Mastless.... is that a real word?

Well, there she sits, sans mast. Pretty funny looking, but we feel right at home here in this marina as there are quite a few other sailboats in the same sad condition.

In the picture below, you can see the footing that holds the mast to the deck of the boat. Inside, you can see some gunk that has built up over the years and is the cause of the cracking in the mast. What happened was the gunk plugged the drain holes just enough to prevent water from seeping out quickly enough and it froze when we had a cold snap this past winter. The weather gods aligned to have the perfect conditions for this to happen. Apparently the mast repairer, Brent, has never seen this happen here, but it is quite common on the east coast. 

You would not believe how many times we have heard that same story..... seems we lack a certain type of force field that other people have for protection against the "I have never seen that happen before" syndrome. Oh, and by the way, Brent said the amount of gunk we had built up was very little, he has seen so much inside the footing it is completely filled.

Prepping the mast for removal.

This is Paul, who works for Blackline Marine, taking the boom off the mast. In the foreground you can see he has already taken the main sail down and lying just beyond it is the head sail. We folded the sails up nicely and shipped them off for cleaning.

Below the crane is being attached to the boom, you can see a small portion of the crane at the top left.

                                             

Mast repair part II

We've had a visit from the repairman at Blackline Marine. The verdict is they are going to take the mast down because there is some question as to whether or not any damage from the freezing has been done to the inside of the mast. Their plan is to make a sleeve, insert it inside the mast and then weld the crack. This process will most likely take two weeks. So, for the next four or five days, we will explore around Sidney and maybe some of the southern Gulf Islands by bike.
No pictures today, but I will be taking lots during this whole process.

Mast repair update.

Finally we have a date set to get our mast fixed! We will be heading to Sidney BC on Tuesday (day after tomorrow) to visit the mast doctor. They will be taking a look at it on Wednesday, decide the best course of action, and then get started on Thursday. At this point we really don't know how long it will take, could be a couple days if they don't take the mast down or a couple weeks if it does have to come down.

This eagle sat on our ramp railing for quite a long time, all the while keeping an eye on me while I took his picture. At this time of year, we have quite a few eagles in the harbour. They are fishing but as far as I know they don't nest around here.

In the meantime, we will be staying on our boat and during the day we plan to do a lot of bike riding around Sidney peninsula. We are also thinking if it is going to take the longer period of time, we will catch the ferry across to Salt Spring Island and find a B & B there to stay at and then catch the ferry again over to Chemainus and bike home. 

This is not really how we envisioned our first spring boat trip, but as they say, when given lemons, make lemonade! And I love lemonade! :-)

Haul home.... or maybe not!

Friday May 28,2009

Splendid Mane still in the sling, with bottom paint all done.

Still in the sling, being lowered into the water, only a few inches to go.

Shortly after this picture was taken, Jerry motored away from the dock and I got in the car to head home, hoping to meet him at our dock in a little more than 3 hours. After I got home, I checked messages on the phone (we are one of those few people that do not have a cell phone) and there was one from Jerry. He was back at Cove Yachts, there was a problem with the impeller (or that is what he and Phil thought), so could I come and pick him up? Good grief! Jump back in the car, drive 45 minutes again, and there he was, waiting for me. I think he was quite worried I wouldn't check messages on the phone right away. 

Monday a mechanic will have a look at the engine and hopefully we will get it fixed quickly. But on the way home in the car, we talked about what good luck we had in that we were so close to help when we had the problem! There is always a happy side to every problem!
Update: as suspected, it was the impeller that broke. Splendid Mane is back in her berth now all ready to head out for a sail. Our next trip on the water will not be until the first week of August when we will head up to Seymour Inlet for 3 - 4 weeks. But we head out on June 9th by car and will end up in Alaska somewhere around June 21 for summer solstice. We will be blogging our road trip, so stay tuned!

Haul Out Day

Thursday May 27, 2009
Leave: our dock 1140
Arrive: Maple Bay Marina, Cove Yachts 1500
new zincs and bottom paint

Stephen doin' his part gettin' Splendid Mane in the sling.

We motored all the way to Maple Bay to Cove Yachts for our bi-annual haul out. Once they got the boat in the sling, we were glad to see it didn't have as much growth as we had thought. The donut zinc on the shaft was gone but the autostream zinc was still in pretty good shape, but still we will replace it. The bottom of the keel had a good growth of mussels and anemone and around the shaft was quite a few mussels. Other than that, she looked pretty good. More pics tomorrow when we go back to pick her up.