Hurricane Sandy 2012 part 3

On November 25, 2012 In Boat, Captains Log, News

Here’s the final installment of Hurricane Sandy… And in true Josh style it’s several months late.

First a quick confession. I had debated about not posting this as we were very close to possibly giving up and selling the boat out right after all the issues we had over winter which is why this blog hasn’t been updated recently. Part of it was to hide what damage had been found in case this would dissuade potential buyers. But after all the repairs were done and some other stuff that had gone on we decided to keep Pathfinder and continue our life on the moderately high seas.

Ok. Enough soul baring onto the Dry Dock.

When we finally were able to get going to the dry dock my Dad took the helm and I was on bilge watch duty (this is primarily because my arms are skinnier and I’m a bit more flexible than my Dad so if something happened to the plug when we were pulling out I could fix it a bit quicker in an emergency). Getting out proved to be more tricky than initially anticipated as we were extremely hard aground and backing up required several minutes over going at 1/4 power in reverse to blow out ground below us. Eventually though we managed to slowly pull backwards and into deeper water. The cruise over to the dry dock was uneventful if a bit stressful as I was running around checking for leaks etc.

Once we got to the dry dock area they weren’t quite ready for us so Dad docked us in a single smooth move into the wall just in front of dry dock ship. Honestly his docking skills are seriously mad at times. An hour or so later we met with the dry dock workers and they started to flood the old ship that they use as their floating dry dock and shortly after we were hauled into place and the dry dock started to pump itself… well… dry.

The dry dock takes about an hour or so to fully pump out but afterwards we (naturally) took a variety of photos… And ya. Pathfinder is a LOT bigger once she’s out of the water.

Quick update in between posts

On November 24, 2012 In Boat

Hey all. Sorry for the delay in the final installation of the Hurricane Sandy Saga but I’ve already got the next post after that being worked on as well. What I mean by that rambling sentence is that before I could even FINISH writing the 3rd post something else happened to Pathfinder that is blog worthy. Plus Christmas shopping, work etc. eats up time as well.

Hurricane Sandy 2012 part 2

On November 23, 2012 In Boat

And now we continue with the second instalment of “Holes in Boats and the people who live on them” in 3D.

The next few days kinda passed in a weird blur for me as J and myself were kinda sleep deprived and I was knocked out of commission for a day due to migraines (probably brought on by the stress of the hole and lack of sleep).  Ideally I’d have been on the boat to help my Dad when he got down there with the tools needed to cut through our floor along with everything else but I had to get to work (I had taken 2 days off by then right off the cuff and work was piling up). So the next part of the fix is what I had relayed to me after the work was done along with some photos I have of the work.

So the previous night J and I figured out where the hole was below the concrete using measuring tape, painters tape, and some staffs to attempt to triangulate where the hole was in relation to the floor. The hole, as we had discovered, was no where near one of the hatches through the concrete. This photo I took by shoving my hand as far under the concrete as possible helped locate where it was approximately and from that we were able to mark the floor with the tape.

PA290508.JPG

We used the staffs to triangulate where the hole was approximately from the hatch in front of the engine room and the hatch under the stairs. We found that the hole was located roughly here:

PA290509.JPG

(Actually after we measured a few dozen other times we moved our mark to the left. This photo was taken and edited hastily earlier when my Dad wanted to know where we thought the hole was)

So while I was at work my Dad and Mom came down to patch it temporarily until we could get some sort of permanent fix in place. They brought down a seriously huge hammer drill with extremely strong drill bits along with a cutting torch for the steel below and proceeded to cut through the flooring.

PB010517.JPG

There they were able to see that the hole was apparently about the size of a quarter and started to figure out what needed doing. First though they noticed that something was restricting the flow of water a little bit. What turned out to be restricting the flow was possibly the unluckiest crayfish to ever live. Apparently the poor bugger had swam underneath my boat and got sucked against the hole. He was still alive too! The thing eventually got away after my Dad accidentally ripped it’s arm off (He was trying to pull whatever it was that was jammed there free when the arm came off and that’s when they discovered it was what it was).

So the way they built the patch was first the hammered into place a wood plug into the hole as best they could. Water was still coming in so they took a piece of 2×4 with some marine epoxy on the underside of it which they put in over top of the plug and with some large clamps I had on board force the 2×4 down into position. This worked very well and the leak was stopped permanently at this point.

Originally we had planned that shortly after this we’d head on over city side and wait there to go into the Toronto Drydock when it was our time. But we all agreed that although leaving later would increase the risk of us getting stuck due to low water levels it was better that than risking finding out that there was another hole somewhere else that’d sink us in deeper water.

At this point J and I were some of the last people on the island and it was getting more and more difficult to get back and forth from city side to our home. Even more after J left and the tender schedule to the island was shortened down to running only until 2pm. I had to take a water taxi back every night and even once I had to take the ferry at the opposite end of the islands and make the hike back across to the boat. A rather long walk to do when it’s pitch black out.

Regardless though I was able to sort out the boat and get it ready for our move over to the Drydocks to see what damage had happened to Pathfinder when she was finally hauled out of the water.

To be continued…

Quick Miscellaneous Link

On November 02, 2012 In Boat

My Dad just found this link on a survivalist forum.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showpost.php?s=ca5f2a24023bea400e2cc8217b1b46f6&p=1595695&postcount=19

Good to know I’m ready for the Zombie apocalypse. :P

The Cyber Bob © 2024 Entries RSS