Light and bright

It's always a treat when the big brown truck pulls up to the house and you know what to expect.

Backing up to a couple weeks ago, I had a good bit of wind at anchorage that caused me to bend the shank of my Danforth 13s anchor whilst retrieving it. Impressive, yes, but it also rendered it basically unable to be used. The shank bent to a degree that it can no longer pass through the flukes, so unless you can be certain of which way it lands, there's no guarantee they'll drop into the floor and hold. Last weekend, I spent the weekend on the dock anyway, not needing an anchor.

And this weekend? Saturday, went up and out and floated as there was only minor breeze across the lake. I did actually fly my asymmetrical spinnaker to see what it would be like. To be fair, it's still one of those just playing around things. I do not have an actual tack line, so there's no way to lift it off the deck for better angles, the sheet for it was just the bitter end of an old halyward that I have as a spare, and I was only putting it up to see if it would hoist better without the chute it came in (it does). It actually does work a little, but another knot of wind would've been preferred to really fill it out. And it's dirty and dingy but at least I tried, right? I'd also like to point out that the foot of my main is horribly bunched, and for some reason my outhaul wasn't budging it. Strangely once I was back to the dock Saturday evening with it flaked down, I was able to draw it tight just fine. Must've been the angle.

Sunday morning was a time travel expedition to Warwick, courtesy of the Sterling Renaissance Festival. I had never been, that I know of. I remember going to two such events when I was young. And I know the one I went to with my father was not this one. Perhaps the other time it was? Too young to remember. Or maybe I'm too old to now. Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised that it was as large as it turned out to be, and the crowd was also impressive.
I woke up this morning and was preparing for work, when lo and behold, Hark! A dog barketh from thine quarters of living! I met Mr Brown in the driveway and was surprised for the second time in two days. Not because it arrived, I was expecting it. But because the weight is completely understated, even knowing it's known for it's light nature.

Seeing the Defender tape is always a happy day for a boater.

I know their anchors are supposed to have the holding power, but I have to give them props for the staples used in their boxes. I nearly had to find pliers.

Looking in, it's surprisingly simple, and even easier to put together than I thought it was. So what to do right before going to work? Test-fitting it together.

The weight of this thing is mind-boggling. It's physically larger than the old 13s, probably by about 20% or so. It feels though, as if it weighs nothing. One concern I read often, and is addressed specifically by Fortress, is that you need - not 'should have' - but NEED a length of chain to weigh it down. Six feet per every 25' of anchoring depth. Guess I'll be good for a ways out, then. The concern is that without it, the Fortress will basically float/fly along the water, taking a lot longer to reach bottom than it should. But once they set, they're quite stout, per the reviews and testing. Granted, most of the tests are done with sandy or muddy, softer bottoms. But my Danforth works fine in the places I anchor on the lake, so I figure sticking with the style that works should work too.

Just as a side note about it. One of the claims to fame is that it sets faster due to the sharpened flukes. The Danforth was a good solid anchor and is still used, so why wouldn't someone just grind the flukes of a steel Danforth for faster setting? Seems like an easy and cheap way to slightly bridge the gap between the two. Just brain storming, but far greater minds than mine have avoided doing it. With luck, I'll test out the purposely-built one this weekend.

Heave, Heave, HEAVE

I'm happy to report that the mast is up, and she actually looks like a sailboat again. I went up Friday night after work (and after Wendy's shorted me a patty on my Triple burger but tried to offset it by giving me pickles and tomato which I had requested be left off. $15 an hour? Right.

Waking up Saturday morning, I had grand visions in my head of the yard whisking me into place and hoisting the mast at Bright And Early O'clock. It actually happened about 1. Turned out they had actually wanted to try it Friday, but were unable to get the outboard started after a couple dozen yanks on the starter cord. So much for that theory on the on/off switch. The switch is still broken, don't get me wrong. But it wasn't the only thing I guess. Carb rebuild to come. But I did get it running in relatively short time, probably a dozen pulls or so, it finally sputtered to life. Smoked a little, but that settled down after it warmed up. And after motoring into place, we had the mast up quickly. Motored back to the dock, gave everything an initial tension and debated on the next move.

One of the things that the boat has, is a Spinnaker in a chute stuffed into the corner. I had never flown it, but since I had added a spinnaker halyard, I wanted to try. As it turns out, I could've saved the halyard space, but I guess it never hurts to have an extra? The sail itself is relatively small, and with the chute, you lose another foot, foot and a half at the top. It's nothing fancy, more of a light wind genoa really, so I'll likely discard of the chute, and just hoist it like normal if I want to use it for light wind, downwind days.

You'll notice my custom framing in the picture by cleverly using my hand as a shield. I also want to draw attention to a section of that picture, so I zoomed in:

It's been evident in other photos too, but this section of the bow pulpit has been broken since I purchased the boat. This has been annoying, and it leaves it rather flimsy up there. So keep that in mind, we're going to come back to that. First, let's get out on the water. Engine fired right up, and I motored right out. Very light wind (ideal for a Spinnaker... no, I didn't use it), and I was planning on just motoring east a little and anchoring for the night, as the Ontario 300 had kicked off that morning. Their path brings them down around near Oswego so I had planned on getting up on Sunday morning, sailing or motoring out to watch the parade of entrants pass by. I assumed motoring, since the forecast was basically the same as it had been for Saturday - light winds, good sun, that was the plan. This is also Lake Ontario. Let's remember that part too.

I anchored out, and set it with a good old reverse burst, and watched as, yet again, the waves and wind don't match. Just off-kilter enough that there's more side-to-side rolling, than there is wave-on-bow action. It's annoying, and even though it wasn't violent rolling, it was just bugging me. I inflated my raft, and rowed to shore by the dunes, and dunked myself in for a cool bath. The dunes are really neat to see.

Once back aboard, I decided that it was time to figure this wave/wind issue out. I've read about using a stern spring line to your anchor rode before, which in theory helps to turn your boat where you want it to be. So in my case, the wind was coming from the North, the waves from the West. I used my anchor spring back to a cleat on the starboard of the cockpit, the idea being it would then allow me to pull the stern more with the anchor to help face the waves. We're just going to say that this does seem practical on paper, when the wind shifted slightly, I was useless again. I finally gave up trying, and dug out the little secondary anchor that I had, rowed it out and dropped it. It wasn't the greatest set since I was basically setting it by hand from the boat afterwards, but it was more for my own amusement than anything. Worst case, it breaks free and... does nothing? But it did do better to point me into the waves. I then decided to enjoy the view one last time before going to sleep.

12:30 AM. I'm still not sound asleep, and I can tell the rocking has gotten a little more intense. I'm annoyed, but I assume the waves have shifted a little, and that with my stern anchor, now I'm not facing into them as much. It's still mostly bow-on though so I kept trying to sleep.

6:30 AM. I give up on staying asleep, though I had only dozed on and off. I think there was a 2-3 hour stretch I did manage to stay under, but it didn't feel like it. What it DID feel like, was a washing machine agitating me back and forth. I look out the starboard portholes and I see water. Sky. Water. Sky. Ugh, I get up and open the companionway hatch. Hey, this isn't five knots and two foot swells. This is more like fifteen, and five. Fortunately, the waves were in mostly the same direction and the stern anchor wasn't killing anything. But now the tricky part. I have to retrieve a stern anchor, in these rocking conditions, while managing the boat... solo. Plan B was to crawl to the bow, release more rode to allow the boat to back down to over the stern anchor, and heave it. I tried Plan A first - Brute force. It's a very small anchor, I wouldn't even use it for a lunch hook on a calm day personally. So I heaved, and somehow with the wave action and my grip, it did pop free and took almost no time to reel in. I deflated my raft and shoved it down into the cabin to finish airing out. The motor only took a few pulls, thank goodness, but already I knew it was going to be interesting to get out of there. Every third wave, I can hear the motor lifting from the water. Definitely the weather for an inboard.

I had about 8, or 9:1 scope out. My anchor rode is 200' of 1/2" Three strand Nylon, and 30' of 1/4" chain, shackled to a Danforth 13s fluke anchor. And it was SET. Here's the problem.... I'm solo, and I have no windlass. I have eight thousand pounds of boat beneath my feet, and I have fifteen knots of wind and a four to five foot sea state to overcome. Now before you think I'm illogical, My first plan was in fact to motor up as I pulled in the rode. I fully intended to. I just need to make sure I don't motor OVER the rode and wrap the motor. So I thought ok, I'll just pay out some and walk it back to the stern. As soon as I did, the boat started to swing beam-on to the waves, since now the anchor was to the side. Abandoned that plan. Plan B again. I braced my feet against the bow cleats, sitting on the deck, and started pulling, trying to time my pulls with the waves. It took a while, but I finally see chain. And that's where the problem hit me. It was REALLY set, and I have nothing I can tie a chain onto or secure it to. And it's a lot harder to hold a chain in your hands than a line. It took a few minutes of swearing and trying, but finally, FINALLY I feel a release, just barely, and I can see the bow start to swing a little. I raced my hands along the chain and pulled the anchor up, tossing it down the hatch to get it off the deck and out of harm's way, to be dealt with later. My anchor locker only holds the rode, I don't have a bracket for the anchor itself yet.

I run back to the cockpit and put the motor in gear and painstakingly slowly, we finally start to turn up into the waves again. And slowly, because every couple seconds, the stern lifts, the motor loses grip on the water, we stall progress. Normally I would've just lowered the bracket another notch, but we were already burying the shaft to just below the cowl as it was, so any farther would've risked flooding out. So instead, we soldiered on. Small grips at a time, every now and then turning a little down the waves to keep up some speed, then back up. I easily figured out why I didn't see any other boats around, and I also abandoned my plan to go see the Ontario 300 parade. No way was I motoring the wrong direction in this stuff. I know the weather would eventually die out, but that could be in hours, and I didn't want to sit there being tossed about for that long. All in all, it took almost two hours into that weather, to go the mile and three quarters back to the marina. Once in the bay, the sheltered waters were calmer and I docked without incident. I took a few minutes to rest, still trying to stretch my fingers from being sore from that anchor haul. Speaking of that anchor...

I think now is a good time to replace it with a new Fortress FX-16, don't you?

The last thing I did for the day, was to revisit that bow pulpit. Especially after yanking that anchor aboard without a solid handhold, and I actually had all the tools on hand. I did have to cut open a couple inches of the fiberglass liner inside to reach the back of the bolts, but I was able to use a sawzall to cut the old tubing, and use a new same-diameter (slightly thicker wall though) piece with a sleeved piece of smaller tubing to join them. Hard to see the joint, but it definitely works better. Sealed everything with 4200 to keep leaks out, and also around the sleeve inside the old tubing to hold it in place a little. I normally would've used 5200 there, but I a) don't have any and b), it's such a tight fit, it's not going anywhere anyway. Can barely see the seam, so I guess that's a good thing.

After that, a shower, and I called it a weekend. Maybe this next weekend, I can even get company!

Happy 4th Weekend

So it's been a few weekends since my last confession. Boat visit. Same thing, I think. Oh right, I was up on the 22nd or was it the 23rd of June..and did nothing but throw some varnish on the table, and wallow in misery at my battery blunder. Since then, most of my time has been spent at work, watching the marina webcam to see if by chance my little blue blip on the screen would be moving. Unfortunately, as I watched a seemingly endless parade of every boat that wasn't mind, I felt quite a few emotions. Partially frustrated, despair, and just plain bummed, to name a few. Putting those aside, I decided to go up for the festivities of Fair Haven's 4th of July celebration this weekend. Saturday night brought about their Ring of Fire (everyone lights up flares along the shore of the bay, a great way to burn off expired flares!), followed by the town's fireworks festival.

Oh wait, I completely got ahead of myself! Ok ok, yes, it was a fun filled night of fireworks and things. But I forgot to mention that my battery bank is nicely replenished, thank you Mr. Solar Panel. I'm sure it's a little unhappy still, and I still plan on doubling the bank at some point. Even more importantly though, between grilling up some burgers and cleaning the boat up a little, our Yard guru happened by and asked when we wanted to turn this thing into a sailboat instead of a land yacht. I used the ever-popular line of "Whenever you're ready.". I don't know if with all the commotion trying to sort out flood waters, perhaps he forgot that I had previously asked, or maybe he didn't realize I was actually ready when I asked? But either way, he said ok, first thing in the morning Sunday. Music to my ears, really. Especially as I had been seriously considering just having them convert my rate to Summer Storage instead of slip rental, which has a marginal difference, but really, I was losing hope for the season.

I woke up way too early this morning, Sunday. They keep 9-6 hours (roughly) at the marina as far as work goes, and here I am, beating my alarm by only a little bit - Six Freaking Thirty. I pulled the hatch open, and was greeted with overcast skies, and fifteen knots of wind. It wasn't long before he came by to chat, and let me know that the gusts were going to mean that the mast couldn't be stepped, and wanted to ask if I'd rather wait and do it all at once, or go ahead and put the boat in the water and step it later. An hour later...

You can see what direction I went with. I wanted to get the boat in the water and at least feel accomplished, even if it meant the mast wasn't up yet. Plus, it means not trudging through mud or around hillsides to get to the boat any more if there was more work to be done on it.

So that was step one. Now, all I had to do was start the motor, and pop out into my slip. How hard could that be? As it turns out, when you have a Mercury outboard that doesn't like sitting for more than a week or two before deciding it doesn't want to start, pretty hard. I was hoping maybe, just maybe, a miracle would present itself in the form of a first-pull start. That's a nope. Luckily, they weren't scheduled to use the lift again right away, so they left me there to tinker for a bit, and let me know that when I was ready, let them know. When I came up and ran it a few weeks ago I put brand new spark plugs in. We ran it for about ten, fifteen minutes in a barrel to get it warmed up. But then it sat for three weeks. Four? Something. But this motor has always been picky when it sits. I pulled the plugs, they looked clean, so I re-gapped them again, put them back. More pulls, more nothing. This particular motor is a mid-80s model, and has an on/off switch on the left, as well as a tiller-handle mounted momentary push-button kill switch. I've never used the handle button, but I did notice there wasn't really a lot of travel, so on a hunch, I unplugged the wiring to the kill switch. A few pulls later and voila! It. Is. Aliiiiiive! I put the wires back together, sputtered out. Unhooked, started. Could this be what the issue has been all along? I do always end up flipping the on/off switch when it doesn't start, and that switch and the button are linked in the wiring, so perhaps there's something going on. We'll see as the season goes though, and maybe NEXT year is the year I buy a replacement? After a few minutes, we dropped the slings out from under the hull, and I motored slowly to the slip. Tied off easily enough, and that was that. We'll put the mast up another time, but at least we're halfway there.

The only tiny hiccup in my plan is actually at least three tiny hiccups. The end of my mast has become home to a nest of birdie babies. I'm not sure if mama bird will track them down, I would imagine she does. But what happens if they haven't flown the proverbial coop when it's mast raising time? I would hate for them to just get dumped out, so we might need to relocate them. Then again, if the next wasn't in the mast, they wouldn't need to be disrupted. Me? I blame the parents.