Thursday night sailing is a go!

My biggest complaint of last summer was not getting to actually sail my boat nearly as much as I'd like. The location of my old slip was quite restricting on when I could take her out. However, my new spot is basically "instant sailing" as a guy in the boat yard stated it.

So the plan is to get out sailing on Thursday nights throughout the summer! Last week was the first one, and it went very nicely!

The Much Needed Haulout

When the Ripple first came into my life last spring, the previous owner had informed me that she was in need of a haul-out for new bottom paint. As he was getting older, he hadn't been able to sail her much for a number of years before I bought her. So we negotiated a drop in the asking price to cover the expected costs, and I put it on the top of my list of "To-Do's".

For those that don't know, boats have what's called "anti-fouling paint" that you put on the hull below the waterline. The paint is called ablative paint, and it's designed to slowly come off as the boat is used. The idea is that any algae/mussel growth that starts accumulating on the hull will then fall off as the paint sheds away. Then every two years or so, you haul the boat out and refresh the paint.

Trouble is, the paint only really works if the boat is used (i.e. moves), as it relies on the friction of moving water to rub off. So, if your boat sits at a dock unused for awhile (4 years for mine...), the bottom can get pretty covered. I recall when I took the boat to Keats Island last August, I got a chance to see the bottom while swimming around the boat. That was the first time I fully realized how "dirty" the bottom really was... I basically had a small underwater biome growing down there.

Dramatic depiction of the bottom of my boat last summer

That said, for this reason or that, I never got around to hauling the Ripple out last year. I think it was a combination of being anxious about doing the work myself (having never done it before) and just not picking a time to do it. I think I built the job up in my head, and it ended up being one of those "Maybe next weekend will work... no, maybe the following..." sort of deals. Before I knew it, summer was over, and it didn't make sense to get the bottom all nice and clean just to have the boat sit all winter and green itself back up.

Therefore, come spring time when I drafted up the 2017 Season To-Do's, bottom paint was at the very top of the list... underlined, bold printed and with a few stars around it. So on a Friday in mid-May, I had her hauled out in a boat yard next to my marina.

The process is pretty entertaining. Basically you motor under a giant crane, which has two big slings that go under your boat. The slings lift, and voila, flying boat.

Once it's most of the way up, you hop off. This was my first opportunity to fully see the bottom of my boat. She was... pretty green.

The lift operator asked me how long it had been since she was hauled out. When I told him 4 to 5 years, he said "Ya, that seems about right."

First step after she's out is to take garden tools and scrape off the mussels. This turns out to be amazingly satisfying work, as they come off quite easily. I was lucky enough to recruit a few buddies to help out.

That's a lot of mussels...

After scraping, the yard guys go at the hull with a high-powered pressure washer to blast away as much of the algae as they can.

Before and after of pressure washing.

After they clean it as best they can, the boat is put onto a holding rack. The rack is then picked up and carried by a giant fork lift to be placed into a parking spot in the yard. The yard manager was a super friendly guy named Yoni, who kindly asked us "...not to watch this part (the fork lift moving)" as it "makes owners a bit nervous". So I turned by back and hoped I didn't hear anything catastrophic. When she was about landed, I snuck a quick photo.

Nerve-racking...

Landed

The game plan for the work comprised of two parts: 1) the topsides (sides of the hull above the waterline) and 2) the bottom. With the topsides, the steps were to wash it down, buff the fiberglass to get it shiny and remove stratches, and then put a polish coating on to protect it.

Nish helping out with the buffing

Weapon of choice for the job

Buffing and polishing involved using a 10-inch electric polisher. As someone that spends most of their work days in an office setting, this work was a bit of a harsh reminder that my shoulders are not in that great of shape! Exhausting stuff trying to hold onto the thing while it's vibrating all over the place. The difference in the hull was very noticeable though!

Before and after

Going over the whole boat with buff paste and polish ended up taking a few days. It's a slippery slope of "well it pretty shiny, BUT IT COULD BE SHINIER!"

Eventually we had to move on to the more daunting work that was the bottom...

I asked the yard workers what they thought needed to be done regarding my hull. I was told the paint that was on there was pretty cheap and had been coated on too thick. So I was told there were two possible approaches for my work:

• "Good Enough" - Sand down the existing bottom paint, fill any gaps, and then paint over it with 2 coats of anti-fouling paint. This was the "do enough to get it back in the water" approach. 

• "The Right Way" - Scrape off as much of the old paint as possible, then sand the remaining paint off until you're down to clean fiberglass. From there, 4 coats of barrier paint, and then 2 coats of anti-fouling paint. This would basically reset the bottom (no old anti-fouling paint) and then add a protective layer of barrier paint to the fiberglass that would last for years and years. 

So, me being me, of course I had to do it the right way. Just the way I am.

First step: Scraping...

Nasty nasty work. The paint isn't really something you want on your skin, or on the ground, so giant tarps and bunny suits were needed. Much more shoulder agony was also involved.

Making progress...

One evening, the wind kicked up to nearly 70 kph/40 mph, which isn't ideal when you're trying to capture as much of the scraped paint as possible. We managed to get a good amount of work done by constructing a "tarp tent". Eventually the wind blew an eyelet out of the tarp, and we had to call it. 

Scraping a boat in a wind storm

Next step: Sanding... 

Once the bulk of the loose paint was removed, it was on to sanding. The yard rented a "dustless" hand sander that was hooked up to a shop-vac. Very handy tool. 

Before and after sanding

Post day of sanding BBQ

Almost ready for paint

More exhausting work. Huge thanks again to Nish for helping with this. It would have been a very tall order to tackle single-handed.

Next step: Barrier Paint. 

Barrier paint is an epoxy based paint that creates a protective layer on the fiberglass. I ended up putting 5 coats on (2 gallons); first a white coat, then a grey coat. Painting isn't really much easier than sanding, but it sure is more satisfying!

First she was a white boat...

And then she was a grey boat...

Last step: Anti-fouling paint...

After the barrier paint, the final steps were 2 more coats of anti-fouling paint. By this time, I was figuring out the efficiencies for painting, so they went pretty quickly. It was nice to see the hull back to it's original blue as well (although the grey looked pretty slick). 

All done!

Last few little details were to replace the pinstripe along the side, as well as the license numbering. Turns out a hair dryer is the secret weapon for getting old decals off. 

New pinstriping

And last but not least, I FINALLY got to put the name on the back of the boat. I'd spent the last year calling her the Ripple, without any proper decals to show it. My friend Jen did any amazing job designing a logo, which makes it even more special for me. I think it looks pretty damn sweet.

Then she went back in the water!

Nish and I immediately took her out for a quick motor to see how the handling had changed. In all honestly, she feels like and entirely new boat. She's faster. She's smoother through the water. She's more responsive in steering. It's a night and day improvement. We were both floored.

Quick sea trial. What an improvement!

My original "guess" was for 4 days of work, which ended up being closer to 12, but I guess that's the cost of doing things "the right way". In the end, it was a ton of work, but was absolutely worth it. A number of people who were around the boat yard while I was doing my work came up to me on launch day to tell me how beautiful my boat looked. Felt really good to hear after putting so many hours into it. I'm really proud of it.

Now, to plan some trips!

New Digs!

The Ripple has been moored at Mosquito Creek Marina in North Vancouver since before I bought her. The marina itself is great. Good facilities, nice enough docks, and easy location to access from Vancouver. However, the location also creates a bit of an issue for sailboats...

As you can see in my nifty little map, the marina is located in Vancouver Harbor. Sailing is prohibited within the harbor because of boat traffic, so you have to make your way past Stanley Park and into Burrard Inlet before you can put your sails up. This trip takes about 40 minutes for my little ole' sailboat, and unfortunately, involves going through First Narrows under the Lions Gate Bridge.

Now for those that don't live near an ocean, a "narrow" just refers to an area of the ocean that goes through a choke-point. When the tides go in an out, these choke points can result is rather fast and strong currents going in the direction of the tide.

An extreme example of this is the Skookumchuck Narrows on the nearby Sunshine Coast. At slack tide (when the tide is switching from in to out or vice versa), it looks like this.

However, at full ebb tide (tide going out), it looks like this!

Now while the First Narrows aren't nearly as extreme in terms of currents, you can image how the tides can be restricting when you're a little 27 foot sailboat with a 10 horsepower outboard for an engine!

Anyway, long story short, Mosquito was a nice spot to keep a boat, but it made it tough to get out sailing as much as I wanted to. So, I decided to change marinas for the upcoming season.

So Saturday morning, some friends came by and helped me move The Ripple over to her new slip in West Van.

Misty morning, departing at 8am in order to hit slack tide through the narrows

One last time under the Lions Gate

Turning up Howe Sound towards the marina

Motoring into Fisherman's Cove, the Ripple's new home!

All tied up in her new digs

Manuvering into the new slip was a bit tricky as the entrance is QUITE tight. I think it's going to take a bit of practice to perfect getting in and out of the new slip. Friends with fenders and boat hooks to keep my from bouncing off nearby boats won't hurt either!

The new marina is pretty basic, with old rickety docks and no fancy facilities, but the location is great. Anytime the wind is good, it's a 5 minute motor out from the cove and I pop my sails. That's really exciting for me!

Now, to have her hauled out so I can clean and paint the bottom...

Board games nights aboard

I tried my best to find other ways to enjoy the Ripple over the dark months. She turned into a bit of a "cabin in the woods" for me, where I'd go to escape the city for a night.

She also became the venue for a series of awesome board game nights! Turns out the cabin can fit up 7 people (quite cosily!) and makes a great spot to play games during the winter months. It was an awesome way to get some friends together and enjoy the boat, even if we didn't leave the dock!

Winter on the Ripple

The Ripple was pretty much dock-bound over the winter (hence the lack of posts on this blog). The weather in Vancouver is somewhat... wet during the winter, so that combined with the shorter days makes it tough to get out sailing.

The Ripple with her winter coat

This being my first boat, the whole "winterizing your boat" ended up being a learn-as-you-go type process (like everything else about owning a boat it seems!). I covered her in a tarp, took all the lines off, and removed the head sail. Turns out folding and flaking a 145% genoa single handed in a pretty challenging task!

Flaking the genoa, mid-struggle, err... process. 

This took me awhile... 

Being that I'm in Vancouver, which is a pretty mild climate, I didn't really expect to have to deal with freezing temperatures or snow.

"It's Vancouver! It never snows here..."

Ya, I was wrong.

Frozen boat

The cold weather added a number of fun challenges to deal with. For one, I didn't drain the water tank since this is Vancouver and it doesn't get that cold (wrong again!), and I was heading over to the boat pretty regularly to sleep aboard and hang out with friends. So come mid-December when the temperatures dropped to -10 C for a few weeks, my water line froze solid, blowing the top of my hand pump off. I then had to wait for things to warm up enough for everything to thaw so I could rectify my mistake. No harm no foul, but let another lesson learned!

Combating moisture and humidity also became a bit of a challenge. By mid-January, I had added some more tarps to the deck to try and avoid pooling. That, combined with an oil radiator on a thermostat and a fan down below helped keep things nice and dry in the cabin. Leaving an electric heater running all the time made me quite nervous to say the least. However, the oil radiators don't get that hot, and I added a number of "safety precautions" to keep it from falling over.

Bit cluttered down below but nice and dry!

The winter also provided the perfect opportunity to try out the little wood stove in the cabin. After repairing the damper with some chicken wire and a bit of ingenuity, I lit it up on a cold night in December. I'm happy to report that it's pretty freakin' awesome! It adds a really nice and homey feel to the boat (I'm a sucker for a good fireplace!) and heats up the cabin in no time flat!

Wood stove on board

I went by the boat the other day to run the outboard for a bit. I was happy to see that it fired right up.

Always nice to see!

With spring right around the corner, I'm definitely chomping at the bit to get back into sailing season! The jobs list is growing steadily, along with the destinations I would like to go see. Can't wait!