). The red lines show where that particular section of road was blocked off due to a trailer and equipment on one end, and a section of docks stored on the other. No problem for me, I took the long way around, parked to unload, and then moved my cartrucksuv back to the normal parking area on the left side of the map.

For reference, here's a picture I just grabbed off the live feed webcam:

I decided first thing on my agenda would be to fit the new starboard bulkhead into place. The pieces I had pulled out, measured 7/16", but I'm not sure what it was actually made of. It was certainly plywood, and varnished, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just off-the-shelf stuff used at some point. The new pieces being 1/2" thick, presented a slightly tighter fit, but I did manage to get them in place, drilled and mounted. Here's a shot of the old one with the rotted wood, and thre replacement.

Then I sat back and tried to figure out what to do next. After careful consideration, I splashed a little bottom paint over the previous fiberglass patches. Back up on deck, I then decided that since I was sick of tripping over the remnants of the plywood sheet - a 5' x 4' section was left from the bulkhead project - so it was time to break out the saw. I used a regular basic jigsaw run off my inveter on the boat for my cutting, and it did rather well. A bunch of cuts later, and I was left with a new cabin table, a new section to use for my switch panel, and even new companionway boards, though those were more of a test than anything else. The originals were 4 boards, with a notch top and bottom to fit together. Without an easy way to make such a notch, like a table saw, I opted to try using the adjustable base on the jigsaw which angles to 45 degrees in either direction. Not ideal in that it leaves a pretty sharp point, but it did in practice manage to lock them together. I ran to Lowes and picked up some Minwax. I intended to get Varnish, and instead, ended up with a Stain/Polyurethane product because I got looking at colors and not labels. But I decided to forge ahead anyway, and stained the top of my table pieces and left them a couple hours to dry. Tossed some stain on another piece too. At that point, it was pretty much time to call it a night, so locked myself in, and watched some YouTube before bed.

Sunday:

I woke up knowing that I needed to find some motivation. It took a good drink of Crystal-Light-infused water, but I dragged myself up and decided to tackle the halyards. The easiest way to do this is with the mast down, which I was fortunate enough to have. But rather than try to fish them up and down the sheaves while perched on a ladder, I muscled the mast forward, until the masthead was on the stern rail and unbolted the piece on top. Laid the new halyard in place, bolted it back together, and then took the chance to flip the masthead arrangement for the VHF, anchor light, and the windex. The prior setup had the wind indicator at the front, which meant angling my head forward to see it, and it was just annoying. So now it's back to a traditional layout, and ready to go. While at it, I reused one of the prior halyards for a spinnaker set on the double block that was already mounted on the mast.

Back inside, I managed to put the hinges to a slightly larger table. The original design as best as I can tell, was a fold-down table from the bulkhead that could then open up to give a full-width table. Mine had at some point, been replaced with a slightly shorter, single table. I reverted back to the original style.

After the table, I tackled fixing the switch panel area. Prior to doing much, I glassed over the backside of the original instrument holes in the cockpit bulkhead to seal from weather. And then just used a stained piece of the marine ply as a new panel to cover up all the holes in the inside. Here's a before, and after:

Once I had decided that I was done playing in sawdust, I couldn't think of much else to do, so I passed the time with some painting of the liner inside. At some point, the main cabin area was repainted with a tan color, possibly to just cover up old dirt? And the V-berth area was painted in a dark blue. The problem is that it makes it rather dark inside, indeed. And without loading up with too much more light, the easiest way to brighten a room is to lighten a color. So a few coats of white in the upper half of the V-berth as a test, as well as the main ceiling of the main cabin, and I was surprised at the coverage. It certainly needs to be done proper, but for what little effort I put in, I was pleased.

I stayed until Monday evening, before realizing that with little to do on the to-do list any longer, there was no point staying on board while on the hard, so I came home. I did receive an e-mail this evening scheduling my launch for next week sometime. I'm hopeful they can push it til the weekend, but either way, I'll head back up this weekend with fresh spark plugs and gasoline for the outboard, as well as a sawhorse and barrel and give the outboard a good testing once more, just in case they launch mid-week when I'm unable to be there.

With any luck, we'll be wet soon, from the bottom up instead of from the sky down.