The Work Begins

Well, it has been two weeks now since I brought Cassandra home. The topsides were scrubbed down to remove the black mildew that covered the hull. Pinesol and water worked pretty well, and also did an amazing job of revitalizing the teak. I think everything might still need to be washed down with some chlorine to get the last of the grunge off. I removed the old seacock and thru-hul assembly with minor difficulty. The plywood backing plate was mush and so it needs to be replaced.
Very little of the deck hardware had a proper backing plate and so every fastener has leaked and may have started core-rot. I have oiled the teak to preserve it for a little while and will be installing a new seacock as soon as I have the money to buy it. I'm also waiting on the money for epoxy to begin re-bedding deck hardware and encapsulate the plywood backing plates I need to make.
If a boat-dollar is about $500 US, I think it will take 1 or 2 boat dollars to get Cassandra on the water, and that's without removing the old saildrive. It will cost even more to get everything to the condition where I would like it to be, but much of that can wait until I have the money. Progress will be slow until I get some more spending power.In that vein, I am selling my RC airplane on Craigslist to help generate some funds. I would post new pictures, but very little has changed since the boat was cleaned.
One last thought before I forget, I used Scotch's delicate surfaces masking tape to cover the various holes in Cassandra that leaked when it rained. So far it has held up quite well and has a 60 day clean removal guarantee; even when exposed to UV.
Anyways, next summer will be very different and quite fun and I'm taking one step closer to it every day I can work on Cassandra.

The Big Day

Rejoice everyone for today has been a day of much progress! Today was the day that

Cassandra (technically still either Ken-Do or Coral Vette until I hold a denaming ceremony) came home.
The day began at 05:30. After a quick breakfast and picking up my cohort for the epicness that was today we were off, Dad leading the way in his Bonneville, Bonnie, and my friend Brian and I followed with the pickup, Clyde, towing my newly modified trailer.
The ride down was pleasant and uneventful. I plugged Clyde's radio back in so we could have tuneage for the trip. We arrived the house where Cassandra was being stored 15 minutes before the move was supposed to happen, but the truck was already there and working to maneuver itself into position. There is very little as impressive as watching two men effortlessly pluck a 4000lb boat from the field where it has been sitting for almost a year. The only thing more impressive was that they were able to do so with less than 2 feet of clearance on one side and not hit anything. You really have to have been there to get the full effect of it.
So, once the boat was out of the field and on it's way we took Bonnie and Clyde up to the Village Shores Marina in Hammondsport. Now, say what you want about Hammondsport, but I cannot over-emphasize how friendly and generous the people at Village shores were.
The two gentlemen who run the place were quite friendly, and patient as we adjusted the trailer for the boat. Although it took a few attempts to get everything where it needed to be, we soon had Cassandra situated. However, the hitch on the truck was too low to the ground once the boat was on the trailer. So, the marina owner called around until he found a suitable hitch extension, which he loaned to us to get the trailer home. He also was kind enough to loan a strap to hold the boat onto the trailer, since the one I brought was not long enough to reach.
I have to go back down to the marina later this week to dismantle the cradle for transport and to return the hitch and strap to the marina.
Leaving the marina was probably the most interesting part of the whole trip. You see, the marina is located at the bottom of a rather steep driveway that is only a couple feet wider than my trailer is. To get out I had to back the trailer part way down the launching ramp so I had enough room to turn around. Then I had to mucle my way back up the driveway onto the main road. I was a little nervous at times, but Clyde managed it in low gear. For the drive back I stayed under 50 mph the whole way and downshifted while I was stopping. Clyde handled it like a champ.
Once the boat was backed into the driveway Brian and I began pumping out the bilge to remove the rainwater from the big thunderstorms that had rolled through a few days prior. We managed to beat another wave of rain that chased us all the way back to B'ville. Then it was time to start scrubbing the muck of ages off Cassandra's once white hull and deck. That work will most likely continue for a day or two and involve much bleach and water. Then the real work will begin.

New pictures will be on Flickr in the next day or so. I forgot to bring my camera along for the road trip, but Dad took some photos with his phone, and snapped a couple shots of us cleaning the deck, so look for those soon.

Huzzah, It's a boat!!!

The Trailer

After many months of unforeseen delays and setbacks my trailer is finally finished. The current plan is to meet the truck from Village Shores Marina at the boat. They'll put the boat on their trailer and take it to the marina where they can forklift it onto my trailer. If everything works out I should be able to just drop the trailer on and drive off. More likely it will take a few trials to make everything fit properly.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it but I've got Jackson up and running about as well as I can. He'll need some fine tuning once Cassandra is in the water. Here's hoping.


(Jackson is my donated outboard for those of you who haven't been following the story.)

A day at the Beach

Well, avid readers, my trailer is still at the shop. The parts were fabricated, but not yet back from the galvanizers in Utica yet. So the move get's postponed again. I do not yet have an idea of when I will actually get this boat home. I'm back to wondering if I should just motor it up the canal and pull it out on a trailer when I get it home. But that is not the point of today's post. Oh no, today's post is much more exciting and interesting.
This past Friday (the 19th) my siblings and I, and one friend, all took a day trip up to Lake Ontario. We started off they day with an 0900 departure. The weather was cool, but scheduled to warm up, and a light to moderate drizzle of rain was falling intermittently. Our first stop of the day was a trip to Oswego Harbor to view the Nina and the Pinta replica ships that were docked there for the latter part of the week.
The Nina and Pinta are accurate reproductions of two of the ships Columbus took on his voyage to the New World. The ships themselves were OK. Not much to see. I'm still upset we weren't allowed below; that's where all the cool stuff is anyways. Still they were just wooden planked ships, two decks (three if your count the raised quarterdeck)pretty open and surprisingly small. I find it very hard to believe that someone thought it smart to go to sea in such vessels. Then again, I am contemplating sailing Cassandra to God only knows where and she's a third the size of these ships. Needless to say, my sister and her friend were less than thrilled about the whole thing.
Our second stop, where we planned to spend the rest of the day, was Southwick Beach State Park. Located on the sandy Eastern shore of Lake Ontario Southwick Beach is usually a busy place for families and individuals to enjoy the lake. Such was not the case when we arrived. The wind was blowing somewhere around 6 knots and the water looked a little ominous. The beach was still wet from the rain storms we'd had that morning and the wasn't another vehicle or person to be seen. It was a little spooky walking down a deserted beach. It felt like, well, like we were doing something wrong just being there. I managed to get over that feeling though, and by the end of the day there were about four other cars in the parking lot.
Now, it has been a dream of my to get my PD Racer Adra out onto some real water. I was sort of expecting to do Oneida lake first, but the chance presented itself so I threw Adra into the truck and took her along for the day. Pulling a 110 pound boat across a sandy beach by myself was tiring, to say the least. I managed to sail around for 15 minutes or so before my GPS died, but I didn't feel like trying to fight back out across the sand bar and surf that characterizes the east coast of Lake Ontario, so I kept going. The wind was from the Northwest so I tacked my way up the shoreline to a spot where we rented a summer cottage when I was younger. I would have gone longer, but some darker clouds were skirting the shore in the east and I decided it was better to play things safe and head in until they either did something, or cleared up. I got back just in time to help cook lunch, hot dogs. After lunch the weather had cleared significantly and after popping some new AA's into my GPS I headed back out. I logged over 5 miles in three hours that day and I don't think I could have been happier, unless maybe I could have just kept going instead of turning around and heading back to the beach at the end of the day.
Adra took the larger waves pretty well. The only sign of any fatigue was at the mast step where some excessive wear was becoming a problem. I'll add a mast wedge at the partner to see what that does for it.
All in all, it was a good day. I was getting a bit tired by the end and had a hard time keeping my eyes open, partly because of the sun and partly because I had gotten up at 0800 that morning. Dragging the boat back up the beach was even worse since the sand had dried out since that morning. The "up" part of the equation didn't help much either. I slept well that night and am still a little sore from dragging the boat through the sand. Now if I can just get Cassandra home I can work on that "and just keep going" part. :D

Another Delay

The move got pushed off another week. The shop refitting my trailer had a machine break which kept them from working on the parts for my trailer. The pieces were finished Thursday, but still had to be galvanized. They should be done Tuesday or Wednesday this week. ::fingers crossed:: I should still have the boat for my sister's party. Which will be nice. My Grandfather will get to see it that way. He's the one who donated a 2 stroke outboard to the cause. I guess that's all the news for now. From now on I should have posts with progress pictures. That should pique some interest.

Adra out of service.

This doesn't pertain directly to the big Great Lakes trip, but it provided valuable heavy weather experience and makes for a good story.
I woke up this morning to a lovely gusty wind. Whole trees were moving. I looked up a live weather report that said 20mph winds today and thought. Boy, now I can really see what ADRA (PDR #172) and my 40sqft lug rig can do.
I had been sailing on Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, NY the previous 2 days and the boat was all ready to go in the truck. The day before my brother and I hit 5mph in a puff, so that was the top speed to beat.
It was a nice day and my friend, who enjoys a good sail, had off of work and I offered him a ride. Then we got out on the lake. Now THAT was a ride. The minute the wind hit the sail as we left the protection of the channel we were doing 4mph. Then it gusted and the GPS hit 5.3 The Bow started to dip dramatically and we both edged back to keep the boat sailing dry and level. This went on for about oh, five minutes. The whole time the sail was just aching to rip the sheet out of my hand (no traveler or anything.) After somewhere around five minutes a large gust came up, slammed the sail forward and drove the bow under. A quart or so of water washed into the cockpit before my friend could jump in back to level us out again. The boat suddenly became unmanageable and I had to let the sheet go. The sail swung into the wind and we both stared in amazement at the 15degree bend at the mast partner. My 1-1/4" EMT mast had wilted during the gust and (thankfully) depowered the sail some. After significant struggling we were able to come about and beam reach back to shore,
the sail constantly bouncing between luffing and being overpowered. We wound up beached on shore about 1/3 of a mile down the lake from where we started tired and laughing our fool heads off. We both knew we had gotten off easy with a bent mast. The thing that really got us laughing though, was the GPS reading a top speed of 6.3mph. And the boat hadn't even gotten on plane. So, morals of the story
-Know your limitations (Or try to find a less dangerous way of learning them)
-EMT is fine for a mast in lighter winds, but won't hold up in a HEAVY gust.
-Always build your sail and spars so you can trim the sail flatter.
-No matter how small you think your sail is, if you're going to be out in strong winds you should have a reef point.
-Learn from your stupid mistakes, or else you might not get to make them again. I will say that I don't think we were in any real danger. If Adra had gone over it would only have been an uncomfortable swim and a bit of work to get her back upright. The waves weren't too bad, and there was a watercross tournament going on in part of the lake so someone might have come out to assist, although that part I'm not so sure about. Still, I won't be doing that again. At least not until I re-design my rig. :P

In other news, my boat trailer is being modified this week and the the big boat move is scheduled for June 13th. So, anyone coming for my sister's graduation party will get to meet Cassandra. I'm getting pretty excited about it.

Site Updates

I just wanted to write to say that I have added some links below the Title that will take you to posts with more about who I am and what it is I'm doing. Check them out and feel free to comment if you like what I'm doing or just think it's interesting.

Progress

Huzzah, progress has been made! This last Tuesday, the 7th, I won an eBay auction for a trailer. The only catch was that it was in Virginia and I was not. So, Thursday night, once I got an address for the trailer, Mom and I packed ourselves into the truck and set off for Virginia. Eight hours later we arrived at a Sleep Inn hotel and crashed for three hours of sleep. When we awoke we continued making our way the last few miles to the marina. Once there we took care of the necessary paperwork, hooked the trailer up and were on our way. It was a blessing that the Virginia plates were still on it so I did not have to get a transport permit from the Virginia DMV. That alone probably saved us an hour or more. So I now have a trailer for Cassandra. It still needs new tires, a keel rest, and new bunk supports. Expenses seem never ending, but that can be overcome with time (sort of). In related news, I now have an outboard motor as well. My grandfather was kind enough to donate his Mercury 75 outboard to the cause.(This is a cause now?)I have named the motor Jackson as an allusion to Alan Jackson, the composer of "Mercury Blues." It's not quite the same kind of Mercury, but Jackson seems to fit the sleek looking little, black outboard.
To summarize, I have a boat a trailer and an outboard. Now I just have to get the boat to the same place as the other two and I can start preparing for Summer 2010.
- Peace be with you until we meet again.

Trailer Troubles Continue

Alright, good news first. I have decided on a name for my boat. She will be known as Cassandra. I don't know where the name came from, but it sounds mysterious and adventurous enough for this boat.

So right now I have three possible trailers. One is for an O'day 23 but should work. That one is in Florida. One is available in NY, but is contingent on the sale of the boat on it. And there is a third possible trailer in Florida that may or may not ever materialize. At the moment I am debating whether or not I even need a trailer. Yes, it would be nice to have one, but is it necessary? I have quotes to have Cassandra moved to my home for under $900, and if I can do that and work on her for the summer I wouldn't need a trailer for a while.
Of course to get to the root of this dilemma I have to figure out exactly how and why I would use a trailer. The original idea was that I could transport the boat from Campbell to wherever I would keep the boat on the trailer. This would save a bit on shipping and a lot on storage fees. Also, it would allow me to launch the boat when I had time and finished some of the work and I could practice sailing a keelboat, and test my repairs. I think I'm going to wait a while before accepting any bids to move the boat, just in case a trailer becomes available. The 23 trailer looks promising though.
What would you do?

Looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Pictures and commentary on Flickr.

It has been quite some time since October 31 when I won my O'day 25 on eBay. Today I finally saw it in person.
After a short series of postponed meetings I was finally able to contact the boat's owner and arrange a meeting for noon today. My brother and I left the house at 9 in our van, burdened with a tarp, rope, buckets and a variety of other tools I thought would be needed to close the boat up properly for the remainder of the winter. We arrived at the boat's location about half an hour too soon, but once we knew how to find the place we decided to do a little exploring. So we drove around the roads in the area for a little while, and then returned to the boat at noon. Kenny, the fellow I was meeting, showed up about the same time we did, and got right to business showing me around the boat. The first thing I noticed when walking up to the boat were the areas the stanchions mounted. The lifeline stanchions had been removed, but the holes had some fiberglass epoxied on over the top, so no water was getting in. Still, it's something I'll have to fix. The next thing I noticed was that the hatch boards weren't boards! There were two pieces of smoked plexi-glass to fit in the hatchway instead. I suppose that would let some light in, but to be watertight they'll need modification or replacement. Ken showed me a couple other issues that needed to be addressed. The sink seacock was frozen open, the centerboard pin needs replacing, and the fitting should all be re-bedded. The whole boat needs a good cleaning, but the fittings and deck hardware all look to be in good shape. The bottom should be scraped clean and repainted, and there are a few sections of the topsides that need glass work. Real simple stuff like filling old holes from gauges and fairing in some previous repair work.
All in all I think I got myself a pretty good deal on a boat. I don't know if I would risk buying sight unseen again though.
The trailer is still a sticking point, but I now know how the boat got where it is (on top of a hill, 25 miles from the nearest lake). Apparently a marina in Hammondsport has a hydraulic boat hauling trailer that they used. I'll have to call them and get an estimate. Right now we're thinking about putting the boat in Seneca Lake in the spring and sailing it up the Erie Canal to somewhere a little more accessible for repairs to be done. If I have to I could probably keep the boat in the water somewhere until I can find a trailer. Hopefully that won't be a problem though.
Here's to adventure! I have a boat.

Trailer Troubles

Apparently used mid-range trailers are just a myth. There are trailers for big boats, and trailers for small boats, but no trailers for my boat. I've priced a new trailer from Loadmaster, and it would cost over $4,000. I don't have that kind of money right now. So, here I am stuck with a landlocked boat and no way of moving it. I do have a bidder on U-ship who says he can move it to my house for $1,200. That would give me some more time to find a trailer, but it would do little else to help. It would be easier to just have the boat put in at Seneca Lake so I could take it somewhere on the canal. It would at least get the boat in the water. But, I still have all winter to find a solution, so I'll keep looking.

Nearly Scammed

After winning the O'Day auction I received two suspicous emails. They both claimed to be from eBay, and said that the seller's paypal account was down for a little while and that eBay's protection policy would cover a Western Union money transfer for the transaction. They had all pertinent information on the auction. My ebay name, the seller's name, the item ID, and links to important eBay pages.
So I clicked on the link to Western Union. I was ready to sign up and send the payment when I stopped; something was fishy. EBay always has reminders up on the site that you should never pay through an outside service. Besides that, the seller hadn't mentioned anything about Western Union in his preferred payments. Besides that, the emails just seemed a little off. So I checked my eBay message box, no duplicate messages. That's when I realized, I was almost scammed. I contacted the seller to double check, as I didn't really want to admit that I had almost been taken so easily. He assured me that his paypal was working perfectly, and that he had sent no such messages.
After a series of messages back and forth I got his contact information, and forwarded him a copy of the bogus email which he immediately reported to paypal. Hopefully some scam artist is being hunted down right now, and is about to get what he deserves.
The most amusing part, is that one of the links from the spoof email went to the "how to spot a spoof email" page warning about falsified eBay messages. The thing is, the person who set up this email scam read that page and eliminated almost all the telltale signs.
So I caught the scam before I was taken, but it could have gone either way for a little while there.

This is it!

Or rather, this is the beginning of it.
I think the good lord was smiling on me. I won the O'Day 25 with the $800 opening bid. No one else bid; it went off without a hitch.
Upon winning the auction, however, I received two suspicous emails. Long story short, they were scams. I'll cover the details in another post.
The emails were completely unconnected to the seller, and I am very happy with the way he handles his business.
This boat is almost exactly what I was looking for the whole time, even if I didn't know it. It's small, but fully furnished, can be trailered, was cheap but still in decent condition, and best of all, can be kept where it is until spring at no extra cost.
Now I just need to find a trailer and a way to load the boat onto it. After that... who knows? I just hope I'm as happy with this purchase when I see it as I am now.

I have a boat!

Could this be it?

Well, I'm bidding on an O'Day 25 on EBay right now... It's not the most ideal boat, but it has most of the features I originally wanted, and the swing keel makes it easily trailer-able, so I'm more likely to use it than a full keel boat I probably couldn't afford to keep in the water anyways. So this might not be a cruising boat, or even the right boat, but I'm becoming less and less sure that there's such a thing as "the right boat". I just hope I can buy it for cheap enough that I can get it home, and for the very limited amount of money I have to work with. Ironically, I beleive the boat in my home neighborhood was an O'Day 25 now that I think about it.
I guess that's all the news for now.

A decision at last

Well, I've been doing a lot of research on boats lately, and I compiled a list of features I want. From there I narrowed the search down to two boats I liked. The Pearson 26, and the Grampian 26. Looking further in to these models I tried to compare them. The two boats seem to be pretty similar. I like the storage available in the P26 with some modifications, and it's less ungainly appearance, but there's one problem. I want whatever boat I buy to be hoisted onto a trailer and taken home at the end of the season. The P26 is over the legal width limit for NYS and the G26 is, supposedly, not. If I found either one for sale cheap I would probably buy it, but I'm leaning for the mobility of the Grampian. I don't know... I'd like to verify the measurements in person to double check. Anyways, those are basically the two boats I'm considering. We'll see what comes of it all.

Calling in the experts

Well, after what seemed like a long week back at U.A., I'm back at home doing boating things. Today is probably my last chance to get on the water, so I'm taking a friend out on Onondaga Lake in Adra. It looks a little calm today, but hopefully it will be nice on the lake. So, the guy my dad called last time I was home is pretty excited about me getting more into sailing. Yesterday he came over with an armload of books for me to read and then we sat down and talked sailing. I don't remember for sure, but I believe we talked for over two hours. I learned quite a bit I didn't know and have slightly revised my list of potential boats. Now I'm looking for something I could tow with the truck at the beginning and end of the season. That way I wouldn't have to pay winter storage fees. It might still have to be craned on and off the trailer; something I may or may not be able to afford. Still, I now have a slightly longer list of places to look, and I have someone who knows what they're talking about if I have questions. Things are coming along slowly but surely.

Still Looking

Well, my friend and I went down to Ithaca to look at the 24' Allied Greenwich they had there and it was pretty sad. The side decks were mush, the fiberglass was split in a number of places, and most of the woodwork looked like it was ready to fall off at any minute. Besides that, the cabin was so small I could not sit on the settee without hitting my head on the cabin top. So that boat is pretty much out. There was a Triton there that might come up for sale soon, but I'm not really planning on waiting for that. Dad contacted one of the many people he knows, who also happens to be a sailor, and asked what boats he would recommend for cruising. So now I'm looking for Bristol 24's and Grampian 26's along with my previous wish list items. Next week I'll be home again, and I'll probably go back to Oneida Lake and see what there is to see. Everything still looks about a thousand dollars out of my price range, but we'll see.

Another big idea?!

Well, it's a week until our first longish break here at Albany. When I go home I'll be looking at a 24' cruising boat, and asking our neighbor up the hill what his boat is and how he likes it. And if I can make it out there I might bum around the yacht club on Onondaga Lake, or an Oneida Lake Marina. So far the search is slow, and mildly promising. I doubt that I'll have time to look at many boats this fall so winter storage will have to be budgeted in if I do buy a boat this year. So far nothing has really said, "I'm the one." I'm not sure whether this is a blessing or a curse. We'll see though.
Anyways I believe I mentioned in my last post that one of the few ways I could afford to look at boats would be to hitchhike to wherever it is. Well, this and some related reading I've been doing has inspired me to what may be an impossible idea. I would like to write a book. Not just any book, a handbook. I want to write "The Adventurer's Handbook." It will be a repository of all relevant, and much irrelevant information related to travel and survival in the pursuit of adventure. I would like it to be an Earth based version of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." It would contain useful knots, sailing basics, hitchhiking tips, how to hop a freight train, how to live on nothing, and many other useful skills. Interspersed within the tips would be true stories about my own experiences of the topics being discussed.
I know, another pipe dream, but what can I say? I dream like it's my job, so why shouldn't it be?

Not meant to be

Well, it turns out that the Triton I was looking at wasn't meant to be mine. It sold f0r $1500 yesterday. But it was too far away to be worth it. Shipping to get it home would have been another $1800, more than I wanted to spend on a boat. And I'd still have to store it somewhere. I do have my eye on a couple other smaller vessels closer to home. I've also been asking around some forums to see if anyone there would let me ride along on their boats sometime. I've actually had a few offers, but they're all more than 100 miles away. I guess that's all for now.

It's time (update)

It's hard to believe, but I may in fact already be approaching the first step of my plans. Ok, building Adra was actually the first step as I improved my woodworking skills, understanding of boat construction, and sailing experience. Besides that, every good cruiser needs a tender. The point is, I've found a boat. Maybe.
I have found a 28' Pearson Triton for sale, that may be in my price range. Problem is, it's in Mendon, Massachusetts, and I don't know how to A) get out there and survey it, and B) how to get it home. I can catch a bus to Framingham, but it will cost $72 round trip that I don't know if I can afford, and I would still be in Framingham. Unless I can get a ride, or feel like hitchhiking the last 20 miles to where the boat is it doesn't look good. So I've been spending hours and hours of the last few days getting information on boat buying, shipping, and repair, as well as looking into bus routes there and water routes home.
Oh, and did I mention the boat is "salvaged?" Yeah. Apparently it broke loose from it's mooring and hit another boat. The damage looks minimal, but there's no way to know without looking. I still have to inquire as to yard fees, and liens that may be tacked on to the boat.
But IF the boat is really as cheap as listed and IF it's seaworthy, and IF I can get enough time, it MIGHT be possible to sail/motor the boat home. If not, I'm looking into boat shipping fees. This could get very expensive...