2026 Shipyard!!

Well, before we pulled the ship out of the shed I was “moving the needle forward” on some random details . . .yes, my life is long string of random details.

Loading the 200# liferaft by myself . . .

. . . off CIII roof to dock to boat down channel to beach to truck to ferry to drop-off . . . every two years.

The galley refrigerator was under performing (running too often, clogging up with frost) so I sourced a new one and needed to repurpose the old door that matches the galley wood working.

and we were running low on 9″ lunch plates and I ordered in a new set . . . of course the old ones were 8 7/8″ in diameter and the new plates would not fit the galley rack . . . more on that next blog.

and a new 18 person silverware set . . .

new upgraded main engine coolant flow alarm . . .

But finally she came out of the shed . . .

and was gently lifted by the professional crews at Ocean Pacific Marine . . .

and all the usual washing, scrapping and painting commenced with Skipper Jonas Fineman and Lead Guide Sarah Hauser attending . . .

And Mike of Ocean Pacific pours a new zinc propeller zinc.

selfie . . . duh.

An addition . . . I had installed a forward looking sounder about 15 years ago but it had never performed to my expectations and I am vulnerable to the glossy electronics displays at my local marine supplier. And I like to have something new to play with in the wheelhouse. So this year we installed a Garmin forward looking sounder. But of course there was a “wrinkle”. Modern marine equipment is designed for fiberglass hulls which are usually less than an inch thick. But the COLUMBIA III’s planking is 21/8″ thick and the transducer is not long enough to make it through the planking, especially when it goes through the hull vertically ( ie diagonally though the wood). So I dreamed up a scheme to create a “box” to to house the new transducer. From previous measurements, I made a mock-up of the keel and the garboard plank in my shop prior to going to the ship yard . . .

and then a 1/4″ plywood prototype , , ,

. . . which Luke used as a pattern to transcribe the final measurements onto when we were on the hard . . .

. . . and then he raced home by skiff, welded up the housing in stainless steel and brought it back to the ship yard the next evening and I installed it . . .

and painted with anti-fouling , , ,

And of course the new sonar required connection to the existing NMEA 2000 backbone . . .

Here’s the screen in the wheel house. It has the added benefit of containing its own built-in GPS receiver and a full set of coastal charts. This adds a nice redundancy to our navigation system. We’ll be trying this out this summer as we poke about in the remote, less charted waters of the BC coast.

More little skipper projects . . . I installed 3 propane shut-off solenoids on the ship for extra super duper safety but i have never been happy with the solenoids themselves. They require power to hold them open (fail off or “normally closed” but that’s a constant 3 amp draw, but the part I really didn’t like was that when operating, they were too hot to touch, like really! and that’s on a propane line! It never seemed right . . . i even replaced them thinking they were defective. So this winter i sourced a valve company that makes valves for many, many! applications: corrosive, medical, gas, petrol-chemical, small and really big . . . and I settled on these. Stainless steel body, designed for gas, normally closed, but once open the current draw drops to near zero . . .

and whilst in the ship yard I installed three new solenoids . . .

and created a new terminal strip inside the salon for ease of replacement if required . . . and leak checked the whole arrangement once completed.

I’m a bit of a slow learner . . . I had never really had a cocktail in the first portion of my life, so over the last 3 years I have been experimenting . . . . The stress of the annual haul out deserves a fancy alcoholic concoction whilst taking Jonas out to dinner to get away from the boat yard for a break . . .