Summer of 2011

Shoestring

Congratulations go out to the Captain and Crew of the sailing vessel Shoestring who just finished a 3000 nautical mile voyage from Whitby Ontario to Nassau Bahamas. Great job Guys!! You can read about their trip by clicking on the link at the left of the page.

Summer 2011

After Zingara was launched in the spring of 2011 it was time to move back on board for the summer and GO SAILING. My first sail however would not be on Zingara but rather on a friends boat named Coracle. David & Karen had built this boat, over seven years, in the town of Minden Ontario; you can’t get any more land locked then that. The boat is a 54’ Bruce Roberts Spray design and made of steel. They had Coracle trucked to Whitby were they launched her and then spent the summer outfitting her. In the fall of 2010 they headed out for their knew home in Bayside Nova Scotia. Due to bad weather they were forced to haul Coracle in Gasp Bay were they left her for the winter. In the Spring of 2011 Jennot, Gord and myself joined Dave & Karen in Gaspe bay to help sail her home. Here are a few pictures of the trip.



Another sunset




Now that is a Travel Lift




Confederation Bridgle PEI




Pierce Rock



Lake Ontario 300

Once home from the East coast it was time to finish re-building the mast and stepping and tuning her. After this it was time to go sailing again, and again not on Zingara. It was time for the annual Lake Ontario 300. This is a race around Lake Ontario and as its name indicated its 300 nautical miles non-stop around Lake Ontario. The boat that I race on is a 1978 Viking 33’, old but very fast!!!! Much like me, old that is. Her are a few pictures.


Definition of sleep depravation, you will sleep anywhere



Zingara’s turn to sail

(or should I say Vicki’s)

Our holidays would take us east to the 1000 islands of Kingston and Gananoque for two weeks. Three other boats from our pier and Terry & Christine from pier 7 all headed out at the same time. We spent the next two weeks bumping into each other in different anchorages. Here are a few pictures of our trip.



Zingara & Jasah anchoured at Yeo Island




Ivy Lee bridge- Vicki don't look up




After the storm




No its not the North Channel its the 1000 Islands



Still alive and well in Port Whitby

Hello remember use. I know , I know you thought we had sailed off the end of the earth but in actual fact we are safe and sound, still, at Port Whitby Marina. Its been over a year since our last blog and a lot of work has been done to Zingara. I will give you a pictorial chronology of the work because it would take me a week to type it all out for you. We will start back in the fall of 2010 when Zingara was hauled for the winter and move forward to present.


Winter cover
I made myself a promise that I wouldn't get caught with my cover down like we did the first winter in Midland.  I got a few quotes on winter covers and was shocked at the prices, 1 boat unit for a cover I would cut up and through out in the spring. ( 1 boat unit = $1000.00 )  After a little research I used PVC conduit and 6 mill poly.  This is the same poly that they use for vapour barrier in home constrution.  It acts the same as the white plastic that you see covering all the boats in the yards.  It cost me about $250, this included the PVC conduit which I will use again and again.  This year it will only coast me $80 for the plastic.


Installing PVC tubeing for cover





Clear 6mm plactic used for cover



Bottom Job

One of the BIGGEST jobs that you can do on a boat is the bottom and I am not taking about just painting it.  What I had to do to Zingara was scrap all the old paint off and then re-paint her.  I found that there were three coats of old paint that had to come off, 1 coat of VC Tar, 1 coat of VC-17 and one coat of blue Micron CSC.  I did this by hand and it took me about 2 weeks to complete.  I then had to sand the gelcoat with a 50 grit sandpaper The keel was another issue.  Someone had covered the keel in fiberglass which was starting to peel away from the cast iron keel.  This turned out to be more work then I first though.  Once I had ground the fiberglass off I found 1/4" of fairing componed that also had to be ground off as well.  I then had to re-do the fairing to my satisfaction which required 2 gallons of fairing compound.  The re-paint was 7 coats of Interpertect 2000 and 3 coats of Micron CSC.

Bottom sraped to gel-coat



Fiberglass removed from Keel





Two patches to repair stress cracks

Once I had removed the old paint I found stress cracks on both Starboard and port sides below the water line .  I believe this was caused be the aft lifting point being to far aft.  Here is a picture of the two fiberglass patches that I installed.



Spring 2011 ready for launch



Putting Rudder back in



I removed the Rudder in the Fall of 2010 to inspect it.  Here we are installing it in the spring.





I addition to the bottom job I re-wired the Nav Station.  Here is a picture after I removed the breaker panel.  I will post a picture of the finished Nav Station in my next blog.

I also rebuilt the Mast in the spring of 2011, new LED lights and wiring added.

Hard at work

Special thanks to Jennot(pictured above) for all the help!