Crimson Kathryn and her crew

Amazingly we are now in our last week of work before we head back to Kingston for Christmas. The jobs are moving along nicely and the last of the 3 big jobs is almost complete (that’s the installation of our new autopilot). The weather has finally improved and it’s sunny and warm most days.

A lot has been going on in the last 5 days. Mark completed the installation of our new wind instrument which meant 3 trips up the main mast. It’s always interesting hoisting Mark up the mast – the windlass (equipment that raises and lowers our anchor) does all the work pulling Mark up but I’m in charge of securing the lines and bringing him back down. All went well with the installation and Mark also put our lightning rod back up and washed the mast!!

On American Thanksgiving, our friends Julia and Brad left the dock and made their way to St. Augustine. They arrived safely on Friday afternoon and we took time off on Saturday to have dinner with them. St. Augustine was at the start of their “Night of Lights” festival – the downtown was all lit up and super busy!! We went to a restaurant called Pizzalley and had a great visit. Julia and Brad are now heading further south and will head to the Bahamas before Christmas. Hopefully we’ll see them over there at some point.

My varnish jobs are coming to an end. After 5 coats on the companionway hatch boards, we decided to take them home to finish them over Christmas. I have been working on them in the cockpit and because of that, they were always getting covered in dust, hairs, anything floating in the air. It was very frustrating so working on the final coats in the basement at home will be much better – a controlled environment!

Today (Nov. 28) Jane and Steve were splashed and are now tied up on the floating docks. They had a very smooth launch and it’s nice to have them on the dock with us. The boat yard seems to be emptying out and there is a constant turn over of boats on the floating docks and pier. People are making their way south and then across to the Bahamas.

We have a haulout scheduled for Monday, Dec. 5th. The boat will be put back on the hard while we’re in Kingston for Christmas. This is a first for us. We’ve never launched, worked on the boat and then put the boat back on the hard. It will be interesting!! We’re very excited to return home for Christmas – my brother and his family will be travelling from Australia to have their first Christmas visit in 30 years or so! We’ll have loads of fun and lots of celebrating to do!!!

We’ve been working away here on the pier and the days just seem to blend together. We get up, have a good cup of coffee and some breakfast and then we’re off! I head to the cockpit to continue the almost endless job of varnishing our cockpit wood and Mark stays down below to work on his 2 installations – the autopilot and the wind/speed/depth instrument. It’s become a very pleasant routine.

The weather has been quite chilly for Florida! We’ve been running our heating to keep out the evening chill and then again in the morning to heat up the boat. We’ve also had lots of rain which has made working on outside jobs a bit challenging. Yesterday we managed to get the dinghy moved from the bow to its place on the davits at the stern. It was a good day for outdoor work and the job went well.

Although we’ve been working hard on our jobs, we’ve also had some time to visit with our friends on the dock!! Julia and Brad (on Alizarin) are tied up at the floating docks right behind us – we can actually yell to them from our stern quite easily. We had one very fun night on their boat – a great meal and a bit too much adult drinks😁. We all had a slow next day!!

We’re now starting to look at our return to Kingston. Mark booked our haul out today – it’s scheduled for Dec. 5th. That’s our goal – get as much done as possible by then. We’re doing well and I’m confident we’ll be good to go by that date.

Time seems to be flying by as we continue working on our boat jobs. As always, there are many projects to be completed before we head to the Bahamas. Mark has 3 major jobs – the installation of 3 new items – lithium batteries, auto pilot and the meter for speed, wind and depth. My major project is restoring the exterior wood.

On Sunday, Mark started the installation of our 3 new lithium batteries. These batteries replace 2 lead batteries and this bank of 3 will be our house batteries. They will supply power to all our house systems when we’re not plugged in at a dock. The 3 batteries fit perfectly in the space where the old ones were and with a bit of McGivering, Mark got the batteries working properly. We still have one large lead battery that is used to start the engine and this battery will now be recharged through the lithiums. It was a rather tricky installation with lots of wiring running under the floorboards. It took 3 days to get all the parts working together.

The last few days I’ve been stripping the wood in our cockpit. We’ve not touched this wood in our 12 years of ownership and it’s in pretty rough shape. This wood will need to be varnished and that’s my next step. I also spent a bit of time washing the teak cap rails, rub rails and other deck teak to get it ready for a coat of Semco (this product protects the teak from the elements).

The weather has changed quite a bit after tropical storm Nicole rolled through. Our daily temperature has been lower which has made working quite nice. We’ve had some rain but not a lot and our deck is getting rather dirty. Once all the wood has had the semco applied, the deck will need a good scrubbing.

One of the fun parts of all the boat jobs is ordering stuff (like missing parts, adapters, new items etc). We’ve had lots of packages arriving to the office – it’s like Christmas on our boat! Today we picked up 5 packages with all kinds of goodies inside! Loads of fun!

The next job on Mark’s list is the autopilot installation. This will be a fairly complicated project but hopefully it will go smoothly. The autopilot allows us to relax at the helm as “auto” steers the sailboat. Our old system was failing at the end of last season so it will be good to have a new system.

I never thought I’d say this but we’ve just experienced our first tropical storm in Florida!! Hurricane Nicole hit south-eastern Florida early Thursday morning and we had tropical storm weather in Green Cove Springs.

We knew the storm was coming so on Wednesday we prepared our boat for high winds and rain. We stowed or tied down everything on the deck and we secured the boat with additional dock lines. At about 5pm, our dock neighbours (Barbara and John on Mojo) came to tell us to move our boat onto the solid wood wall of the pier because the rising river could put our fenders above the lower wood platform. So out we went and with their help, we moved the boat about 10ft forward and tied up to the wood wall. It took a bit of time to change all the dock lines for our new position on the pier. In the end, we had 2 bow lines, 3 spring lines and 2 stern lines. We were ready for the storm.

Things were not bad overnight. Hurricane Nicole came ashore at Vero Beach (the place we spent about 6 weeks at last year) at 1 am Thursday and was down graded to a tropical storm. We started feeling the full impact of the storm early in the morning. By mid morning the rain was pouring down sideways and we were seeing sustained winds in the low 30kts with gusts in the low 40kts. The wind direction had also changed from northeast to east / southeast. This new wind direction pushed our boat into the wooded wall. Thank goodness our boat has rub rails – these rails (along with the fenders) took all the force and weight of our boat. Several times during the day we had to move our fenders around to protect the side of the boat. The water level was rising and as we moved up the wall, some of our fenders got squished backwards. At one point, we had Steve, Jane and a guy we don’t know, help push the boat off the wall so I could move fenders into better positions. We also had some help from Holland Marine – they brought over another fender to help us out. By the end of the day, we had 7 fenders out!!

It was a long day with some crazy rain and wind but in the light of Friday morning, I can tell you that Crimson Kathryn and her crew rode out the storm well with only one casualty – our really big fender got squished and it popped!! Well we found that fender many years ago and it didn’t owe us anything!! Time to buy 2 new fenders!!

All the hard work this past week was worth it! Crimson Kathryn was splashed on Monday, Nov. 7th at 11 am! We spent one night sleeping on the boat in the yard and that was enough for me! I’m not a big fan of ladders and it’s worse when you have to go up and down at night (no functional toilets on the boat when we’re on the hard)!

Sunday and Monday were busy days as we finished all the must be completed jobs before launch. Mark worked on installing our new wind, speed and depth meter – part of this meter goes in a through hull so it has contact with the water. Mark removed the old speed meter that hasn’t worked in probably 10 years and used the same through hull for the new one! This job was completed first thing Monday morning – sure don’t want to go in the water with a hole in the forward bilge!!

I spent Sunday doing the last 2 coats of varnish on our main cabin wood! I was only putting 4 coats on the wood that was stripped down to bare wood so it only took a few hours to do this small area. Looking at the wood now I can honestly say it was all worth the effort and the sore muscles!! It looks beautiful!

Our Monday launch came earlier in the day then we expected but we were ready! Holland Marine did a good job getting the boat onto the travel lift and into the water. Once in the water and at the launch dock, Mark started the engine (and it worked well) and tested the steering. With the help of Jane, Steve, Julia and Brad, we got Crimson Kathryn moved to the Reynolds Park pier. We are now firmly tied up on the south side of the big pier.

The goal now is to slow down a bit and work through our other boat jobs. It won’t be all work now – we’ll have to time kick back a bit. Last night (Monday) we had a lovely get together on Julia and Brad’s boat. We were joined by Jane and Steve plus a couple we didn’t know, Jackie and Tom, from Georgetown, Ontario. It was a fun night and a great way to celebrate being back on the water!!

We’ve been in Florida a week now and we’ve done tons of work! Our Airbnb has been fantastic – a wonderful place to return to after a day of hard work! We had a few jobs to complete before we went back on the water and we’re pretty close to finishing them all!

At the end of last season, we had a survey of our boat done for our insurance. A survey is like having a home inspection done before you purchase. Our insurance requires a survey every 5 years and last April was our time. We had a very good surveyor examine every part of our boat and he came up with 3 items that needed to be fixed before we went back in the water. 1. Repair the crack in the port side davit (davits are supports that hold, raise and lower our dinghy in and out of the water). 2. Replace 2 broken through hulls on the sea chest. Through hulls (as the name suggests) allow water into the boat through the sea chest. This water goes to our toilets, the engine, the air-conditioner, the fridges – basically anything in our boat that requires water for cooling or flushing! 3. Clean the bilge a bit better.

Okay it’s super important to get all the survey items completed before launch!! Mark started our work week (from hell 😁) getting the davit ready for repair. We had a welder come on Tuesday – he repaired the crack and also added a gate at the stern! This gate will make it easier for Mark to get onto the boat after the dinghy is secured in the davits. The welder was excellent and he did the repair and new gate opening in about 2.5 hours!! Job 1 done!!

The next job Mark moved on to was the replacement of the through hulls. This turned out to be a beastly job! It was the handles of the through hulls that were broken but removing the 40 plus year old valves turned out to be a huge challenge!!! Mark spent several hours working on their removal and finally had success after using a heat gun and some large wrenches. We went to a marine store in St. Augustine to buy new valves and this job was completed by Thursday!! 2 jobs done! The last job – bilge cleaning can be done while we’re in the water so no big rush for this one. Mark has other out of the water jobs that he is currently working on – cleaning and waxing the hull, adding our new name decals and installing our new wind, depth and speed meter (part of it needs to be placed in a through hull).

While Mark was working on these survey requirements, I decided to refinish the interior teak. We’ve had some water damage to the interior teak over the years and with our long Covid storage that damage had become very obvious, especially around our port lights. That area was in desperate need of refinishing so I thought it would be good to do as much of the interior teak as possible – big mistake!! Man our boat has a lot of interior wood and my poor aching arm muscles are proof of that!!! I started stripping and sanding the main cabin on Monday. It’s now Saturday night and the varnishing is almost completed! It’s been a long strenuous job but in the end our main cabin will look awesome!!

It’s now Saturday night! We move out of our Airbnb tomorrow morning and move onto a boat in disarray!! The main cabin is still a mess but the aft cabin is clean and ready for sleeping!! We’re super hopeful that the boat will be splashed on Monday but at the latest Tuesday!! We’ll continue to work on projects but at a less feverish pace! Very much looking forward to that!!

It’s so good to be back in Florida and more importantly, to be back at the boat!! We left Canada at 11:50am on Oct. 29th, drove straight to Florida and arrived on Oct. 30 at 8:30am. It was a good drive – light traffic and good weather. Our only slow down was crossing the border at Thousand Island Bridge. They were actually stopping traffic before the first toll because the US border control was backed-up. It took about an hour to get into the USA. I guess everyone thought Oct. 29 was a good driving day!!

We went directly to the boat and at first glance we could see that Hurricane Ian had done a little bit of damage to our tarp coverings. We had a big gray tarp over the cockpit area and it was hanging down the side almost totally detached. When that tarp blew off, it did some damage – it broke the radio antenna for our Sirius satellite radio (which was in the cockpit) and it dislodged our boarding ladder and the fishing hook – neither of these caused any damage. Although the exterior looked a bit messed up, the interior was in great shape!! We had no water inside and there was very little mold (just in the usual spots). Clean up inside will be very easy and will not require any extra work (I’m super happy about that)!

So you arrive at your destination early in the morning after driving 20 hours – what would you do?? Relax or work?? Work of course 😁! First job was to get the dangling tarp off and remove the green shade cover. After removing those items, we saw that the deck was dirty but not too bad and that the cockpit also needed a good cleaning. I started with the cockpit and Mark went to work on the davit (the support at the stern that holds our dinghy). At the end of last season we had a survey of the boat done for insurance purposes. A survey is just like a home inspection and our survey highlighted 3 things that needed to be fixed before we go back on the water: 1. Fix the crack in the stainless steal davit on the port side. 2. Fix the through-hull handles on the sea chest. And 3. Clean the bilge a bit more. We will get all 3 items done this week before we get splashed!!

We started our second day slightly late – we definitely needed a sleep in after the long drive! Our jobs today included more cleaning plus one of the survey “must do” items. Mark spent the morning getting all the welding jobs ready. The davit crack needs to be welded so we’ve hired a welder to do that job and while he’s on the boat, Mark has planned an additional job – to make a gate in the stern rail so it will be easier for Mark to get on the boat from the dinghy. Mark spent the morning cutting the stainless steel rails to make the gate. I spent the morning moving all the enclosure pieces into the cockpit and sorting inside the boat.

After lunch we both had new jobs. Mark used our boat neighbour‘s hose to wash the deck (a much needed thing!!)? I started my big job for this month – refinishing wood!! After 12 years of ownership, Crimson Kathryn is showing a bit of her age when it comes to the wood on the boat. I’ve spent the past few years working on the exterior wood and now it’s time to concentrate on the interior wood and the other wood surfaces in the cockpit. Today I started with sanding the aft cabin companionway hatch board. At the end of the day, I put the enclosure up and moved most of the cockpit cushions from inside the boat into the cockpit!!

We had a very productive day and are ready for day 3 tomorrow. The welder (who checked out the job today around 3pm) will arrive at 9am to do that job and we’ll continue to work away at the prelaunch jobs!