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!