As Kathleen described, we spent the Easter weekend working on Kinship.  When you buy a boat, you are never quite sure what you actually did buy.  It is only when you get aboard and start to look at all the systems and lockers in much more detail that you really start to understand the boat and its contents.  One of my favourite parts of this is finding the little gems that the previous owner left on board.  Over the weekend we found a spare water pump and a fortress anchor and rode hidden in a locker that I missed in the survey, both really good to have.  As I am writing this I realise that I did not look in one area on the boat at all, the generator compartment, we don’t have a generator, I wonder what might be in there?

We are addressing the critical items from the survey, first on the list was replacing the starting battery.  Naturally, the new battery was slightly taller than the old one, so I had to reposition the hold-downs to suit.  In becoming one with the battery compartment I was really impressed with both the construction of the boat and the quality of the work done on the boat in the past. I am a great believer in the idea that to really own something, you have to work on it.  It will take a while before we really own Kinship, but today, I own the battery compartment.  I did discover that each of the 4 solar panels has its own controller.  This is great as shade on one panel will not impact the rest of the array.

The adjustable backstay project went well, Jack, Zahniser’s rigger, did a great job with the install,  I am a still getting used to the size of everything on Kinship, Penny has a 1 inch block on the end of the backstay and the adjuster is a 12:1 system I built out of Amsteel and 1/4 line.  Kinship has a 4ft long hydraulic adjuster going to a 4 inch block, the scale is so much bigger, to deal with the higher load and to allow a bigger safety margin.

The fun is just beginning, in May I will be at the boat for a week to make sure all the systems are working before we head back to Kingston.

 

 

This past weekend was our first time aboard Kinship ^I  (her official Canadian registered name) as the proud new owners!

The long drive to Solomons MD was well worth it. Daffodils and t-shirts weather awaited us.

We were able to spend three days getting to know the boat and her myriad of systems.

Any guesses what this is?

If you guessed the AIS you are right.

We had some fun changing the starter battery. You have to be a strong contortionist who isn’t the least bit claustrophobic to do this job – the two of us squeezed into this snake-pit below decks!

With a little help from the riggers at Zahniser’s Yachting Center, a new hydraulic back-stay adjuster was added. Then we rigged the sails (all three of them) and were ready to go.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to actually take her out sailing! Next time…

One of the last jobs was to get Kinship ready to be repatriated. She was built in St Catharines Ontario, and she will be coming home to Lake Ontario soon. In preparation for that, I peeled off the port of Annapolis letters and applied the port of Ottawa. Matthew climbed up and attached a new Canadian flag, so she is now dressed and ready to come home.

 

Can’t wait for the delivery trip, which is planned for mid-May…

 

Lisa and Paul, sailing friends and co-conspirators in living the dream wanted to learn to splice lines.  We spent a lovely evening over a bottle of wine splicing and chatting.  When told about this, Lisa’s friend misheard this as “slicing limes”, so that is what we do now.  Nepean Sailing Club  has a series of winter talks to keep the fires burning over the long winter.  I volunteered to do a talk on splicing for fun thinking we would get 10-15 sailors out and we could learn some splices together.  I chose to show an eye splice and a soft shackle.  This covered double braid and amsteel 12 strand.  The evening was successful, about 40 people turned up and with help from Lisa and Hugh McGugan everyone got to do a splice.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience with lots of comments about attacking real projects.  One person mentioned that he was now much happier with the rigging charges at The Chandlery.  We are lucky to have one of the best marine stores in Canada on our doorstep.  The Chandlery generously provided all the line for the participants.

More information can be found on the Spicing and Rigging page.