Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

This year I have decided to switch up not just my bottom paint but I'm starting to phase out the varnish for teak oil.  The varnish does a nice job but it tends to have some difficulties holding up on horizontal services and the toe rails.  The other problem I tend to run into with the varnish is the need to have several good warm days to apply it.  My plan is to have the boat in the water sometime in the next week and frankly we've only had a few days that would have been warm enough to varnish. This season, I have moved to a mixed medium; some areas varnish and some teak oil.  By next season I expect all of the wood work on the boat will be switched over.  I have been pleasantly surprised how well the two have worked in combination.  The teak oil color matches very well and two coats of oil bring the sheen right up to the same level of the remaining varnish. Starting sanding of the rails. Nicely scuffed up peeling and flaking removed. Horizontal surface issu

The desire to get the boat in the water this spring is has reached a fever pitch.  Just after noon today the temperature outside reached the magic number: 50 degrees.  What is so magic about this number?  It is the temperature one needs it to be to apply bottom paint.  Immediately after lunch I headed for the marina.  When I arrived one other boater was there working on waxing his hull but within the hour, several other sailors had showed up and opened their paint cans. This year, I have decided to switch up my bottom paint.  I'm going with a multi-season paint.  I'm hoping this will set the boat up for the next 2 years.  The sales rep says it may be good for three years with some touch up. So this is some different stuff.  It is super thin and looks a bit like soapy water.  As I started I was beginning to have second thoughts.  It goes on super thin then it began to bubble.  I've seen this before with latex paints and this is a water base clean up paint.  As the

Spring training starts for many this week and it is time to start the boat prep.  Fist trick is to climb in. After a few hours and a bottle of glass cleaner.  I moved all the gear, sails, and cushions back aboard and here is the finished project.  Ship shape and cleaned up. 

I haven't posted in a while and a few people have been wondering what is up. This summer Myles and I have been fishing a bit and he has been using his Mom's sit on top Kayak.  I decided it was time to go ahead and build him one of his own after all he is starting to get too big to sit and just ride along.  First I looked at  Yostwerks .  I highly recommend Tom's boats.  I built a Sea Tour about 10 years ago I'm building a Canvas Back Kayak.  Here are the plans  for those interested.  This came from an old  Mechanix Illustrated  magazine. My brother ran across someone selling a pile of already cut out kayaks a few years back and he assembled one but has had limited success with his canvas skin.  We took it out this summer and it is far more stable than my kayak, a plus for a young child in my eyes.  After about 30 minutes, the water started soaking through the canvas in my brother's kayak and we came back.  I'll do a clear vinyl skin on the one

22 inches of snow and just a little on the cover looks like I got a steep enough pitch on the cover this year to get the snow to slide off!

Yesterday we got some wicked wind and our fist snow fall of the season.  With winds blowing at about 46 mph I thought I'd go down and check on Kraken.  The cover system is holding up pretty well and with all the other bigger boats around mine the brunt of the wind is being blocked.  A good deal in all.  Still it is  amazing how fast we go from 70 degree days to the 30's overnight.  Maybe will be ice boating this year before Christmas!  That would be great. Here a quick video of the conditions.

Each year I struggle with the end of the season cover method.  This is perhaps due to the versatility of the cape dory Typhoon.  Some years I drop the mast other years, I leave it up. This changing back and forth between covering with the mast up or the mast down changes the process immensely.  With the prediction of a harsh winter coming from the weatherman this year I have opted to go with the mast up method.  This method allows me to get a steeper pitch on the cover hopefully allowing for the snow to slide off the tarp.  To accomplish this, I raise the boom at the mast so it slopes to the stern then use the spinnaker pole to slope down to the bow.  After I strategically place a few 2x3's to support the center of the tent structure I'm ready to tarp it.  This year I picked up two tarps thinking I'd do one forward of the mast and one aft but they turned out to be too small. I had to get a larger one and cut it down the center for the mast.  Then, I ended up using a small o