Winter Projects

Working on a boat in winter in our climate has special challenges. The obvious one is the cold. But also just getting on and of the boat in the snow is difficult. Even trying to uncoil the shore power lead when it is -10ºC is an ordeal. So I decided to do as much as possible at home. That meant taking off all the doors and trim I had to work on and making templates of all the wood accents so I could make them back home. The flooring was another issue but at least getting the old carpet up when it was cold out avoided sweating since it was a tough job. Anyway, by March we had the projects underway and through April we made reasonable progress although it took a concerted effort to get the work done and the boat ready for our mid-May launch.

Exterior:

Wiper arms – refinished to silver – for some reason Sea Ray build a stunning polished stainless windshield frame and then put less than attractive gray wiper arms on them that in my case had started to rust – even in fresh water.

New dash / helm cover of matching Sunbrella – tan with black edging. Sewed this myself. I’m far from ready to do big jobs but this came out good and looks better than throwing a beach towel over the instruments.

Interior:

Stripped out the carpet on the floor in the salon and forward cabins and installed engineered hardwood. That was quite a project. Sea Ray glue the carpet down with something I think they get from NASA – it is really tough to get off. And they never intended there to be anything but carpet on the floor which hides a less than perfect floor underneath. So once the carpet was scraped off I took a belt sander to the floor – what a messy job that was. Then I started laying the floor – using the edge of the floor hatch openings as the straight edge. The entire floor was cut and dry-fitted first before being removed in order and then glued down.

The "work-shop" in the cockpit

Wood accents – as I’ve stated before the interior was very off-white. I added veneer to the 2 head doors, the mid-cabin locket door, the mid-cabin “alcove” and a new trim panel on the aft bulkhead. In addition veneered the shelf above the fridge and salon TV. All the veneers were stained, satin varnished and hand –rubbed. A quick note on the veneers – I started by using an oak veneer but once I had it on and stained and varnished I really did not like the look at all – it just did not suite the boat. So, it all got pealed off. Then I re-applied a maple veneer. I tried a gel stain and re-stained the mid cabin locker door…….still didn’t like the effect. So I stripped that again and then changed the technique that I used to apply the stain. Rather than using a cloth I brushed it on quite thick, letting the brush create a grain effect in the stain. It takes a couple of days to dry enough to varnish but the final effect is great.

Salon TV – removed the old CRT TV with VHS player (classic), built a close-out panel for the opening and added matching veneer. Installed a 19” LCD with built in DVD.

Installed a second LCD TV in the mid-cabin alcove. This one is portable so the kids can move it to the cockpit – at least till I figure out getting one set up there in the future.

Trim pads above the fridge and 2 under the cabinets above the settee. They were all off-white – matching the walls and head-liner. I removed all 3 and re-covered with a vinyl matching the coffee colored leather cushions – adds a nice accent like I am seeing in the newer boats.

Fridge – the door panels were – surprise surprise…..beige. So I took the fridge doors off and replaced those panels with new ones with a Stainless film added – instant update to 2010!

Trim beads – these are the aluminum strips around all the openings, under edge of the counter, on the trim pads etc. They were all a brassy gold color. Personal taste issue but IMHO they didn’t look nice. I have refinished them with a nickel finish – looks way more up to date.

Door hardware – the push buttons and trim rings were all gold. Same opinion as above – they are now all nickel finish. Head and forward cabin door handles were white – now refinished to nickel.

Cabin lights – these are actually good quality solid brass. But to tie in with the chrome / brass factory pot lights and the nickel trim theme I refinished the center rim to match the rest of the nickel finish in the boat.

There were only 2 small wood trim pieces in the mid-cabin from the factory. Both were oak with a light finish. Stripped and re-finished to match veneer stain. Edge of the mid-cabin sliding doors were also stained to match.

Boat Shows & Big Ideas

The Toronto international boat show is every January …..somewhat obviously in Toronto. It is a nice break from depressing and dreary winter when you start to think there is no way this part of the world will ever warm up again. Some of us also start to wonder why we have so much invested in a ‘hobby’ that we can only participate in for a few short month. But that is a separate musing.

We try to get to the show every year – making a week-end of it. We arrive Friday evening at the hotel (which offer special boat show rates thank goodness) and meet up with our good friends George & Jen and Chris & Karen plus all our associated off-spring. Total is 13 people. Bright and early Saturday we take the shuttle to the Exhibition center where the show is held – arriving before it opens. My and Georges reasoning for this is that if we are there as it opens we can take the morning to view the boats with less line-ups and then tour the equipment area in the PM. By afternoon the place is so packed that the waits to get on boats – especially the ones our size is ridiculous. Everyone who ever even thought of owning a boat is there and most just ogle the big boats, letting little Tommy play with all the switches and levers, much to the dismay of the sales staff I’m sure . Do they know how much those power-train units cost as they ram the shift levers back and forth????

We wanted to get on some of the new express cruisers to get some “decorating” ideas. Basically we wanted to update the interior since it was kind of beige inside and a bit too 1997. So, what better way to get ideas than on the latest boats. We made a bee-line for the Sea Ray booth and looked on both the 450 and 470. Speaking with the sales rep I found out that the 470 is actually the replacement for our boat. The 400 became the 410, then the 43 and now the 470. Seem Sea Ray are back to including the swim platform in the measurements. By that reasoning ours would be called a 440. However, who am I to question how boat manufactures name or measure boats.

So, we perused the new Sea Rays and the new Regal 44SC and took both pictures and mental notes of the materials and finishes being used. To keep it short and sweet, we noted the following trends:

Hardwood flooring

Lots of wood trim

Stainless and brushed nickel finished

Concealed lighting

Teak decking in the cockpit and swim platforms

Tiling on the floor of the heads and back-splashes

Will approves of the Regal 44 SC Mid-cabin

So, armed with those mental notes we perused the rest of the show. Lots of cool things but we refrained from going on a spending spree. We did but the Navionics chip of the Great Lakes for the E80 and Nat bought some fender line adjusters.

Back home I started to look at how I could update the interior based on what we had seen. Soon I had sketches galore showing new lockers, and doors etc – big projects – perhaps reading too many articles where people with lots of time and money and warm indoor storage take on huge re-do’s. But as I thought about it more and made a trip or 2 up to the boat to look at what was practical some of these big ideas fell by the wayside. But the main plan was formulated.

Hardwood flooring

Wood accents

Nickel finish hardware

Sounds simple enough…………….

End of the 2009 Season

The lakefront basin in Bayfield takes quite a kicking in late season storms. There are basins all down the river and once a few boats had hauled out we decided to move to the east basin which is the “power-boat” basin and more sheltered. At least it saved us beating the boat up in the swells and surge out by the lake. And others on the floating dock stopped grumbling that we were too big, too heavy and too much windage and were going to destroy the docks (such drama).

Haul out day arrived way too soon. It was cold, very very windy and pelting down rain. Moving the boat to the haul-out (launch) well was going to be challenging in these winds. I had been slowly getting the hang of maneuvering the boat but was still not comfortable in strong winds and these were well over strong. Ron agreed to help. With the wind on our beam pushing the boat onto the dock it took 3 yard staff to push her off enough to maneuver away from the dock. We got her out without incident and power-washed the bottom. We decided to have the yard shrink-wrap the boat. This was the first time we had gone this way – usually tarping previous boats. But, in the interest on protecting our investment we went this way. Ron actually moved the boat into his shop and I built the frame in there. Being inside I could remove the canvas and he could shrink-wrap at his leisure regardless of the weather. The result was an extremely nicely wrapped boat that worked great all winter. It remained completely dry regardless of the weather. And I mean dry enough to pad around in stocking feet and stay dry. Now we had to settle in for another long Canadian winter………………

Nice shrink-wrap job by BMS

In Ron's shop getting Plan B ready to shrink-wrap.

Settling In

Plan B in her dock in Bayfield. A good size boat for this basin and these docks.

So, Plan B was home. We set about bringing out ‘stuff on board and trying to figure out what to store where. That may sound easy but you tend to have a lot of “stuff” on a boat you use every week-end and trying to find a practical home for it all takes time. But we got stuff stowed for the time being so at least we could ‘move in’. At the end of the week-end I headed home and Nat and the kids stayed up. I got a call at work on Monday “the bilge pump alarm is sounding ….what do I do?” Well, having owned the boat for 2 whole days and knowing there were 4 bilge pumps on board I did not have a calming solution readily at hand. OMG – it’s sinking??? Having no real idea (read that as no useful solution) I suggested getting Wayne, the resident boat expert on the dock and full time summer resident. Most marinas have a Wayne (insert your resident experts name). He has been boating for years, well experienced and will freely offer advice and assistance. Wayne did that for Natalie. Short version – apparently Kennedy’s had washed the bilges out as part of the clean out using liberal quantities of water, soap and pressure. Some of that water was sitting in small some upper reaches of hose access pockets and now the boat was sitting at a different angle than when stored on land it was slowly dribbling into the bilge and had tripped the pump float as it should. Issue was that the bilge pump top was not properly secured to the body and effectively acted like a big blender when it came on, just frothing the water (which seemed to have some detergent in it) and not pumping it out. Snapping the pump in place fixed that and a check showed there were no through hulls except the engine room so the water was not coming from the lake. Some mopping and sponging later it was dry and has stayed that way since. But a bit un-nerving being that far away and thinking it was sinking.

Later that week I had some time off and we decided to head up to Kincardine – about 40 miles north on the lake. Now this is about a 7 – 8 hour trip on a sailboat (depending on wind and waves). It took us 2 hours flat. What a pleasant trip. Plan B ran well, cruising at a steady 20 knots. The engine synchronizer indicated that there was some missing going on with the troublesome engine but overall everything ran smooth. I got her docked with no drama - actually looked like we might have a clue! We spend 3 days relaxing and departed back to Bayfield after dinner the last day, enjoying watching the sun set as we sped south. This is the way to cruise!!

Kincardine on the horizon - and only about 20 minutes away

Kincardine Marina on a lovely summer morning

Will at the helm on our sunset cruise back to Bayfield

We enjoyed a wonderful Labour day week-end with good weather and anchoring off the Bayfield beach. Mary had her best friend up.

The girls sun-bathing on Labour Day

Ron was investigating the engine issue during the week, methodically swapping parts from the good running starboard engine. They had a Mercruiser ‘expert’ come up with a diagnostic plug in but apparently the computer crashed to they went back to ‘old school’. We also found the battery charger would trip off and not charge the 12V batteries on board (5 of them). The problem turned out to be the generator starting battery that had gone bad or whatever batteries do when they stop working. Kennedy’s had replaced the 4 starting / house batteries but not the 5^th. They came through and gave us a new battery – issue solved. Eventually Ron narrowed the engine problem down to the distributor which was showing signs of corrosion and wear. They also found both circulating pumps leaking. Kennedy’s agreed to fix both issues so they would be removed in the fall after the boat was hauled and the engines winterized. Let me just repeat that – Kennedy’s agreed to replace the parts and cover all Ron’s costs for working on this engine. Now that is service. My hat off to Dana and specifically Sandy who heads up their service department.

The New Toy arrives

Obviously I am writing some of this well after the fact but, to try to catch up a bit.

The week before we took delivery we had a walk-through and start up at Kennedy’s. They go through and show how the equipment and systems on board work and that they do in fact work. The only real issue was the port engine. It would not idle smooth – the revs would go up and down. Their mechanic had apparently tried the obvious items to no effect. The starboard engine seemed to run perfect. We agreed to take delivery with the proviso that Kennedy’s would take responsibility to fix that engine – seemed fair enough. They knew Ron who ran the boat shop in Bayfield and agreed that he should troubleshoot the engine.

So, Plan B arrived and was launched on a sunny hot humid day with no wind….perfect power-boat weather.

That's a big boat to travel down the road - 14 ft wide

All the cockpit canvas was removed for transport so as she floated in the launch well we set about assembling the stainless frames and canvas. Natalie got her finger badly pinched in one of the frames, bleeding profusely in the cockpit but despite having to administer first-aid and wondering if a trip to a hospital was required (Nat insisted not) we finally got the canvas assembled, offering some shade from the heat. Ron had agreed to be onboard for the maiden voyage – to check the engines and provide some advice on handling the boat – remember folks that we had only sailboat experience and to say this type of powerboat handles different is a huge understatement. We reversed out of the launch well and got our first taste of the maneuverability of a twin engined boat – she spun so smoothly. Out on the lake Ron opened her up and in what seemed a few seconds we were doing 20 knots – wow! A little more throttle and were doing 24. And it was flat calm. Coming back into the harbour we asked Ron to enter the basin and dock her the first time. I wanted to watch and learn. The port engine stalled coming in. Luckily Ron was at the helm, calmly shifting the neutral and re-starting it and then spinning her around to dock stern to as if he had owned the boat for years. Well, we were tied up and she sure can move on the water!