Ragged Sails

This past weekend I brought a couple of my friends out to the boat and we took her out to explore the island. It was a bit of a windy day but once we arrived on the island we found that it was nicely sheltered and the sun came out long enough for us to relax in the grass for a few hours.

It was the second boating trip for my dog Lucy, and we brought along our friends dog “Anderson” as well, so she had a great time playing with him.
We docked easily along “the wall” which is managed by the Toronto Island Marina, and for $16 paid for use of the wall for 3 hours. I was told it would be $50 a night, which I suspect will be in high demand in the coming summer weekends.

There is a nice grassy area with picnic tables, a fire pit, and running water nearby.
We will definitely be coming back in the future and perhaps spend a night or two here.

Its been about 3 years since I’ve bought this boat. It has needed constant working on it, and it seems like I’ve replaced almost every single thing in the boat, that I wish I had just got a more expensive boat to start with. On the other hand, I have learned quite a bit about my boat or in sailboats in general. I also have the comfort of know I can depend on the things I have upgraded or replaced. It has been a lot of fun too, and I can’t wait to one day retire and work on restoring a boat full-time (and then one day sailing around the world on it). Here is a recap of all the major items I’ve worked on in the last three years, and something you should consider if you ever decide to buy a good ol’ fixer upper.

Replaced 4 windows (deadlights)
Removed Windlass battery
Renamed, new bootstripe to boat
Run new wires in mast
Relocated battery charger
Build New cockpit floor
Engine Alignment
Replaced 2 Engine mounts
Repair cracked water jacket on engine block
New Propeller
New Boat Cradle
New Steering Pedestal Guard and throttle levers
New Cushions for main salon and bed.
New thru hull and seacock
New electronic GPS/Chartplotter
Replace head hoses and water hoses
New VHF Radio
Built new sealed fiberglass propane locker
Build new salon table
Install inspection ports on water tank
Install water filter
replace plastic windows on Dodger/bimini
New Lines, Fenders, Snubbers, Power Cable, turnbuckles
Re-bed chain plates
Added Barbeque to rail

Sunday was to be the day to move the boat to Ontario Place. When we arrived at the boat with our friends Shauna & Steve, I decided I would take the time to replace the primary fuel filter quickly before heading on our way. I had never done this before but it seemed as simple as removing the old case, and swapping the filter with the new one and using the new gaskets.

Unfortunately I ended up spending 5 hours on this chore before we could get the engine running and get on our way! The problem was all the air introduced into the fuel line. After reading the workshop books instructions, I opened all the bleeder screws I could find and tried pumping until fuel flowed out properly. The problem was fuel wasn’t flowing out at all despite the hours of pumping that priming handle.

The trick we found was to keep the primary filter bleeder screw closed as it was letting in more air which is why we weren’t getting anywhere. Once a helpful neighbor wandered by and suggested I close the primary bleeder screw, the air worked its way out the secondary filter bleeder screw and the engine was back in order.

After that ordeal, we motored to Ontario Place marina and arrived safe and sound at her new summer home.

It has been a crazy week. I decided that while I was waxing the hull, it was time to rename the boat and get lettering ordered. I have been waffling on picking a new name since the day I bought the boat over 3 years ago. I finally settled on Pixel Perfect and found a nice font to display it with. While taking off the old name “El Otro Lado” I could see underneath it the faint outline of the name before that. It turns out she used to be named “Oasis” and it surprisingly had “Port Credit” faintly visible underneath. I had bought this boat in Trenton, Ontario but it looks like it had originally lived in Port Credit. Crazy.

Anyways, I also managed to paint the bottom a fresh coat of anti-fouling paint. It now has a nice black look, and hopefully this new Interlux Bottomkote XXX stays on until I decide to sand down the hull properly and start with the new Micron paint next year.

I did have trouble on launch day getting the engine running. It ran for a minute then quit on me. I had an airlock in the fuel line and it took quite some time to figure out how to fix that. I then noticed no water coming out of the exhaust which meant I was stuck along the wall until I could figure out what was wrong. After painstakingly going through the engine hoses from seacock to exhaust it turns out I had an airlock in the raw water cooling line as well. Now that I know, it was simply a matter of opening the side vent on the engine and running the engine for a few seconds and sure enough the water started flowing properly. Wish I had known that before replacing the impeller and trying to bypass the water strainer and overall just wasting a few hours troubleshooting.

Mast stepping went well without a hitch. Luckily I found all the little bits and bobs needed to re-assemble the stays to the boat.

The new seacock I installed seems to be nice and water tight so thats a relief.
Oh and by the way that new propeller from Campbell Sailor rocks. The boat really moves in the low rpms now. Getting in and out of the slip is much more responsive, which means I have to be a lot more careful to go into neutral before I charge into the dock. I can’t say for sure but it feels like I have less prop walk now too.

I will put the sails on this weekend and hopefully sail the boat over to Ontario Place Marina on Sunday, where she will live for the summer.

Let the sailing season begin!

I mentioned earlier that I had to finish the head plumbing. What a job that was. The boat was really starting to stink and I decided it was time to replace the ageing hoses. The problem is the head tank is still half full. In my haste last season I forgot to pump out before storing the boat. Actually I was surprised how much was in the tank. I didn’t think we really used it that much.

The discharge hose that lets you empty the tank overboard was the most difficult. I have a Y valve in place that lets you divert either overboard or out the deck fitting when you do a normal pumpout at a marina. Removing that discharge hose was a real pain.

Getting the new hose onto the thru hull was so difficult given the location deep in the boat, and the fitting was so corruded that its diameter was larger than the hose. I ended up removing the tail pipe and putting in new fittings. The problem is all this work spanned a period of a week and while the old hose was off the y valve, there was a slow drip of waste accumulating in the locker. Once I realized this, it really motivated me to finish the job quick.

I now have a new hose in place, a new elbow installed and whats not pictured is the many hours of labour in the deep dark stinky corners of the boat.

I’ve been so busy working on the boat the last few weeks that I haven’t had time to add the articles I wanted to. Since I last wrote, I have washed, compounded, polished and waxed the hull over the long 3 day weekend spending over 30 hours on it.

It was very expensive buying the buffer tool and the its accessories but I am pretty happy with the results. The hull has never looked better and after removing the old peeling boat stripes, I am ready to give the boat a new look.

I am also re-naming the boat. I know its bad luck but I have always had a problem spelling out “El Otro Lado” to marinas, and nobody ever remembered it. I am still un-decided on the new name but have narrowed down the decision to 3 finalists. I’ll unveil my decision next week.

One of the other nagging projects that has given me a lot of pain has been removing the hand rails from the deck of the boat. Water has been leaking in through the screw holds into the boat, so I have been trying to remove all the 32 hidden screws, epoxy over the holes and re-bed with proper Butyl tape.

The bronze bolts have been a real challenge removing however. 0I had stripped a hand full of the screws and spent weeks trying to drill them out. I finally bought a better screw extractor and threw out the lousy screw extractor I had purchased from Princess Auto. Lesson Learned.

The increasing heat in the boat as the weather warmed up has also brought to my attention the smell leaking through the aging holding tank hoses. Replacing these hoses has been a foul job. The previous own had somehow forced the 1.5″ waste discharge hose over the thru hull fitting that was too large for it, so after cutting it off, I can not for the life of me put the fresh new hose back on. I am hoping to get a proper size tail pipe onto the sea-cock without ruining the seal to the hull. If I fail that, I will end up having a new project of bedding yet another new thru hull.

The boat is being launched June 1st, so I have less than a week to prep the engine, finish the head plumbing, thru hull fittings, electronics testing and safety equipment check. To add to this, I am moving this weekend so I have a lot on my plate right now.

More to come, as soon as I catch my breath.

I’m so excited. I finally received the new propeller from Campbell Sailor. I used to have a 2 blade prop and from what I read online, this 3 blade should give me better power when getting in and out of the dock.
I have read that some people have found less prop walk as well but I am doubtful of that.
Can’t wait to give this a try. It looks pretty good too.

This past weekend I decided it was time to check out Toronto Island with the boat. I have been meaning to do this last year but always chickened out because of how far it was and how busy the inner harbor was. Well this year my girlfriend and I finally got over there and it was amazing. We had a great time exploring the island and it really felt like a mini exotic vacation.

The plan was to leave Friday after work and spend 2 nights at the Toronto Marina. I had booked us a slip ($50 a night) but just before we were to leave I decided to double check the engine alignment because of the vibrations I had noticed the last few times boating. I found that one of the engine mounts had cracked in half! So Friday night was canceled.. and I worked on replacing it with a spare I had found on board.

Saturday morning we were ready and we set off around noon. It took 3 hours of motoring/sailing from Port Credit to the island. Entering through the western gap and motoring by the Toronto waterfront was quite a thrill. It was pretty busy and I was on my toes to make sure I kept clear of the airport markers and any island ferry’s that constantly crossed the gap.

Once we found the marina, docking was pretty easy. I had phoned ahead and asked for an easy to get into slip which ended up being a really nice slip to hang out on. We met up with our friends that had already taken the ferry over earlier and were waiting by the beach. We spent the day enjoying the sun and in the evening we walked along the beaches on the west side of the island. We finally made it to the western edge of the island just at 10:30pm when the fireworks for the Festival of Fire were beginning. It was perfect timing and an awesome way to end the day. My friends caught the last ferry off the island shortly after as my girlfriend and I walked back to the boat.

We actually managed to find a geocache in the dark on the walk back. It was a great cache too as it was midnight and we were searching the old haunted lighthouse on the island. We ran into 2 guys that were ghost hunting around the lighthouse as well.

We woke up to a beautiful Sunday morning the next day and after cleaning up, we finally set off for our sail home. We did run into a bit of a storm just near Port Credit but we luckily didn’t get hit by lightning and it was sunny again when we finally docked.

We will definitely plan to do this trip again and will try to get a spot along the wall at Hanlan’s point instead of paying for an expensive Marina slip.