During the summer season we were hard aground for several weeks and even when we left port we had to essentially throttle the ship way up to pull ourselves off the mud. Aside from that the way we knew we were hard aground was the fact that the ship wasn’t moving at all when we were on it. This is common in the latter days of summer and fall since the water levels typically slowly get lower and lower. Fortunately Pathfinder has the umph to pull itself off (T-Boats of my sort were designed to do just that in war time).

Fast forward to now.

We have ice in the harbour. LOADS of it. In my previous post you can see the ice there. What you can’t see is how thick it was. 4 to 5 inches. Enough that one could stand on it even though one shouldn’t try (I tested my weight on it while holding onto the ship to make sure I wasn’t going to fall in). Oddly enough this had the same effect as being hard aground. The ship simply wasn’t moving anywhere and was even heeled over at about 5 to 10 degrees (this was probably due to the ice pushing against us which pushed us against the ice on the side of the concrete wall). Anyways we chopped away at the ice and Dad installed an agitator from our friends at HMP and we seem to have leveled out significantly. Thanks Dad!

Basically what an agitator is and does is that it’s a fan/propeller that you put below the ice and have it stir up the warmer water just below the surface. 2 things happen then. Ice doesn’t form on moving water so it keeps any new ice from forming. Secondly any existing ice will be turned to slush since it is warmer water below the ice (although it’s only just above freezing below the ice that is “warmer” than the ice. So it melts it.).

Until next time. Later all.

1 thing that is a bit of a bummer and bonus about living in Toronto and global warming is that winter doesn’t really start until mid January now. This sucks because frankly I like snow. Snow makes things nice and white (Toronto looks clean while its snowing for instance!), it also has a sound dampening effect on the city itself so you can really just enjoy the snow by yourself despite all the people in the city. Basically the more winter is like Charlie Browns Christmas the better. The part that sucks mind you is that you need it to be cold to have snow… which wouldn’t be a big issue if we still weren’t trying to iron out heating on the boat at the moment but at current we do have to abandon ship once in a while because it’ll get too cold. I hope by this week to get most of the radiators attached. This weekend will be the big push for completing the heating system, but FRIDAY I’m taking off because I’m off to the Toronto Boat Show. I hope to score some deals or at least find out what sort of gear I can get and is available this year to make life more comfortable on the ship.

Although I’m making the boat sound slightly uncomfortable it really is my favourite place in Toronto. The neighbors are quiet, the view is dynamite, and the commute is awesome (10 minute walk). Plus every time I work on it there’s a noticeable difference on the interior. Before the weekend I put down some more plywood flooring to get ready for the radiator up in the pilot house and earlier in the week I installed the radiator in the bathroom. So we’re making good progress. Just need to invent the 48hr day I think.

Here’s a few choice pictures of Pathfinder during the snow storm we had just last week. 6 inches is quite a lot for Toronto really lately especially within like 10hrs or so (basically this all fell overnight).