Working on my boat; the "famous" Catalina smile (6/3/2015)

We pulled our boat this week and were tremendously pleased that my repair of the Catalina Smile on my boat had not returned.  I had fixed it 5 years ago and this was the first time we had pulled the boat out after the repair.

Hauled out after four and a half years in the water 

But let me start at the beginning.  Approximately 5 years ago (May), I motored my little boat over to the York River Yacht Haven to be hauled out.  After some title issues, I was able to take possession of my sailboat a few months earlier, and a friend an I motored her from a slip in the Lynnhaven river over to the slip I had rented in the Poquoson River (it took us 8 hours or so).  So that faithful day in May I motored her over with my daughter and father-in-law on board.  Honestly, not knowing what I had except knowing that she was an abandoned boat that had sunk at least once, I was reluctant to raise the sail and try sailing her.  We stopped in Yorktown to have lunch with the wives.  It was a good trip and even more fun to have lunch on board with five persons eating sandwiches in the cockpit under the watchful eyes of a lot of onlookers.

I was not present when the marina hauled the boat, but when I asked them they told me the keel wobbled a bit.  On further inspection there was a crack in the keel approximately a quarter of the way down.  I learned from the Catalina 25, 250 & Capri International Association that this was the "famous" Catalina Smile.  It seems that the bottom of the boat has a wooden stub and the keel (in my case cast iron) was bolted and glued on to the stub.  I quickly learned that if the keel falls off the boat would immediately fall over, and would likely capsize.  Below is a photograph of what I found that day.

The smile from both sides

From the association members I also learned that this was not fatal and that it could be fixed.  Being on a budget and fairly handy I decided to do this myself.  I bought a repair kit form Catalina Direct and spent a lot of time on the Association's website researching what everyone had done.  In the mean time I cleaned the hull and got it ready for painting.  I very quickly learned I needed better tools than I had and that's where Sears and Harbor Freight came in.  I eventually bought a heavy duty 7" angle grinder and a big industrial drill.  I had to buy cutting oil, to drill into the cast iron keel.  Talking with friends etc I first needed to do some preparatory work: I needed to make sure that the wood stub that the keel was attached to was dry and not rotted.  So I set out to drill five holes in the wood stub at the location I would put the new keel bolts.  The first holes I drilled were slightly undersized and I stopped when I hit metal.  For the next two weeks I treated the holes by alternately flooding them with acetone or alcohol in the hope to drive out any water that was in the stub, or at least near the areas where the new keel bolts were going in.

In the mean time I took the angle grinder and started to cut out the white glue/rubber type substance that sits between the keel and the wood stub.  From everything I read, this is most likely 3M's 5200, a marine glue which is absolutely amazing.  I cut the glue out for the entire length of the smile and tried to go as deep as I could with my 7" disks.

This is what the smile looked like after grinding it out

Back inside in the bilge, I flooded the holes with penetrating epoxy after the two weeks treatment with acetone and alcohol and let it dry for a week.  I made sure that the penetrating epoxy coated the entire bilge, hopefully penetrating the entire stub.  Back to the drill, I subsequently re-drilled the holes but now to the right size and I again flooded the holes with penetrating epoxy.  In writing this, I wonder why I did it this way, but I wanted to make sure that the area was water tight.  I also covered the entire bilge with a layer of glass, in order to get as much strength, stability and water tightness as I could get.  I then re-drilled the holes and I was finally ready for the next step, drilling cast iron and tapping thread in the holes, and this is where I hit a wall.

Drilling in a confined space like the bilge, laying on your stomach was a pain.  Various posts on the Association website talk about drill presses or having professional drillers come in for this part of the job.  My drill bits dulled almost instantly and it took me an entire day to get a half inch deep; and then to think I needed five holes at least 6 inches deep.  Back on line I learned that is was best to drill a pilot hole, so I looked around and ordered  new set of drills, including a number of thinner drill bits to make pilot holes.  Being able to drill one hole per weekend, it took my five weeks to get all the holes done.  In the mean time we had a huge storm that flooded my bilge, and you can understand I was pretty darn happy that I had flooded the holes with penetration epoxy.

Once the holes were drilled it was time to tap the holes, cut the threaded rods to length and screw the rods into the cast iron keel.  With the rods in place it was time to loosely screw on the nuts and then finally do some work outside.  I filled the cleaned out crack with the 5200 compound  and subsequently I went inside to tighten the nuts with a torque wrench.  Again the Association website was of great help because they gave me the correct measures on how much torque I needed to apply.  Finally after the 5200 had dried it was time to re-glass the crack, paint the entire hull with three layers of a barrier coat and three coats the ablating bottom paint.

The keel bolts are in

She was finally hauled out four and a half years after she was put in.  I had barnacles, sponges and algae growing on the hull, but no smile; all looks well!  One word of caution, Catalina Direct tells us that these bolts are less strong as the original bolts which had a J-shape and were pored into the cast iron keel.  Thank goodness my keel bolts did not look too bad, but I wanted additional assurance of safety in particular since I had a smile.

The latest picture of the keel.
She had been in the water for 5 years now and yes she should have come out for cleaning years ago.
But I'm a happy camper/sailor! 

Chesapeake Bay (5/31/2015)

Boy it was a sailing Sunday.  First a friend of mine and I took my boat over the Wormley Creek Marina to get hauled for a bottom job (the subject of my next post).  We expected some wind and that proved to be somewhat wrong.  It started out good, but around the end things were slow.  We were bucking the tide, and although it looked like we were making some headway based on the wake and current around the boat, our GPS showed we made 0.0 knots over the ground.  In fact we were actually drifting somewhat.  Frustrating but it was fun anyway.  The two pictures below show the approach to the creek and us getting ready to dock the Beagle.

I'm really impressed by Wormley Creek Marina; if I was not a member of the club, I can see having my boat there.  

I was tired and overheated when I got home; jumped in the shower and we ran out to meet friends for what we thought was a moonlight sail on their boat.  Well, the weather had turned and we had a steady 20 knot wind and 3 to 4 foot waves on our part of the Bay.  Thank goodness we were on a 40 foot boat with a reefed main, but we were still flying 8 knots at times.  When we got back, it showed that the highest wind gust we had was 29 knots.  It was an exhilarating sail.

When we got home and downloaded the pictures we were struck how small our Catalina 25 was compared to the Pearson 40 we sailed that evening. 

Nothing really deep to write about today, except maybe that being out on the water is exhilarating at times; without time to think about all the things around you.  You are just in the zone, concentrating on sailing.

York Spit Lighthouse (5/16/2015)

There are a couple of things in life that are really my passion.   They include sailing, photography and teaching; although I have not biked much lately, I would almost want to count that as well as one of my passions in life.   I think what they have in common is that they make me live in the moment.   Doing these things I get in a zone and cannot think of much else.  You just need to concentrate on it, and do the best job at it; stay on course with a goal in mind: get (back) to the harbor; maybe where you started from, or maybe to your next goal (harbor).  Your mind is not allowed to wander much when you do these things; in particular in a boat with a tiller. I notice that I invariably go off course during those few times that I look at my GPS; it is amazing what that brief lack of concentration will do.  Just scanning the water, the horizon or just talking with the crew does not result in drastic course changes, but looking at a screen and concentrating on something else will do that.  Crazy maybe, but when driving a car my mind is often busy with something else, or as Dr. Amit Sood says in his "Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living", working on my open files.  During sailing or teaching my file cabinet is closed shut.  Living in the moment is so important!

In the moment (photo taken by the admiral Donna Briedé)

It was a wonderful day of sailing on Saturday.  Winds were 10 to 15 knots out of the Southwest; just perfect to achieve one of my goals: sail out to York Spit light and back.  From the opening of our creek the course was set to 90 degrees (due east) and after about two hours of sailing in the open water of the Bay we approached the spit.  Near the spit, the waves were between one and two feet in height with a great frequency in between that made it a great rolling ride.

Word has it that York Spit used to be an octagonal light house, but ot was abandoned by the coast guard and dynamited.  Below is a picture I stole from Wikipedia:

Now it is just some remnants of the steel base, a light and a few radar reflectors that guard the opening of the channel into the York River.  It is a pity that they could find someone to take care of this historic lighthouse and that they felt the need to destroy it.

Remnants of York Spit Light

After rounding the spit we held the course as close to 270 as we could and zoomed back to the creek we came out of.  We had to lay in one small tack to make it.  The admiral was on the tiller and I had some time to experiment taking photos.  So much for being in the zone (maybe in a different zone).  We had some great encounters with dolphins on the way; it was an absolute great sail.  Very unlike most of the sails that sailors tell you about; they tell you mostly about all those bad experiences they had.

It was an absolutely great Saturday without many worries, except staying in the zone.  One of the worst ways of going off course is by looking back; come to think of it, that is a crazy metaphor for life isn't it?

Chesapeake Bay (4/18/2015)

Finally, this was the first time this year that we went for a sail on our boat instead of the boat of a friend.  I like sailing in general, and yes, sailing on boats from friends is great.  Those boats are usually larger, and warmer.  Our friend Ben has a Catalina 30, of which he can enclose the entire cockpit and keep you out of the cold weather.  It was great sailing with him around Christmas time, while it was snowing outside, and on other cold days this winter.  But as a boy of the tropics, I prefer warmer weather, and of course nothing is better than sailing your own, even if it is inferior to other boats.

During our sail we had to test our new camera (an Olympus TG-3).  Yes I know not a Go-pro, but ; being an avid Olympus user all my life I just gravitated to this one.  Moreover, it does everything a Go-Pro does and then some.  We clipped the camera to the mast with a monopod and was able to take pictures using my cell phone as a remote.  I used my phone as a view finder and could use it to zoom in or out and take shots.  Great fun!  On the photo below you can see me operate the camera with my phone.

The weather was great, a few clouds in the sky and winds around 10 knots.  Temperatures were in the mid-70s, but with the wind over the colder water it was chilly.  During the sail we were reminded that it is pine pollen season on our part of the world, and if you are not from our part of the world you would not know what I am talking about.  During pine pollen season everything gets covered by a layer of fine yellow dust.  It is amazing.  While they say people are not allergic to pine pollen, on Sunday my body was not as happy as it usually is, the sky was yellow, and everything had a thin cover of yellow dust.  I wrote about it before (here) almost exactly a year ago (on 4/19/2014).  So interesting how closely nature is synchronized. 

With the first rainstorm streams are covered by a yellow slime and in a way it is actually indescribable.  The admiral (my wife) took a picture of a plume of pine pollen that we sailed through well off shore (maybe a mile or two) in the Chesapeake Bay (see the photo below).   What amazes me here that there must be this strange current in the water (or a combination of current and wind) that concentrates the pine pollen in this narrow band.  But you can see is goes quite the distance.

Chesapeake Bay (12/30/2014)

Time to pull in one more sailing day this year!

Me (photo taken by Ben)

Ben, a friend of mine invited me to go sailing on his boat today (a Catalina 30).  It was cold, temperatures were in the mid 30s and we actually had flurries.  Wind was approximately 15 knots and it diminished to 10 later in the day.  In other words it was cold, but it was fun.  The boat had a good heel, and at times, according to our GPS, we were going well over 6 miles per hour.  We had a four our sail from the York River Yacht Haven to the Seaford Yacht Club.  A nice sail.

Here we are coming by Yorktown, I'm on the helm (photo taken by my wife)

There was very few people out on the Bay today, which is understandable, considering the weather.  We saw a few pleasure boats with people fishing, no sailboats but even one kayak, with a brave soul. There were a lot of migratory waterfowl on the bay; always a pleasure to see them.  By the end of our sail the clouds broke and there was even a peak of sun.  It was a pleasant sail, but as of this writing, I have not yet warmed up.

Seaford (12/7/2014)

One advantage of having a (sail)boat is that I am even more intimately in-tuned with the weather.  There isn't a day that goes by that I do not check what is going on out there.  This is somewhat amazing, having a wife who is a micro-meteorologist by training.  However, like a lot of generations in the past, for me weather was something that happened; something you had to live with and could not do anything about.  When we lived in Cincinnati you were aware of large thunderstorm complexes.  Cincinnati was kind of at the far end of "Tornado Alley", so always something to be aware off.  However getting a boat, you have to keep an eye out for hurricanes in the summer and nor'easter in the winter.  On top of that you need to know if it is good sailing weather.

This weekend the wind was 30 to 40 knots (1 knot is 1.15 miles per hour) from the north and north-north-east.  A wind coming straight down the Chesapeake Bay at that force forces the water to pile up on the southern shore of the bay and in the little creeks that jot into the shore in the area.  Currently the actual tide is running 1.5 to 2 feet above the astronomic (predicted without the wind) tide (see here for the website).  I just learned that the storm is redeveloping and moving back towards us.  It seems that is will pile even more water up in our creeks,

I went to the boat on Sunday, just to check it and to get a little water out of the bilge and the front locker.  Water always seem to accumulate in these areas.  While my ports (windows) are relatively water tight, I do have a leaky anchor locker and leaky stanchions.  Moreover, my companionway hatch is not waterproof, so yes I will have to dry the boat out after a rainstorm.  On top of that, winter time also means condensation time for my boat and water will drip anywhere and from every thing on a cold day in winter.  I wonder if I can turn my boat into a whiskey still.

It was mid-tide when I got to the boat, and the water was higher than an ordinary high tide.  The wind was whipping.  Two friends of mine arrived just after me, announcing they were going for a sail (remember 30 to 40 knot winds).  They later told me they made it out to the mouth of the creek, but waves were 5 to 7 feet and they decided not to chance it.  Waves can be the general problem where we sail.  Our part of the bay is very exposed to winds from the north to the east and the waves can build pretty high when it blows out of that direction; there is nothing to stop them between us and the eastern shore.  Even in summer there are days we feel uncomfortable going out; when the wind is from the northeast waves can easily top 2 to 3 feet, and that is not much fun in a 25 foot Catalina.

Anyway here is a photo of my slip; you can see how high the water is; and this is mid-tide.  At least our marina is very sheltered and the water is relatively calm.

York River (11/22/2014)

This may not be the most flattering picture, but Saturday was fun.  I helped a friend with sailing his boat over from the York River Yacht Haven to our marina.  His Catalina 30 had been on the hard for some major maintenance and repairs and this was the boat’s maiden voyage after that.  It was cold (when we got to the boat there was still ice on the hull) but the wind was great (10 to 15 knots) and with a slick hull we were making more than 6.5 knots; flying down the York River.  I was actually disappointed that we got there so early.  Although the temperatures were in the low to mid 40s, if you dress right, it was doable.  Yes my face was very cold and I had to put the hoody up after a while.  What surprised me was that we were the only sail boat out at the time.  We saw a number of recreational fishing boats (power boats).

Winter sailing is apparently something for the hardy people in our part of the Bay.  Friends of mine will not go sailing when the temperature goes below 50 or so, and when asked they say something like “been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.”  Yes, it is not something I want to do every weekend; that might get old.  I much more prefer a leisurely trip followed by throwing out the hook (anchor), a swim, a beer and a hardy lunch.  But this was fun too; we had a blast!

I took this selfie and almost every selfie I take really makes my double chin stand out and causes me to grimace.  I see that many people have selfies that do that to them; you contort your face and always smile at the wrong time.  I’ll be happy when I get my new Christmas present; a new camera that uses my phone as a remote control and as remote view finder.  It should be fun to play with.