Farewell to Obsession 305

This weekend, we finally said farewell to an old friend.  After being on the market for two years,

Obsession 305 found a new owner.

Selling a sailboat is rarely a short process.  Unless you are either lucky, or are willing to sell for well below market value, you cannot bank on a quick sale.  There is a ilmited market for sailboats, particularly in Atlantic Canada.  We knew this when we decided to make the decision two years ago to upgrade to My Obsession, but it's still a relief to finally have a sale.

For the past two seasons, we've still been taking care of our old boat, mainly by making sure she was stored indoors for the winter.  That meant bringing it out and towing it to our yard for the summer. 

Since it was stored in an old barn, and then kept outdoors for the summer, it would tend to collect some dust and dirt.  So each fall, we would give her a cleaning, make sure that the batteries were charged up, then haul it about 15 km back into storage.

About three weeks ago we had a call from our broker that there was someone interested, and they wanted to see the boat.  She was still in winter storage, so he came over from Newfoundland to see Obsession 305. 

Obviously he liked what he saw, since he sent us an offer a couple of days later.  We quickly came to an agreement.  A few days later, the marine survey was conducted, and there were no problems. 

When it was evident that the deal was going through, I flew home from Kingston.  We had the boat taken out of winter storage, and we lifted the mast on top of the boat and secured it for transport.  The next day, the new owner arrived from Newfoundland, hooked up to the trailer, and they were off.

We had a few years of great sailing memories on Obsession 305.  She was a great boat for us, and a perfect boat to introduce us to the cruising lifestlye.  We put many miles under her keel, touring around the Maritimes, vising many familiar places in an entirely new way.  It was with Obsession 305 that we built memories of traversing St Peters Canal, which I had crossed so many times growing up.  It was how we first passed under the Confederation Bridge, instead of driving over it.  It was how we explored the coastline of PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at an entirely different pace than touring by car.  Obsession 305 brought us to may towns and villages, which we explored on foot.  It was with Obsession 305 that we decided to make sailing such an integral part of our life, and figured out what boat we needed.

Although it was a lot of great memories heading down the road, after waiting for two years, it was still a relief to see her go.  We're very happy with My Obsession, which has greatly expanded our range and ability to stay aboard.  Obsession 305 was how we figured out what we wanted in a boat, which we found in My Obsession.

We just hope that her new owner builds more great memories with Obsession 305.

Back On Board

The weather is warming up, all the ice is gone, and My Obsession is back in the water.

And we’re back on board for the season.

Over the past few days, we’ve shifted our life once again, out of the condo we had rented for the winter, and back on board our own boat.  Leading up to the boat going into the water was a busy time, although it seems to get a bit easier each year.  Before the boat goes in the water, there is a full inspection, particularly around the through-hulls.  Also, the bottom of the boat has to be prepared.  Last year’s paint job held up very well over the summer, so this year was just a touch-up in the places that most needed attention.  Next year will probably be a full paint job again.

On Thursday, the crane arrived at the marina to lift us into the water.  After he set up and got the straps on, My Obsession took a short flight and was lowered into the water.  First task is a quick inspection to make sure that there is no water leaking in (everything was fine) and then some quick preparation.  The marina where we stored the boat is a few miles from our home marina, so the plan was to leave immediately to head to our slip in Collins Bay.  It’s still pretty cool out on the water, so first we took the time to put on the full enclosure, making the trip a bit warmer. 

Starting the engine for the first time in the spring is always a bit of a nervous time, since things can go wrong over the winter.  However, everything worked out fine and the engine turned over on the first try.  Once the enclosure was set up, I took the first boat trip of the season – an hour long motor to Collins Bay.

Now comes the time-consuming part.  Moving onto the boat always takes longer than planned, mostly with sorting through everything we own.  Of course, winter clothing is no longer needed (at least I hope it isn’t), so that goes into storage.  And all of the summer clothing we had put away has to come back out again and moved onto the boat.  All of the boat equipment, which had been put into storage bins for the winter, has to come out again and be moved onto the boat.  The full-sized fridge and freezer that we had for the winter has to be emptied out and pared down to fit inside our mini-sized on-board fridge.  Sails, safety equipment, and our dingy had to be transported down to the boat.  The boat stands had to be picked up and put into storage for the winter. 

All told, from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon was non-stop packing, unpacking, sorting, moving, stowing, inspecting, cleaning, installing, fixing, and inflating.  Many thanks to our friend Alison who spent a couple of days helping us get ready and moved.

But, now we’re settled in, and looking forward to another year of exploring Kingston, the Thousand Islands, and Lake Ontario.

Surviving the Winter - The Countown is On

So here we are, many months since our last posting and living on land for the winter. Ironically, our winter accommodations do overlook the Kingston Marina. But in 74 days at the most we will be once again living aboard My Obsession.

Last weekend I had two separate people ask me whether we were moving back aboard again for the summer. When I replied yes, they asked if we found living aboard difficult. Jay and I both answered no immediately. In truth, we both loved living aboard. Of course, working full time and living aboard is not the same as cruising full time, but since we arrived in Kingston at the end of June last year we did push off the dock and explore Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands almost every weekend until the boat came out in mid-October. And despite the small living space we loved the time spent on My Obsession.

Ironically, despite having rented a three-bedroom apartment with much, much more square footage than onboard the boat, in many ways we’ve found living on land much more confining. Part of this is the winter weather, which makes it less pleasant to wander around outside. But part of it is that when living aboard, the potential for adventure is as easy as casting off the docklines. Even if we don’t take advantage of it, it is liberating to know that escape from the drudgery of life on land is so close.

Despite being mostly attached to land with a full time job, we did manage to log approximately 1800 NM under our keel last season. Since My Obsession came out of the water, we have visited two vastly different boat shows – the Annapolis Sailboat Show last October and the Toronto Boat Show in January. In Annapolis we seriously looked at new boats on the market, drifting as usual to Beneteau. Although the new Beneteau’s are beautiful and have some nice features, we decided we were more than happy with our 373. We found that for the first time in several years we were not looking too hard for equipment either. Instead, we were more interested in the seminars which run during the shows. Both had a great lineup and we wished we had more time to take in additional seminars. In particular, seminars on cruising and living aboard piqued our interest.

Last week we paid our down payment for our slip at Collins Bay Marina for another season. We have been talking about the anchorages and ports we wish to visit this summer and spending leisure time readings sailing magazines and books written by those who pursued the sailing dream. On our list for this summer will certainly be some locations close at hand to Kingston in the Thousand Islands. But hopefully we will also manage to visit more of Lake Ontario. Yesterday, we went to check on My Obsession to make sure her winter cover was still in place and all was well. I couldn’t resist patting her hull, the promise of another season of exploration and adventure foremost on my mind.

Living Aboard

It's been a couple of months since we arrived and settled in Kingston. Our blog has been quiet since then, mainly because we have been working and getting accustomed to our new surroundings.

When we moved here, we made the decision to live on the boat for the summer and nor worry about finding an apartment until fall. So, for the past two months, our address has been the Collins Bay Marina.

Living on the boat hasn't really been a big stretch for us since we have spent most of our time on the boat for the past couple of summer's anyway. However, it's always been interspersed with stretches in our house. Although we've worked on board in the past, we would generally try to focus our work time on those stretches when we were home. But not this year. It's full time on the boat.

So what's it like living on the boat?  Pretty much the same as living on land. The only difference is that  we have to walk up to a building to take a shower first thing in the morning. Other than that, it's the same thing.

Michelle has an office down town, so I normally drive her in every morning. 15 mins each way. Then I come back to the boat and try get to work.  I'll often tackle a little job on the boat if there's something to fix at some point during the day, but mostly it's just work.  Later in the evening I have to pick her up again.

Living and working in a tiny space has not been too difficult. Every once and a while I feel a bit cramped, so I move off to a coffee shop to work for a few hours. But other than that, I don't mind the small space.

There are certainly some advantages, particularly when it's time for cleaning. It only takes about 10 minutes to clean the inside of the boat instead of the couple of hours that the house took. And it's easy to pack up and head out for a weekend - all we have to do is slip the lines from the dock and we're off.

One of the compromises we have to make is in the galley. Instead of a large kitchen with lots of counter space, we have a very small galley and extremely limited prep space. This means that meals have to be a bit simpler than what I might try at home, although I still manage to make homemade pizza regularly. Also, the small refrigerator means we don't normally buy groceries very far in advance, so we make a trip to the grocery store at least every second day when we're in the marina. If we go out for a few days, we find room for what we need, but our storage is pretty full at that point.

Living onboard also means that we don't have our own washer and dryer, so there is a weekly trip to the laundromat. I had thought that this would be a real pain, but it actually isn't too bad. There is a laundromat just a few minutes drive away, and we can do everything simultaneously, so we're in and out with our laundry totally done in 90 minutes. And there's even a Tim Hortons next door to grab a coffee to pass the time.

What do I miss from home?  Friends and family mostly. But I find I don't miss all the stuff that we collected over twenty years.  Kind of makes one wonder why we spent all that money on it in the first place.

Water Leaks (or the Battle of the Bilge)

Water has, in some ways, been our nemesis this summer.  Not the water outside the boat, but the water inside the boat.  

The first episode was very early in getting the boat ready for the summer.  The fresh water system in the boat includes a small water heater.  This heater has a dual source to heat the water.  If the engine is running, it steals some of the heat from the engine to heat the water.  If we are plugged in, then it is heated by electricity.  It has a reservoir of only a couple of gallons of hot water, but for two of us, it’s usually plenty for our needs.

To prepare the boat for the winter, one of the tasks is to drain the hot water heater.  To do this, first the water intake to the heater has to be removed to prevent more water from coming into the heater.  Then the drain opened on the bottom of the heater to let out the water that is in the tank.  In spring, the process is reversed to fill it with water again.

Except when I hooked up the heater, I forgot to close the drain.  When I turned on the water, I thought that it was taking quite a while to fill the heater.  Of course it was – whatever I put in the top was just coming out of the bottom again.  So, this oversight dumped quite a load of water into the bilge.  There is a bilge pump, but this is designed to remove water threatening to cause serious problems.  The bilge is composed of a number of compartments that all drain into the lowermost compartment, where the bilge pump is located.  However, they do not drain completely in a case like this – they all retain some water.  And, of course, the hot water heater is almost as far from the bottom bilge as you can get in this boat.  So, we had to open up the floorboards on almost the entire boat and clean the water out every compartment, a tedious process that takes a couple of hours and some unusual contortions to reach all the corners.

Once I finished slapping my head for this foolish oversight, we pressurized the system again and everything worked fine.  At least for a couple of days, until a hose junction popped off at the hot water heater.  The water pump that pressurizes the system is fairly quiet, so it was running for some time before we even heard it.  But with the hose disconnected, again a good quantity of water was dumped into the bilge.  In my defence, this wasn’t one of the connections that I had been using – it was one that worked itself loose over time.  So, this led to a second round of opening up all the floorboards and cleaning the bilges.

Shortly thereafter, we left PEI and were bound for Ontario.  One of the great benefits of this boat is that it has a shower with plenty of room.  We were doing our second overnight passage, and Michelle decided to take a shower.  On a boat, there is a switch panel that runs the various electrical components.  This totally shuts off the power to the various pumps, lights, and outlets, and you only turn on the ones that you want to use.  The drain for the shower is attached to a pump (since it’s below the water line, it can’t just drain naturally).  So, when Michelle took her shower, she turned on the switch for the shower pump.  However, this switch also provides power to the bow washdown – a system which was added to provide water through a nozzle to clean the anchor as it is being pulled up.  One of the connections for the washdown came off and again pumped water into the bilge.  Although this wasn’t quite as far from the centre of the boat as the hot water heater, this was not pumping from the fresh water tanks, but straight from seawater.  So in this case, we not only had to get the water out of the bilge, but because it was seawater, we had to clean out these compartments with fresh water.  Also, one of the compartments it showered is where we store the canvas for the boat, so we had to wash off the canvas with fresh water and put it out to dry.

Now, to dispel the myth that things come in threes, our fourth incident was a couple of days later.  We turned on the water pump, and a few minutes later, Michelle noticed that it was still running even though we weren’t using the water.  Again, a fresh water line had come off.  Again, we had to clean bilge compartments, and again the canvas got wet and had to be dried.  At least this time it was fresh water.

Finally, just a couple of days ago, we noticed that the pump would cycle for a few seconds every couple of minutes even though we weren’t using the water.  This is what happens if there is a small leak somewhere in the system – the drops of water coming out will eventually depressurize the system, and the pump will run for a second or two to re-pressurize the water lines.  So I investigated every connection, and there was no leak.

Finally, I thought that maybe the pump itself was the problem.  The water pump has a one-way valve that keeps water from running backwards through the system.  If this was leaking, the same thing would happen.  So, to test this, I shut off the water supply at the source, drained the input line, and watched.  Sure enough, water was coming backwards through the pump where it shouldn’t have.  So, here was a new project.   After a bit of on-line research on these pumps, I disconnected it and took it apart to look at the seals.  Everything looked all right, but the seals were a bit dirty, so I cleaned them and reassembled the pump.  I then turned it on, re-pressurized the system, and it ran continuously.  It seems that in reassembling the pump, I had adjusted the internal pressure switch to the point that the pump would not stop.  And of course, this was a difficult adjustment to reach where the pump is mounted.

So, it took out the pump again.  On the bottom of the pump are five screws – four of which hold the switch in place and a fifth that adjusts the sensitivity.  All I had to do was loosen the screw a bit to loosen the switch, and when I put it back in, it worked!  

So, after flooding the bilges four times and dismantling a water pump, our water woes are taken care of (knock on wood).

But on the plus side, you’d be hard pressed to find a boat that has cleaner bilges.