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2011 Maintenance Log

4/8/11 | 4/18/11 | 4/20/11 | 4/21/11 | 5/3/11 | 5/8/11 | 5/10/11 | 5/11/11 | 5/13/11


Saturday, April 8, 2011

Despite receiving a foot of new snow a week ago, today seemed to be the day to remove the boat cover.  Most of the new snow had already melted, though there was still plenty of icy piled-up snow around the boats and in the shade.

The exterior of the boat was dirty after the winter, as usual, but otherwise she survived her long convalescence well.  I had no major projects planned for this pre-season, but would take care of the usual round of seasonal maintenance over the next few weeks.

    

Monday, April 18, 2011

With shop space available for a week or two in between work projects, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and moved Glissando indoors for her annual brightwork (and other) pre-season maintenance.  The brightwork was in good shape this year (for the most part), so a couple maintenance coats in most areas would do the trick.  Otherwise, I had a minimal list to attack, with no significant changes or projects planned this year.

    

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Over several hours, I prepared the toerails and other varnished wood on deck for maintenance coats of varnish, sanding and masking as needed.  Over the past few years, I'd let the anchor platform go, but decided now to remove the hardware and strip the old varnish from the top so I could refinish it.

With all the prep complete, and the boat vacuumed and cleaned up, I applied the first coat of varnish to all surfaces.

         

         

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Second maintenance coat.

         


Tuesday, May 3, 2011

After going away for a week's vacation, I got back to the preparations as required.  I'd enough varnish on most of the brightwork, so I removed the masking tape, leaving only the anchor platform and several loose pieces (companionway boards and lazarette hatch).  Late in the day, I varnished these pieces.


During much of the day I worked on the decks, cleaning up the white-painted areas, polishing the port glass, and other related chores.  I also began to rerig the mast.  Suddenly there was a bit of urgency to the whole process, as just this day I scheduled launching for May 10--earlier than I usually like, but it was a case of either getting ready now, or being subject to delays as the boatyards got scheduled during the busiest part of the season.  I thought it'd be better to go sooner than later, and I could easily be ready in time since I'd planned on having the boat in the shop most of the week anyway.

    

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Over the course of the week, in and amongst other jobs and projects, I wrapped up most of the preparatory work getting the boat ready to launch, including various rigging chores, bottom paint, engine maintenance, and other tasks.  


With most of the indoor work complete, I moved the boat back outside late Friday so I could spend time over the weekend working on the engine and cleaning up the boat.


Saturday, I prepared to run the engine.  I installed a new impeller--standard neoprene this time, as I'd found the blue nitrile impellers that I used to like had suffered greatly from poor quality control (apparently), as both of the past two seasons had seen my blue impellers perform poorly, with brittle material that cracked and broke at the vanes.  I detailed the impellers' condition in both October 2010 and 2009 during my winterizing procedure.

During last season, I noticed that my exhaust seemed to contain more smoke than usual; I'd become used to the engine burning cleanly, so this was a concern throughout the season.  However, I realized after seeing the impeller's condition at the end of the year that what I'd been seeing was probably steam, not smoke, as I imagined the impeller had been in less than optimal condition the entire season (though it was brand new in May).

In the event, once I'd installed the new, stock neoprene impeller and made other preparations, I fired the engine; it started immediately and ran well, with no evidence of smoke or steam in the exhaust now, reinforcing my theory about last year's performance.

    

After running the engine for a bit, I shut down and changed the oil and filter.  My oil change pump featured a larger hose into which a smaller hose (to fit into the oil dipstick tube) was fitted and ostensibly secured with a clamp.  Unfortunately, when I started the pump this tenuous connection failed, but not until the pump had already managed to draw enough oil into the hose to blow it all over the engine room.  This did not amuse me, but somehow I managed to clean it up and continue removing the old oil before replacing it with new.

With the engine work complete, I loaded additional gear on the boat and washed the decks and hull, more or less completing my pre-launch task list.

    

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

On a nasty, breezy, raw day, Glissando was picked up for transport to a boatyard on the coast, where I'd arranged to have her mast stepped and launched.  The high winds and lousy forecast for the next couple days would probably mean a delay in the stepping and launching, which was fine with me since this was so early in the season anyway.    In any event, the boat was on her way to another season! 

Once the boat was launched, I planned to keep her briefly in a slip at the yard so I could get things squared away and await better weather to bring her the 20 miles to her mooring in Buck's Harbor.


Wednesday, May 11, 2011

I received word that the boat had been stepped and launched, so late in the day I drove down to check things out.  The boat was in one piece and so was the mast, but I noticed that the stays on the port side had been installed backwards, with the lower on the forward chainplate and the upper on the aft--this despite the prominent note I left to clarify this and avoid this common boatyard mistake (the stays were correctly installed on the starboard side).  I'd have to call the yard in the morning to take care of it, as it was far too windy to consider doing it while I was there.

Otherwise, the boat and spar were in good order, and after fine-tuning the docklines and fenders and checking everything over, I departed.  Still ahead I'd need to install the boom and sails and get things ready to go; the forecast wasn't looking particularly agreeable for the delivery anytime this week, but I'd take it one day at a time and hoped to get the boat ready in one more visit so I could go at any time.

    

Thursday, May 12 - Friday, May 13, 2011

It had been windy, gray, and unsettled all week.  However, by Thursday after work the weather was improving, and Friday featured a favorable forecasts, a short window sandwiched between bouts of unsettled (and typical May) weather.

Hoping to deliver the boat to her mooring on Friday, I used Thursday evening to do some setup on the boat.  I'd called the boatyard Thursday morning to mention the incorrectly-connected stays on the port side, but when I arrived I noticed they'd not switched them.  So swapping the two stays was my first order of business.  I used the main and jib halyards to support the mast to port while I undid the two stays and switched them as quickly as I could.

Afterwards,  I installed the boom, mainsail, jib, and associated rigging and got the boat more or less ready for "sea",  As I installed the mainsail, I realized I'd forgotten the full battens at home, which meant it wasn't yet ready to use.  I also brought down dinghy and outboard and sorted out other gear, and ran the engine for a while.  It was a beautiful evening, finally calm after days of nagging northerlies, and I was tempted to drop the lines and go, but knew I'd never have enough time before dark.  I'd hoped to scrub the decks and wash the hull--both of which were a mess after a rainy-day road transport on Tuesday and the inevitable boot marks from the mast stepping--but there was not yet water on the docks.

    

Friday morning, I arrived at the boat at first light, wanting to get underway and the boat delivered without requiring the whole day, and to make scheduling a ride home easier.  It was clear, mostly calm, and cold, about 40°.  I brought the mainsail battens with me this time, but as there was no wind--nor was there expected to be much--I didn't waste time installing them now, since I expected the delivery would be under power anyway.  What wind there was was from the NNE, right on the nose and light.


It was an uneventful and boring delivery; 21.8 miles in 4 hours, 50 minutes, with chilly headwinds and ambient air temperatures.  Eventually, I had on:  a t-shirt; long-sleeve t-shirt; heavy sweatshirt; hoodie sweatshirt (I forgot to bring a hat); fleece-lined flannel overshirt; fleece-lined nylon shell; gloves.  I must have looked like the Michelin Man.

Inevitably, I had the tide against me the whole way, slowing me to as little as 3.8 knots over the ground (thankfully briefly), but with speeds otherwise averaging about 4.5 knots.  The light 3-5 knot NNE wind--the direction I was headed--briefly blew as high as 10-12 knots true on the east side of Isleboro before dying altogether for the remainder of the trip.

The weather was interesting.  As I motored up east Penobscot Bay, a bank of low clouds--which I'd seen hovering in the distance all morning--advanced towards my position, giving me the interesting opportunity of having vastly different weather on each side of the bow.  The two photos below were taken one after the other and show this dichotomy.  Later, as I neared my destination, the clouds dissipated.

Left:  View to Port.  Right:  View to Starboard.
    

Eventually, I reached my mooring at Buck's Harbor.  Even though I knew I was early in the water this year, I was amused to find the harbor essentially echoing and empty, with only four other boats on moorings (not counting several resident lobster boats).  With an hour or so to pass before my ride arrived, I cleaned up the boat, installed the mainsail battens, and got things slightly more squared away before departing.  I was happy to have the boat in and on the mooring where I knew she'd be safe.

         
 
 

 


Glissando, Pearson  Triton #381
www.triton381.com 

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