Hung Up Power Boat

Aftermath

Hurricane Irene came in early. We were expecting the full brunt of the storm to hit at 0800 Sunday the 28th and run until 2000 hrs EST. I went to sleep a bit late, and found the winds sharply picked up just about 0200 and they kept me awake on and off until 0400. I got up at 0830 to see tree tops whipping back and forth like a fly fisherman going for distance. I was fully prepared to go out in the storm. I had 2000 of weight in my truck. I was ready for a tornado. Still that much wind gave me pause. I decided to wait a bit because the winds were supposed to build. My place is Northeast of the path of the Irene's center, although I'd say it fanned out as it hit the coast. There were fronts from Boston to upstate New York and right up the middle deep into Vermont.

One of the first things I noticed was the layer of shredded leaves on the road. It was like a light snow. Once people started driving though them the made dark tracks. Everywhere on the ground bits of tree stuff. Little nuts, leaves, shredded leaves, ends of branched, middle sized branches, a few large branches and two trees over, one of which was the neighbors.

Here is my dog after clipping today. This after photo shows some of the stuff on the ground from the storm. It was everywhere.





I later found one of our larger trees came down on the other neighbor. Major roads in and out of town were blocked in multiple places. Power lines were down in four areas around us--smaller feeds. Our power comes in underground, which helps some. I thought would would keep power the whole time, and we did not. We lost power around 1130 hrs. Driving, I managed to wind my way around on back roads to avoid blockages. My GPS was a big help. I zoomed to the appropriate scale and plotted my course towards the boat.

That took some dodging around trees, and places with too much water.













I got tired of taking pictures. Plus I was giving one friend of mine a blow by blow account of what I saw as I was driving. There were a couple of shot of big trees blocking roads. Those spots seemed to get a bit congested and had too many people around. I decided to keep moving, unsure at times if I could make it through at all.

In any case. I wanted to find out if my boat was ok. I would have been happy to see it from a distance, but there is not a single place without water. Here are a few shots of my trying to find different ways in, plus a shot from the overpass. Time helped me, by draining things down. After 40 minutes I was able to bring my truck closer to my boat and avoid walking back and forth.

































That is my pickup truck over there. The water had receded quite a bit. I walked back and drove it closer after a while.



The gate was blocked by telephone poles which were used as barricades to define the demarkation between parking lot and harbor. They floated over and blocked the gate in.








And finally my boat. My boat was ok, but my finger pier was smashed up a bit. It hung up on the pier and waves swept the bottom floatation away. After prying it loose the dock is sunken almost underwater.

















In any case. My boat survived. Later that night the sky was spectacular. It was a new moon, and there were not lights on anywhere. So no light pollution. Clouds obscured some of the sky, but the air was very clear for good viewing.

Video from there early impact of the remnants of Ernesto 2006.

Hurricane Prep

It seems that to take a step forward involves three steps forwards and two steps backwards. So much time is spent cleaning boats, and taking care of them, that to make forward progress on a restoration, many steps are taken both ways. Today, I prepared ECHO for hurricane Irene. I am now ready for it.

The image shows the date and time and the little blue dot is New York City. I'm on the top right edge of that blue dot in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Fortunately for me, I have one of the best locations to ride out a storm. I'm deep in a harbor, so there will be no significant wave action. The last place I kept my boat was pounded in a storm. I have a video and some pictures of that. Waves were breaking across the dock. That won't happen this time.


I have a couple of concerns. One is I don't trust my finger pier dock. It has a weak link at one end, so I have run dock lines to the next nearest finger pier and to the main dock.

One of the hardest jobs was removing my mainsail. The cover came off easy enough. The main sail is about 80 lbs. I had to disconnect my Dutchman system, unshackle a few stubborn parts, and get the sail off the mast track and then the boom. Then I had a huge pile of sail on my deck and by myself, it would have been impossible to fold it. I tied it in as compact a bundle as I could and use a spinnaker halyard to hoist it over the lifelines, and got it onto the dock. I dragged it to the bottom of the gangway which was unfortunately at low tide. A friend helped me get it to the top and into my wagon. Hard work. I was exhausted and needed a break. Now I have to do some prep work at home to prepare for the storm. Predicted wind speed is 80 mph. 60 mph rain will sting. 80 mph is significant. The above photo was taken at low tide, at high tide the dock will probably be higher than the parking lot and the lot will be flooded. There is a danger the dock could float off the top of the pilings. That is not very likely. I plan to fill up my pickup truck with fuel and I may load it up with gear for extra weight, as I plan to drive around in the storm since it will hit in day time. I am hoping the tide will be down when the storm surge hits.

I was surprised to see people pulling there boats out from our dock area. I expected people to be bringing boats into this dock, not taking them out, due to the protected nature of this area.


Lots of people are on moorings. These people will find their boats broken loose and on the beach on Monday. Those are the people who should be hauling out or moving down to where I am. there is space on my dock.

To the left is a close up of the maze of lines I'm using to secure my boat. I added a few more fenders. The reason I have so many lines is I don't truck the dock cleats. One failed cleat, or one dock line parted, and my boat could swing free or pound against the dock. So redundancy is good, even though it looks silly to have so many dock lines. Notice I have bow lines, stern lines, spring lines and breast lines. I have at least two of each.

This is hard to see. The pipe used to secure this dock is bent badly I plan to add some more dock lines between the main dock and the finger pier, and also move one line across to the other finger pier.

Hurricane Prep

I am luck to be in a protected spot. Most boaters are not. If Irene hits us with the intensity of Ernesto, there will be boats scattered on the beaches on Monday, as mooring lines fail due to chafe. A high tide and we are sure to see at least one high tide. Will mean mooring lines will be shortened up and the shock loads will part at the fairleads. As for ECHO. She is getting extra docklines, and fenders. I am removing the mainsail and boom, or perhaps I'll wrap it up with rope to keep it attached to the boom. As I said, I'm in a protected spot close to a building. It will be interesting.

Breaking the bonds with shore

I have spent the last week going through all my files and papers to reduce my files to the absolute minimum. I've been down sizing for years. I once reached the huge file size of 9 file drawers. I remember thinking to myself--this is taking up too much space. So I took everything out of my ugliest two drawer file cabinet, toss it out, and then starting getting rid of stuff until I could fit everything in 7 file cabinets. Still too much I told myself. I picked out another two drawer file cabinet and repeated the process. This is not that hard I realized. I should get rid of more of this stuff--even five file drawers is too many. So I set a goal of three file drawer. My five drawers consisted of two rather nice paneled oak, legal size file cabinets. One of these suffered from the backs breaking off. I decided to use those two drawers to store other things--no paper allowed. So I did it. I even had some space left over in my third file draw which was attached to an oak rolltop desk.

I thought long and hard about getting rid of that desk. It is heavy and must be broken down into four pieces to move, the largest of which is a pain in the ass to move. People how have helped me move it, have sworn never to do it again. Well for now I'm keeping it.

What did happen over time is I accumulated paper in boxes. That is what I'm doing this week--cleaning this stuff up. I have been shredding paper, and thinking hard about what I need to keep and what I can toss out as it comes in the door. So now there are many, bags of shredded paper in my car ready for taking to the dump, along with other items I'm getting rid of. My paperwork in in hand and the end is in sight--a good feeling. Honestly, I don't want all the headaches of paperwork and bills. I'd rather be self sufficient, energy independent, able to opt out of the many daily bills that come in. I don't want cable TV, wired telephone, wired internet--I can do just fine with a cell phone, wireless internet, and WiFi. I have enough movies and books stored away to keep me occupied for a long time. Satellite TV, might be nice, but truthfully, even with a DVR, there are too many commercials for it to be interesting to me. I don't want to be advancing through 5 minutes of commercials to continue the program.

In any case, I estimate a few more days, I'll be done with the difficult part of my paperwork. After this I plan to put a big blanket down on the dining room table--to protect the table top, and place everything I want to sell on there, tag it with starting auction price, and take pictures of each item, followed by starting an eBay listing.

I am tempted to just give some of this stuff away, but instead I'll be patient and sell whatever I can. If it takes too long, I will just give this surplus away.

I have lots of photo's...these too are a burden. Pictures, boxes of photo's, framed photos, are all a nuisances unless you have roots. Even then I want to start scanning these and putting them on DVD disks and into computer databases, so I can look at them whenever I want--with no weight penalty.

So as I sit here, I think about what I want to keep. Books--I have too many of these. I have been re-reading some, and then tossing them out. I have been just tossing other out. Some I donate to the USO, or give to friends. I have a huge selection of electronic books--much better. I have an iPad an iPhone, and an iPod Touch. Any of these can be used to read books. So I will sell any books of value, and get rid of the rest, perhaps keeping a few that I need for Navigation or reference. Some of my sailing reference books are destined for my floating library--mostly because I want my crew to read certain of these books and be competent as well.

I have four laptops. I need to give some of these away, at least one, perhaps it will take me a while to get rid of the three I rarely use. I use one for programming radios. I would need to add a Windows XP partition to my MacBook Pro to enable this on my primary laptop. The bottom line is I can reduce the number of computers I own, but at a cost that I don't want to incur at the moment.

My desktop computer. It is unbeatable for video editing. I don't think I can part with it. I might if I can upgrade my laptop to a faster machine. This will be the last thing I will consider. Techology might solve this for me in a few more years...

Boat gear: I have tons of this stuff. The solution is to sell it on eBay also. Another thing I can do is install the gear I have not yet installed. That solves two problems. It gets it out of the way, and puts it into service--perfect. I have actually been doing this for some time. I've also been better about throwing out, things that "I might need later" but probably won't.

The last category is clothing. I have more than I need. So I plan to box some up and bring it down to the boat to be used as work clothes, and then placed into the rag pile. I'll need lots of rags once I start fiberglass work again. I presently have 2.5 closets. the 1/2 closet is used to store books and radio equipment. So I have two closets, a dresser, and 5 under-bed drawers to store cloths. They are all full and I have clothes piled on top of my dresser. I have to toss out or box up some clothes too. If I can't make space in my apartment, then I will never fit this stuff on my boat! This may be more difficult than shredding paper. I find it difficult to throw out nice clothes.

So finally, what is left over. Satchels, tools--many tools, cleaning products, materials--all this can go into my workshop, and vehicles. I also have to realize that I might have to move these things at some point in the future. So I need to consider how I will move the things I will keep. My idea is to purchase an enclosed automobile trailer. If I can haul all of my personal goods in one trip, and my car or motorcycle in another, then I can move everything I own, including boat trailers and other boats in no more than four trips. That works for me. If I never move, then I'll still be that much better off, being free of all the encumbrances that tie us down.

Now it is time for my nightly bike ride to run the dog. Life is good, I'm making forward progress.

My Sea Dog

Kokini is a Portuguese Water Dog. She was born July 9th 2010. That makes her just over 13 months old.












Here she is clipped short. She looks much better with longer hair, but I think I'll give her another trim soon as she is suffering in the heat.

Here she is in medium coat at about 11 months of age. She is quite a good retriever and will bring the ball back and jump up to put it in my hand. I have to work on her swimming and water retrieving still.

What is a blog without photo's?

Here is ECHO. She is an Ericon 46. I have been working on her on and off for years. It it time to finish this project--part of the reason I'm moving aboard. It will get done quicker.

You can see the two cockpit hatches in the front of the cockpit. This is how my dog will get in and out.

Sailing with a Water Dog

One of me concerns is sailing with my dog. While I feel fine with her on the boat it does raise a few issues. First, how will she get around the boat? I'm thinking she can get up and out the cockpit hatches once I rebuild the two aft staterooms. Climbing the ladder will be difficult for her. I'll have to study that more as we spend more time on the boat. Perhaps a temporary ladder for the cockpit hatch and a bed for her down below will be best for now. That will have to be a priority for the short term.

My other issue is peeps and poops. She can hold her water 10-12 hours--I'm amazed actually, so peeps are not a problem. Poops will be when we are underway. So I need to train her to so somewhere. The best option is the cockpit sole. I have a shower setup that I just bought to help clean up. I am thinking about buying some fake grass and putting grass clipping on it to train her that it is ok to go there, and later I can remove the grass clippings and then the mat.

Anchoring

My boat is a racing boat--or was. It has no windlass. I bought a new one,but it will be difficult to fit it. My plan is a pair of anchors on the bow with some chain and the two handed "Arm" windlass for now. I'm strong enough to handle these anchors by myself. I've hauled up all chain anchors by myself in the past. So I need two mounts, two rodes, and some chain. I will get a big Delta and a bigger Rocna or equivalent. I plan to supersize the Rocna by two over the recommended, and buy a Delta, probably one size larger than recommended, and use the Delta most of the time. I have a massive Danforth, that I will find a way to mount on the stern. The Danforth would be the best for soft mud but it is so hard to stow that I hate it actually. I'm debating cutting a well in the deck near the gunwhale and fabricating a place to store this anchor, with a drain--right there, like the J-44's have. It reduces weight on the bow and gets it out of the way, and aft. That will take some time and is not a priority, unless I can find a pre-made Danforth locker I can purchase and glass in easily. Is this enough anchors? Three is minimum. I would not mind four. ECHO is rather heavy, and the penalty is not that great for carrying extra weight. I can always move the anchors below and aft when sailing on the ocean.

Auto-Pilot ideas

I am leaning towards a Simrad auto-pilot at the moment. I prefer hydraulic, but electric (linear drives) are cheaper. My rudder is not well balanced. I think hydraulic will work and last--two requirements. It would be nice to have an auto pilot when I head south. Getting down the Jersey coast to the Delaware Bay and up and through the C&D canal would be difficult to do by myself, even with an auto pilot, unless I heave-to offshore somewhere and time it well with the weather.

The best auto-pilot is a balanced boat sailing upwind.

Moving aboard full time...

I will be moving aboard full time soon. Now the the weather is a bit cooler. In part because I want to refinish the floor in my bedroom and in part because I will get more work done on it if I am living in that space. My goal is to sail south this winter to find cheaper labor for some things like welding. I have about 2.5 months to get going.

Bottom Cleaning Done

After some arm twisting I got the fellow who cleans my boat bottom to show up and clean it. He has been really late and unreliable, even though I begged him to keep it clean for me. In any case it is done, and will last for a while, although I plan to haul the boat out and sand and repaint the bottom soon. My zincs are in good condition, so it seems my isolation transformer, coupled with my current location have reduced stray currents and minimized the needs for zincs. This is a big change from my last location where I burned though zincs somewhat rapidly.