| 20050101 |
Well , it's a new year and I am still waiting for the weather to warm and the snow to melt. I received a few sailboat related items for Christmas. Boat bumpers, first aid kits, safety paraphernalia and reading material. GAM Magazine is a Canadian magazine that looked like it would be quite promising... problem is that the subscription was made in December before Christmas and come February I have still not seen a new issue (the issues pictured were sent as samples before the order was placed). The "Your First Saiboat" book was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone getting started. "Sailing with Confidence" is a DVD with a lot of great info especially since you are able to visually see everything they are talking about. Being a video editor and camera man myself, I found the actual production technically horrible but the content made up for it.
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| 20050123 |
Mid January and we've had nothing but snow and cold weather. It's quite hard to imagine gliding along the crests of whitecaps when I see the Cordon Bleu every day sitting in a snowbank. On the plus side I have been contacted by a few people who are also fairly new to owning a Sirius and one lives only a few hours from me.
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| 20050201 |
While we've been waiting out the cold weather, the inlaws have been vacationing down in warm and sunny St.Maarten. They returned to a lot of snow and brought with them many cool gifts. I received a captains hat and also a great sailing hat. I promptly placed that captains hat on my head and barked a few orders to the wife. That didn't seem to get me anywhere so maybe one must actually be on the open waters for that to work. Hmm..???
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| 20050281 |
Well, finally received the first copy of my GAM Sailing Magazine subscription... and only because the wife had to email them a number of times to find out what was going on. Apparently my name was just entered into the system (seems it takes 2 months for processing an order) and my first issue was to be shipped in March. The wife was not happy with this and finally they said they would send out the January/February issue.
Anyway, it was a good read and I especially liked a story about this guy that sailed single handed across the Atlantic last September of 2004. Turned out he was 80 years old. Wow!
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| 20050301 |
Received my March issue of GAM on Yachting and as expected it was a great read. Of course the stories made me long for the summer weather to arrive so I too could be out on the lake. Sigh....
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| 20050310 |
Went up to the City today and made stops at two very important shops. Foam Solutions, where we will eventually purchase foam to make boat cushions and Cargo East Marine, where we will be ordering various blocks and other boat parts. I chatted with a fellow named Jules who was very knowledgable with sailboat hardware and explained what information I needed to gather for him to order the appropriate parts. Now I must wait once again for spring to get here so I can start getting measurements for both the foam and the hardware.
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| 20050320 |
Very warm and sunny day today. After chipping ice off the front steps I decided to take a quick drive and see how much the lake has opened up. For now there is quite a bit of open water but this has happened 4 or 5 times already. Just when you get your hopes up, the temperature drops and it snows... and all the nice open water freezes over... again! Well, April is almost here so maybe the entire month will be "lake melting month" ??
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| 20050406 |
The last few days have been very nice and apparently it's expected to stay nice right through the weekend. It's also been quite windy lately which is really helping dry everything up. It is very exciting to see Cordon Bleu NOT sitting in a snowbank anymore.
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| 20050409 |
Last fall I had taped up the cabin interior only to have the temperature rapidly drop making painting impossible and leaving me with no choice but to remove all the tape. This weekend was very nice and sunny so I entered the boat for the first time this season. With new roll of tape in hand I began masking off the interior. When I started rolling on the paint I was in absolute awe. The paint went on perfect and looked incredible. Everything was so bright and new.
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| 20050410 |
Finished painting the interior and removed all the tape. It turned out better than I had every expected and look forward to mounting all the wood trim back into place. It is scheduled to rain for the next few days but once things dry up, the quest will certainly continue.
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| 20050415 |
Things seem to be falling into place. One item to take care of was a boat slip for the summer and I was able to find one this week only 2 minutes from our house. I also put all the wood trim back in the cabin as well as on the outside. Things are looking very nice!
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| 20050416 |
The next big project to complete was painting the bottom of the sailboat with antifouling paint. This is not so easy when the boat in on a trailer and the skids are covering a large protion of the bottom. I decided the best solution would be to raise the boat on the trailer just high enough to fit a paint roller, then after everything has dried I could move the blocks over and paint the missed spots. Two hydraulic jacks and an hour later, the boat was raised. Then 3 more hours of heavy sanding and the bottom was ready for its first coat. The cans come in (almost) 1 litre for $40 and the guy assured me it would cover the bottom. Just for the record, he was wrong. One and a half would do it so I will need 2 more cans tomorrow since I need to finish the job as well as add a second coat.
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| 20050428 |
It's cold again and forcast to snow off and on for next 4 or 5 days. Not happy!!! Nothing else to say :(
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| 20050507 |
The hardware I had ordered from www.thechandleryonline.com arrived the other day and fortunately the weather was very good this weekend. I fitted the new blocks on the mast along with all new lines (see before/after pictures)... very nice. I have also spent the last week painting navy blue stripes down the sides and putting on our logo. I think it turned out great and certainly gives the boat character. It was looking rather naked from when we had removed the original stripes last fall.
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| 20050508 |
Boy oh boy, it is amazing how much rope is required on a small sailboat. If I add up both the 3/8" and the 1/4" there is over 500 feet of line so far.
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| 20050516 |
Spent the entire day calling marinas trying to locate a cover for the cockpit drain. The last thing I want to do is put the boat in the lake and have it fill with water because a drain isn't plugged. Spirits were definately down by the end of the day until I received an email from another Sirius21 owner stating that the boat was never shipped with a drain cover nor does it need one... it's apparently designed that way and water will not flood the cockpit. After a sigh of relief, spirits are up again. One step closer to launching the Cordon Bleu (and on less thing to worry about).
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| 20050520 |
So I was quite proud of myself today. I decided on a place at the back of the boat to mount the depth finder and drilled the appropriate holes. After running the wires up through the new holes I sealed up the excess space with epoxy. Now let me tell you, epoxy hardens very fast!! Once it hit me that I forgot to run the wires for the transducer in through the transom first before running them up through the new mounting holes... there I was at 11pm with drill and special bits in hand, trying to open up the hole I had just sealed earlier. They say "you learn from your mistakes"... so that would make me very knowledgable!
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| 20050521 |
Yet another rainy weekend! Not a problem, this gives me time to hit the laundry matt to wash up the canvas cabin top. One of the unique designs of the Sirius21 is the cabin top. When anchored you can "pop" the cabin top up, much like those camper vans that have pop-up tops, giving 6 feet of standing room nicely enclosed in canvas. Having not been used for many years the canvas was in dire need of a good cleaning. It looked like it was covered in tree sap, dirt, mold and who knows what else. Much to my surprise it cleaned up very nicely and looks brand new! Of course once I returned home I realized I had forgotten to wash the sail cover. Oh well, guess I'll be going back next weekend... after all, it IS scheduled to rain again.
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| 20050522 |
My goal was to have the boat in and go for a first sail by my birthday. Well, today is that day and it's not going to happen... sigh. The one very important part needed to sail is a rudder. Without it you're probably going to hit something since you have no other way to properly manouver. Anyway, our rudder had a nasty crack that needed repairs. I suppose one could chance it and risk having it break off while under sail but I'm quite sure that would put a damper on the whole sailing experience. We found someone that repairs sailboat rudders but unfortunately due to his current workload, it may be a few weeks before he can get to it. Arg!!
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| 20050525 |
Geez, just my luck... turns out the rudder core is rotten and cannot be repaired. Now I must wait for new wood to be ordered in and a new rudder to be fabricated. A launch date of sometime in the near future seems to slowly be slipping away. ...Sigh.…
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| 20050526 |
Finally ordered foam to make all the cushions. The 4" thick sheets come as 60"x80" and I worked out that all needed pieces will fit on exactly 2 sheets.
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| 20050527 |
Received the new foam today and used the old foam as a template by first laying it out on the garage floor. I'll be glad when this old smelly foam is finally resting at the dump. The new foam is very firm and almost white in color... simply beautiful. After cutting out the peices using a filleting knife, I actually placed them in the boat for some fine tuning. My wife has decided on a denim type material to cover the foam, which I'm sure will look great. She has a lot of sewing ahead of her.
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| 20050528 |
Today was "rewiring the boat" day. Those of you familiar with the storage hold on the starboard side of the cockpit will chuckle hearing someone 6'2" tall actually climbed down into it to do some soldering. Needless to say, I was able to install a new CD/MP3 player, new speakers, a GPS, a depth sounder and the cabin lights. I could not get the cabin light on the port side working and the wiring diagram that came with the boat shows the wiring going up and across the top of the cabin over to the starboard side. Not to sure what I can do to fix that one.
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| 20050531 |
Finally saw the new rudder today... wow!! It was certainly worth the wait. I will pick it up Friday in hopes that we will be launching Friday evening.
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| 20050602 |
Wiring seem to be complete. The only thing I could not fix was the light on the port side above the stove. I mounted the GPS antenna on the port side just behind the rear window then put the 7.5 Merc into place on the transom. Turns out the battery cables to the motor are completely rotten and I must build some new ones. Funny how a town that considers itself a tourism town catering to boats and lake life, actually carry next to nothing in boat supplies of any kind. Everything must be ordered in and then overpriced.
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| 20050603 |
Ok, today is the big day! Took the afternoon off to finish up everything else that needs to be finished up. The shop that ordered in the bases for the front ordered the wrong ones so I had to rig something up temperary until the right ones arrive. I placed a garbage can under the motor and filled it full of water. Shortly after, got it started and it seems to run okay. Just a note... when a motor is in a small space like a garbage can, don't put it in gear! It bubbled up like a washing machine out of control and everything around, including myself, extremely wet! Just when it looked like everything was going to work out... RAIN. Friday evening launch cancelled.
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| 20050604 |
More fine tuning while it drizzled off and on all day. Finally around 4:30 there was a break and we decided to got for it. We brought the boat down to the launch and started putting up the mast. I really have no idea how some people can put it up single handed (or even with 2 bodies for that matter). It took 3 of us, a picnic table and a ladder to finally get it vertical. Then it came time to energize the winch cable. Turns out this was one thing I had never tested and as it turns out, the motor didn't work. Regardless, with 3 of us at the back pushing, we were able to get the front down enough for the cable to be detached. Yeah!!! The Cordon Bleu has officially been launched!!! Time to start our summer sailing adventures.
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