Annapolis Reality Check

boats, boats and more boats

Have you ever had that feeling that what you are doing is just not right, not meeting with the status quo.  I get this feeling every now and then when it comes to the lifestyle that Vicki and I have chosen.  You know what I mean, living on a boat, not having a Ground Zero! 
Well I had a reality check in October when Vicki and I and our good friends Christine and Terry Vos visited the Annapolis Strictly Sail boat show in Annapolis Maryland.  This is toted as the biggest in-water sailboat show in the world and so far it is the biggest boat show that I have been to.  Thousands of people walking the docks looking at all the shiny new boats and gear.  This, however, wasn't the reality check that I am talking about.  You see, Annapolis is located at the top of the Chesapeake Bay and is on the direct flight path or should I say sail path for cruisers heading south.  They pool up in Annapolis to take in the show and to purchase all their forgotten items before heading south and beyond.  You can pick them out of the masses as they zig zag through the crowds, they are intent, they have a purpose and they are on a mission.  Not like the Perfect Sailors and Boat Babes that are there just to be seen.  You know what I mean, she has the perfect hair, perfect nails, dressed to the nines and is way too perky and symmetrical for her age, not that I was looking.
We picked up our Mack Pack main sail handling system as well as a few other smaller items.  The weather was in the mid 80's all week and the sea food was the best.  I was working my way up to the raw oysters but ran out of time, maybe next year we will stay for two weeks!

Vicki loving the seafood

We hauled Zingara out of the water and  I installed a proper cover this year.  I try to forget last winter when we didn't have a cover and had to shovel our way into the boat to work on her.  The major project for this winter will be refinishing the bottom, replacing the through hauls and ball valves.  I will be re-wiring the electrical panel as well as installing the SSB and pactor modem.  I have to reinstall the A/C unit as it was installed in the aft cabin and it is a little too noisy to sleep with as well as inefficient, not to mention the fact that Vicki was losing a whole clothes cupboard!  I will be installing it under the settee in the main salon.  I have also dropped the Mast and will rewire it in the spring.  I also removed the rudder at haul out to inspect it.

Zingara covered and ready for the winter

Vicki and I are now living the life of CLOD's (cruisers living on dirt) and I for one don't mind it.  I didn't like walking like a penguin down the dock at 6 am.
Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year

Summer of Vicki

Once again the summer has come and gone and we are only left with memories.  You must agree though that this summer has been much warmer and drier then last year.  We had a great first summer on Zingara with many trips on Lake Ontario.  We have sailed to Toronto Island and Coubourg a number of times and have day sailed out of Whitby harbour as well.  We've made many new friends as well as reacquainting with old friends. 

Some of our new friends are David and Karen on the boat named Coracle.  Coracle is a Bruce Roberts designed sailboat of steel construction.  David and Karen built the boat by themselves in the town of Mindon, Ontario and trucked it to Whitby to launch.  They are leaving shortly to sail their boat to their new home in Nova Scotia.

As well as meeting David and Karin we reconnected with Bob and Connie Benner and their boat Meredith.  I met Bob and Connie about ten years ago during a Power Squadron course I took back in London, Ontario.  Vicki and I bumped into, or should I say sailed into them, in Port Stanley on lake Erie a few years  later.  On one of our sails to Toronto this year we called into the Marina to confirm our dockage, and we were told to dock at dock 40 beside a sailboat named Meredith.  Vicki and I both looked at each other and said it couldn't be the same Meredith.  There is no mistaking the lines of a 38' Cabo Rico sailboat and sure enough we were once again docked beside our old friends Bob and Connie.  I will add Bob and Connie's blog, Benner Adrift, to our  Links.  They have spent the last few years sailing up and down the east cost of the US, as well as the Bahamas and Cuba.  Bob has a way with words that at times will have you crying with laughter. 

Boat Projects!
I have taken it easy this summer, Vicki says too easy, when it comes to working on Zingara.  I have been sizing up the work that needs to be done.  A lot of the projects run into each other, I mean in order to do one thing you first have to do another project first. 
One project I did do this year was to install a Tank Monitoring system.  I have read with interest how boaters have problems with their Heads and the ensuing crap they get into when they go to fix the head.  The problem we had on Zingara was we didn't know when the tanks were full or empty.  This caused the forward holding tank to overflow into the boat.  The tank lid was cracked which allowed it to overflow into the bilge of the boat, not a pretty site or even worse SMELL.  Not to get into a lot of detail the tank is fixed and a Profile Tank Monitoring system is now on board Zingara.  I spent a week continuously washing my hands after the project was done.
Winter 2010/2011
Vicki and I have decided to pull Zingara out of the water for the winter instead of living aboard her.  I have to strip the bottom and also change the plastic through hulls and valves to bronze, as well as redo the electrical, move the A/C, the hot water tank, and the water pump, add an accumilator, install my SSB, re-bed the hatches and windows, S@$**$@*%T.

Adjusting to Island time, well almost

Hello All:

Sorry for the long overdue Blog update. Vicki and I have been busy adjusting to life aboard Zingara over the past few weeks and getting back to a work routine, YUKKKK!

Trip high lights
Total miles covered - 630 Knt. miles
Total moving time - 102hrs. 42min..
Total stopped time- 39hrs 32 min. 06 sec.
Total travel time - 142hrs 15min.
Total Hang overs - ????

Most memeral Moments
The look on Vicki's face when I talked her into sailing through the night on Lake Huron.
The look on Vicki's face after her first night watch, priceless!
Getting stuck in Sarnia, and getting unstuck by ourselves.
Bow wake of a frieghter close up!!!!!!!!!!!
Sailing into our old home port of Port Stanley (Vicki had her sunglasses on but I know she had a tear in her eye). and the joyous reunion with old friends.
Surviving the Welland Cannal.
The sights, sounds and smells, coming out of the companionway, when Terry and Vicki were cooking in the galley.

Lessons learned
Never ever, ever ever ever ever, get directly behind a Frieghter. This happened entering the first lock of the Welland Cannal. I thought the frieghters wash would push my bow into the lock as he exited the same lock. It did push my bow around, and around and around. A hard reverse and 3000 rpms from Sweet Pea (our 44 hp Yanmar diesel) kept the bow out of the 15 foot concrete wall infront of us. My ears are still ringing from three deck hands yelling REVERSE, REVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are a few pictures of out trip, enjoy

Sunset on Lake Hurom

630 Nautical Miles!

Just a quick blerb here, as we are in the midst of CELEBRATION!  We arrived in Port Whitby safe & sound around 16:00 hours. What an awesome, awesome experience, the weather was great, thank you Poseidon for calm seas, Thank you to Christine & Terry, thank you to all of our Family, especially Meg & Dea for looking after their "brother" Brisket, Our sister Deb for all she's done, and for Mom & Dad for meeting us as when we sailed into Whitby.  Thank you to SPOT, for showing everyone our whereabouts, we felt with everyone being able to see where we were, that we were in safe hands. 

Continuing to Live the Dream....

Becoming Crew

Hanging the dingy

We joined Zingara in Port Stanley with enthusiasum and excitement. After a 2 hour train ride, we were anxious to meet the MacDonald's and get on the water. We meet at the train station, happy to relive the trip from Georgian Bay to Port Stanley. The excitement mounted. We decided to stay an extra night to catch up with the crew at "Port" and we were off early Tuesday morning to catch the 6 am bridge. Dressed in our foulies, we headed out. We were on watch all morning looking out for fishing nets, gas wells and logs. By 2 pm, we were stripped down to our shorts and t-shirts, by 5:40pm we landed in Port Dover pulling in to the Harbour Marina and greeted by the staff that went that extra mile to make us comfortable. Not only did we get a great spot but we were also provided a ride to the LCBO as it closed at 6 pm. They also provided laundry soap for us the next day. Port Dover Rocks!! We stayed 2 nights to reprovision and to have the World famous Perch dinner at the the Erie Beach Hotel. We left Thursday morning heading to our next adventure being the Welland Canal. Stay tuned......
Terry and Christine Vos

Port Stanley - Fog & Fish Nets

Hello All, 
We left Erieau after staying one nite, and set off for Port Stanley.  The weather was hot & sunny until we got away from the harbour when it turned like pea soup!  Doug thought he would be fishing and I thought I'd be scrubbing the deck, making her all shiny for arriving in Port.  However, plans change, we sat our buts down, Doug on the starboard side, and Myself on the Port side, and took watch.  We saw several fish net flags which was very irritating trying to figure out in the fog as they are marked by a black, green, and sometimes red flag, between the flags are buoys, white, green, orange, any colour, and then you see a second set sometimes which you have to go inbetween, it's a gateway to go thru, however, it's still scary knowing that you prop & keel could easily get entangled. 
We finally saw the Port Stanley Lighthouse as it eventually cleared up. We sailed in as the sun was going down, beautiful!  All of our friends met us on the dock, helping us with our lines, just like old times.  We were presented with a glass of red, and sat by the fire after giving the grand tour of Zingara.  Good Times.
Brian & Lorna made us a delicious champagne breakfast the next morning, very nice.

Later in the afternoon, we picked up our good friends, Christine & Terry in London, as they have joined us for our next exciting week of sailing Zingara home.  We all had a big dinner at the Marina, it was a Pork Chop Potluck!  Thank you Mike & Margo for joining us for dinner also. The weather has been hot, hot, hot, and we are all getting brown as berries! Thank you everyone in Port Stanley, it was nice to get together again.

LIVING THE DREAM

Hello All, We are doing well so far bringing Zingara home.  We have experienced so much during our journey.  We are currently docked in Erieau on Lake Erie, shortly heading to our old home Port of Port Stanley, where we have our friends' Christine & Terry joining us for the second week.  We have travelled 401 nautical miles so far, that's over halfway!  We've been from Georgian Bay to Lake Huron, St.Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie.....Wow, lots of water, love it!
Dougie just purchased a fishing pole, he is reliving his youth! Well, better get our ship together and press on.

Tobermory or Bust!

We made it!!!  We pulled up anchor at Christian Island at 5:15 am and headed Northwest for Tobermory.  After 12 hours of motor sailing, we arrived safely. : )  Beautiful weather, Georgian Bay was calm, thank the Lord! We had opportunity to do some jobs that needed doing, such as, putting in the reef lines, etc.  Both of our faces are red, it's cool out on that water!  We pulled into the fuel dock at Tobermory and the dockmaster asked how big our boat was, Doug answered 40 feet, he answered "ah, looks like 20 feet to me" and gave us a deal, sweet!
We are getting up before sunrise again to get a head start on the day, we are heading to Bayfield.  Let's hope the weather stays in our favour for the rest of our trip.
Meg & Dea, we are at the same dock as the ChiChiMan, remember we took that when you girls were just little farts, and Brisket too?  Ahh, the memories : )

Zingara back to 16.......

FINALLY!!!

Just a quick note, we are finally ready to let the dock lines free.....it's 1:30pm Sunday afternoon, skies are blue & we are applying sunscreen!  We took so long to get ready, get last minute stuff....but we are Sailors, and on holidays, so I believe we are officially on "Island Time" , we'll keep in touch, ciao!

Spot Tracker

Hello all, I have purchases a Spot Tracker ,which is a GPS navigational safety aid.  You will also be able to follow out trip and know where we are at any given moment.  Just click on the Spot Tracker web page located in our Links.  I have also added two weather sites that I use to track the weather, have a look.
The weather is looking good for our trip back to Whitby Ontario.  The plan is to leave Midland on Saturday in the early PM and anchor out at Christina island overnight.  This will let us leave early Sunday morning, around 4 am, and give us a straight rum line to Tobormoy.  I figure we will be under power most of the way across G/B but once we get around Tobormory it will be a slay ride down to Sarina.  We hope to be in Port Stanley for the long weekend to visit with old friends and crack open a few bottles of wine .  Next stop will be the Erie beach Hotel in Port Dover.  If you ever get to Port Dover you have to have the fish dinner at this Hotel.  After that its on to the Welland Canal and then a short sail to Whitby.
The hardest part of any sailing trip is letting the dock lines go.
Doug

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go......

Well, we are just about ready to go on Friday, whew, what a whirlwind of activity there has been in our house during these last few weeks!  I am just so thankful that we have been gradually downsizing over the years.
We have checked the Wind Guru site, and the weather looks favorable for us for a few days anyway.  We might even have to use the iron genny....shhhh....


Keep track of us everybody, we'll keep in touch, ciao!

Doug & Vicki

Moving Our Belongings Aboard

This past weekend, we moved our loot onto the boat.  Everything has it's place, we just have to remember where that is!  You certainly learn very quickly what you really need on board & what you can do without, having said that, there really  wasn't much brought back to the land yacht.

Doug got the GPS all hooked up & the antenna as well, took longer than he anticipated, but a job well done in the end.
We got all the wood seats restored, but could not apply the teak oil, as it kept pouring rain in Midland.  However, it did stay nice & warm & we are thankful to have a dodger & bimini, which we didn't have on Zephyr.

We have one more weekend before we sail on towards Lake Ontario to our home Port of Whitby. We are taking 2 weeks to sail her home, and we are very much looking forward to our adventure.

We had a visitor on Saturday night while we were bbqing & enjoying a glass of wine, a beaver came swimming toward our boat!  He was big!  I said to him "keep on swimming, we are not a wooden boat" LOL!

/)       We will report soon on our way home...until than...smooth sailing!
~~

Ready to Splash

We finally put on the new name "Zingara" Port Whitby last Friday, what a beautiful sunny day it was, blue sky.....
So we removed the ladder brackets, Doug on the inside of the stern, I on the outside, then we measured and applied the 65" wide name.  Than we had to re-install the ladder brackets...well, we used 5200 on the screws & got that all screwed back together, went to attach the ladder & oh oh, it wouldn't attach on one side....ugh...we had the brackets on the opposite sides...so we had to remove the brackets & re-install....trying not to get 5200 on the new decal...it went on Doug's chin hairs instead, but blended in nicely as his goatee already has quite a few white hairs!
 
We got her all done (luckily they were running behind at the Marina), now she was ready to launch, which was tricky as she was in a tight area.  All went well, and she is safely afloat at her temporary dock at Beacon Bay.

Saturday we scrubbed her topsides & attached the bimini & dodger with her new windows, wow!  She sparkles!
Saturday night, we had our first guests aboard, our friends Christine & Terry, and there was absolutely no wine spillage on Zingara!  On Sunday, we took her out for a test sail, she just glides!

Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again

This is one of those jobs that just gets worse the further you get into it.  After finding that the strut and stern tube were out of line there was only one decision left to be made, remove the Strut.  Now that I had the complete drive line removed, it was time to come up with a plan to re-install and re-align the components. I machined two locating bushings, one in the aft end of the Strut bore and one in the forward end of the Stern Tube.  These bushings held the drive shaft central to the two bores.  I also machined two slip bushings that would locate inside the front bore of the Strut and the aft end of the Stern tube.  When everything was in alignment these two bushings would slip into the two bores.  The Strut was bedded back in place with 3m-5200, I think I ended up with more on me then the strut!  Once this was done all that was left to do was line the engine to the drive shaft.  The Dripless Seal was also installed as well.

Enough of this technical stuff.....let's go sailing!

Strut to Stern Tube Misalignment

As Vicki indicated there is a misalignment between the Cutlass bearing the Stern Tube.  The first indication of this was the wear marks on the Cutlass bearing itself.  At the front end of the Cutlass there was excessive wear on the top half of the bearing and at the back side of the Cutlass the wear was on the bottom.  I made up two nylon plugs with a .020” hole drilled in the center of each.  One plug was placed inside the aft bore of the Strut and the second was placed in the front bore of the stern tube.  I then ran a string through each hole and pulled it taught. Now I took measurements at the front of the Strut bore and the aft bore of the Stern tube.  I didn’t really have to take measurements as I could see by eye (yes even with my tri-focals on and my fifty year plus eyes) I could see that the Cutlass bore of the strut was running up.  Remember back in Grade ten when you were doing trigonometry and you said to yourself when am I ever going to use this.  Well I can say I still remember SOH-CAH-TOA!!!!!!!  I pulled out the calculator (couldn’t find the slide rule, god am I getting old) and found that the Strut bore was off half a degree to the Stern Tube.  Over sixty inches this would mean that the drive shaft was 7/16” high to the center line of the stern tube, not good!  What to do??????????

I looked at a few different options but all would only bastardize the drive line (a trade term we use when one doesn’t do the jog the right way).  The strut is now off the boat!  I will give you a post later, on how I re-aligned the strut to Stern Tube.

Launch Date is April 23/10 and Zingara has no drive shaft or impeller.

Here is a picture that makes all this nonsense worth while. It was taken on the island of Anegada BVI.

From Winter Coats to Shorts!

Wow!  What an absolutely gorgeous sunny weekend we had to work on our boat!
Doug finished with the engine, while I started washing the port side of Zingara, she was a dirty girl!
The boat is so high off the ground, I was getting a sore neck stretching with the pole and brush, Doug took over for me and got her looking clean.  We purchased a buffer which brought up the shine beautifully. I took a photo of the port side where it says Legend to show you how shiny Doug got the boat, beautiful!  We have the starboard side left to do next weekend, and we have decided to put one coat of paint on her bottom.....only 3 weeks till launch! Yikes!

The boat yard went from being cold and silent to warm and busy,  with the buzz of buffers going, covers coming off and the laughter and stories from fellow boaters who had come out of hibernation.
It's great to see boating season has begun.....love it!

We enjoyed a great dinner with wine of course, and had an early night of well deserved rest.  The winds were very strong all night, but we were safe all snuggled in. 



Now it's back to the grind....work that is....until next weekend.....I just love working on my boat!

First Day of Spring brought cold weather to Midland as I was perched upon the top step of the ladder, heat gun in hand, plastic scraper in other hand, winter coat on with hood...well, you get the picture....the weather was cold and it was time to remove the old name of CARPE DIEM.  A task that had to be done.  We didn't consider this bad luck as we figure a boat is not a boat until it is in the water.  This task took me most of the day, wasn't too bad to take off however, you just have to make sure you don't take the tips of your fingers off at the same time!  This weekend I shall remove the gummy leftovers and buff my stern!

Doug was busy down below taking out the old engine oil with a pump that really worked his triceps, boy, 5 litres of oil takes forever to remove as the oil pump was a piece of crape diem!  He is still working on the strut & stern tube alignment, there is an issue there.  Here he is taking a measurement with a string and vinyl plug set-up.

We are awaiting our new stainless shaft which we hope to install in 2 weeks.  Launch date is 33 days away!  Getting excited!! 

Crazy Midland Sledders

A lot of snow had melted in Penetang since last weekend, and we both said to each other on the way up, that there won’t be any snowmobilers this weekend. 

We were wrong, there were 5 to 6 of them out on the bay, I was busy scraping the name off of the transom when I heard the buzzing sound of a sled….hmm I said, not turning around to look, don’t tell me that’s a sled on the bay…yes, it was, going across open water….how do you spell D.A.R.I.N.G. ?

Silly Sledders, lakes are for Sailors!

Disaster averted

One of the upgrades that we liked on Zingara when we first looked at her was her feathering Max Prop.  Unlike a regular prop you find on most boats a feathering prop reverses its blades when the boat is shifted from forward to reverse and feathers its blades while under sail creating very little drag.  While in forward gear the prop’s torque applies a forward thrust (pushing into the boat) on the drive shaft and reversely when in reverse gear the prop’s torque applies a reverse thrust (pulling out of the boat) on the drive shaft.   

This reverse thrust on the drive shaft creates a lot of stress on the driveshaft and hub assembles and can cause the drive shaft to pull itself out of the hub.  If this happens the prop and drive shaft will pull out of the boat until the prop hits the rudder, destroying the prop and damaging the rudder.  The other issue, if this occurs is the gapping 1” hole left where the drive shaft once was!  Zingara was one or two reverses away from this happening and ultimately sinking.

As this picture shows, the locking set screws did not originally come loose; they cut a groove into the circumference of the shaft first.  The key was destroyed and the shaft started to work its way out of the hub.  The gouges made by the set screws came to within a ¼ of an inch to the end of the shaft.   You can also see just how much back and forth movement the shaft as doing by the ware from the stuffing box.  I will be through bolting the new shaft and hub when I re-assemble the driveshaft!!!!!!!!

On a positive note I finished installing our new Icon VHF radio and it worked like a charm.  I will also add the cockpit Ram Mic before we set sail in May.

I love the sound of grinders in the spring!

Doug

Battle of the Cutlass

One of the recommendations that the Marine Surveyor made when we purchased Zingara was to replace the Cutlass Bearing.  This is the bearing that supports the drive shaft and is located just in front of the propeller.  The standard procedure to remove this bearing is to first remove the propeller then the drive shaft and then the Cutlass bearing.  The only problem with this procedure is you first have to remove the Rudder in order to get the drive shaft out.  Vicki calls the rudder her BFR for good reason, it’s big!

Being, I admit it, Cheap and under a time limit I decided to try and remove the bearing with the drive shaft in place.  I made up a special puller and after two revisions to the puller the cutlass bearing is out.  I can now also remove the drive shaft as there is enough play in the strut to get the shaft by the rudder. I will also replace the stuffing box with a new PYI Dripless.http://www.shaftseal.com/en/product_categories 

Vicki here…We had friends come up & visit our boat, they brought a nice lunch aboard, which we shared with a nice cabernet wine.  The weather was lovely, still snow on the boat, but came off easily with our trusty red dustpan!  I took the heat gun & partially melted the ice from the cockpit drains, which was a success as the water started draining nicely onto Joe & Doug below.

 

Great news!  We are now off of the waiting list….we have our dock assignment!!!

We will be on Pier 1, lucky dock #13, Port Whitby Marina.

Today we are packing up as our dirt dwelling days are numbered…..

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention….there was some spillage on Saturday….you’ll know what I mean if you ever share a glass of wine with Doug : )

Welcome to our blog site : )

Our 40' Hunter Legend, Zingara, is presently on the hard in Penetanguishene. We've spent alot of time looking for our live-aboard boat & finally found her in the late Fall of 2009.
We have some work to do on her to prepare her for her journey home.
We shall sail her to her new home of Port Whitby Marina where we shall live-aboard for a few years.We are taking 2 weeks holiday mid-May to enjoy our time sailing her from Georgian Bay, to Lake Huron, to Lake Erie, through the Welland Canal & finally home to Lake Ontario.
Until than......stay tuned!

Adjusting our Sails,

Doug & Vicki