Chinook Arch

We had a great Christmas with our children and grandchildren in Calgary.  It is now time to start thinking about Chinook Arch and what we might expect to find when we first see her on January 1, 2009.  I have asked the yard manager to move her from the secure yard to the working yard before our arrival.  The first thing that we have to do on arrival is to check the batteries.  I tried something new this year and had a dehumidifier running on a timer several times a week throughout the off season to keep mold and mildew from growing inside the boat while it was shut up on the hard.  In order to provide for the power needed to run the dehumidifier I left a solar panel tied down on deck in order to keep the batteries charged.  My concern since we left is that the power generated by the solar panel may not be adequate to run the dehumidifier and keep the batteries charged.  I hope that we don't go back to dead batteries as they were replaced only the season before last and deep cycle batteries are very expensive and hard to find in the islands.

The second task will be to move everything inside while we clean her from bow to stern.  This serves two purposes.  First we remove any mold or mildew that may have developed and secondly it helps us to rediscover where everything is in the boat.  A boat is a very small space and we have a lot of stuff on board for living and for maintaining, operating and repairing the boat.  This stuff is literally crammed into every available nook and cranny.  The problem is that you not only forget where you may have stored a particular item but also forget exactly what you have on board.  We will often go out to buy some item only to find out several months later that we already had one (or more) aboard.  The yearly cleaning helps to remind us what we have and where it is stored.

The most important task will be to repair the hole in the hull that I had ground out last May.  When we splashed the boat in January 2008 I noticed a small crack in the hull's fiberglass just aft the keel when the boat was in the Travellift slings.  I decided to drop the boat in the water anyway and we monitored for any possible leaks.  Although no leaks appeared during our 4 months of sailing I had the crack ground out so that the fiberglass could drain and dry out over the summer months.  We now have a hole that obviously has to be repaired before we can start sailing this year.  I will hire someone for this task as I don't think that my heart condition would permit me to do this myself.  I will however have to paint the hull with antifouling paint once the fiberglass work is complete as well as buff the topsides, deck and cockpit (this removes the sun damage done to the gelcoat).  There are also a number of other tasks that need to be done such as bending on the sails and setting up the dodger, bimini, wind generator and dinghy.  All in all I believe that we should have about 2 weeks of work before we are ready to sail this year.  For this reason, we have rented a villa for the first 2 weeks while we are getting the boat ready. 

Dawn's sister Miriam and her husband Bob McClymont will be joining us for the entire month of January.  As a result we will not want to be working steadily for the first 2 weeks that we are there.  We will take time off to show Bob and Miriam around the island of Antigua.  There are some beautiful beaches nearby and a trip to the capital of St. John and to the historic Nelson Dockyards in English Harbour will be a must.  These inland trips will be taken on the local “buses” (which is quite an experience in itself).

Dawn, Miriam, Bob and I are all looking forward to getting out of the deep freeze that we have experienced in Alberta over the past 3 weeks.  It will be a pleasure to get off the plane in the tropics once again.  I am willing to bet that even after a month it will be hard for Miriam and Bob to leave that tropical paradise.