from the boatyard

...had a beautiful Spring day to bring the boat back to Babylon. Yesterday it was BLOWING and today it was just sweet. And what made it better was seeing Alli and Jack on the main dock as I sailed by!

to the boatyard

...from my 30 November sail to the boatyard. The race between the Redwing and the sunset ended in a tie - I got to the creek under a pink and orange sky and tied up in the dark. Sleep sweet, Redwing. See you in the Spring!

1969 - Hull #61, I presume?

etsy!

I highly recommend you check out some of the art at bowsprite's etsy store. The image above is hers. Look at the feathering of the waves there! There's a bunch of great stuff: Coasties, tugs, schooners!, wildlife, and even some stationery kind of stuff.

I just picked up a sweet watercolor of three schooners for our house!

how'd the boat fare?

One of the surprises during the storm was how well the boat did. Through a combination of bad timing and being cheap, I left the boat in and doubled the lines. I know many people who took their boats out. By the time we left the house, poor Redwing was pretty much alone to fight out the storm. Almost all of its slip-mates had headed for drier ground. In many cases this turned out to be a bad decision.

Here's a clam boat, or tong boat, tied off to a stop sign. That must have been a sight when the water was still high.

Just around the corner from the clam boat. Both these boats would have had travel down the road. Just behind this Robalo is the creek and the bay. Who knows where this thing would have ended up if someone didn't tie it off.

 Man down.

This was really the most unbelievable wreck site of the storm. When the water came up, it lifted all of the boats at this marina, and pushed them toward the fence, where they stacked up on each other. Every boat in the yard was on the ground, on the fence, or in the street. It was hard to get a picture of it because it was just such an overwhelming mess.

...some post-Sandy shots from my neighborhood

That there is a pretty low barometer reading, the lowest I have ever specifically seen or experienced, as far as I know. I'm not sure how low the barometer was during Irene, or even Gloria, the worst hurricanes I have experienced as a Long Islander. The text behind the needle says, "usually reaches this section for tornadoes."I took this picture at about 5:30 on 29 October 2012.

This is Mrs. Redwing, sporting her foulies, measuring the high-water mark behind our front door. Just about 23".

Feel free to park in the driveway, if you can fit.

This is off the back of the Redwing. All this water was in our house. It reeked. We raised some of the furniture before we left, just in case we had some water in the house, but we didn't expect two feet. This water, complete with oily sheen, was in our freezer drawer and in pots and pans.

Hurricane Sandy, etc...

The hurricane was no joke this time! We left the night before, like we did last year for Irene, because of the baby. If we got stuck...it's just not smart to risk it when we have a safe place to go. And this time Jack had a fever and an ear infection the day before the storm, so it made even more sense to leave. We planned to leave Tuesday morning, but then an evacuation order came from the county, so we went to Alli's parents. Many of my neighbors stayed only to leave as the Tuesday night high tide began to creep toward the houses. Everyone was gone by 9pm, an hour before high tide, and our houses already had flood-water in them.

The Redwing stayed in and was fine. Everyone was scrambling for a place in a boatyard, including me. But my yard wanted $600 for the storm haul, only to then put me back in the water, and then charge me, full price, again after Thanksgiving to haul the boat for the winter. So it was partly me being cheap and taking a gamble, hedging that the storm surge was mostly hype, and confidence that I could secure the boat just fine. I doubled the lines, pumped the bilge, lashed down the mainsail, and took off the jib. The single/first lines all snapped, every one, and the doubles/seconds all worked. I was worried that the lines would hold down the boat and allow water to come over the sides - we'd get pooped! - or go down the exhaust and swamp the engine (just one week after I fixed it for good!). Neither scenario came to pass, although I was prepared to see the boat on the bottom of the slip. This pic of the boat is from 30 October.

Social media was really helpful this time: I monitored #babylon and #babylonvillage on instagram and watched a couple of the Babylon village facebook pages and the Patch Twitter account for updates on the village. I felt pretty informed. South of us all hell was breaking loose: one guy in particular was basically losing it live on facebook - not easy to watch/read - as his neighborhood was destroyed around him and as boats floated down the block past his house. Our block was cut off, so I didn't really hear anything until the next morning, when I got texts and pics from guys on bicycles who reported the boat was fine. And our big magnolia survived, too! The house was not, however.

We have a small cape: most of the house is on the first floor, with two bedrooms upstairs. Everything on the first floor was destroyed. We had two feet of water in/around the house...it picked up furniture, knocked over book shelves, and obviously soaked everything. We opened drawers of pots and pans to find, for example, the spaghetti pot filled with oily water (We could barely breathe in the house, or even outside, from the gas in the water). All those particle board bookshelves from IKEA soaked up that OilWater like sponges. The bottom of the garage door was bent in from the force of the water, and one panel busted out. The garage looked like a someone threw a stick of dynamite in there; everything was toppled. All sorts of debris - a felt rug-thing, boards from docks, someone's garbage barrel (with handles on the inside for some inexplicable reason), plywood, things from our garage - all poured out onto the driveway.

The Crumbolsts came out on Wednesday and helped us straighten up and they just hammered all day. I can't even list everything they did, but their visit helped a lot. Food, water, beer, and help. The most amazing part was that they were able to clean out and organize the entire garage while we worked with the mold remediation guy (who began on Thursday).

So. We had to have everything removed to treat for mold and funk. And by everything, I mean, every single thing from 4' down. All of the furniture, appliances, walls, insulation, receptacles, cabinets, and even the floor! We had a mold remediation company, and I strongly recommend them: KleenBreeze. If this happens again, you should call him so he can come over to your house right after he finishes tearing out our house. Again. Kevin and his crew were outstanding: they tore out the wet, amngled house parts, then dried everything with a big ass dehumidifier and half a dozen fans going 24/day with a generator, and then cleaned and sprayed fungicide on all the floors and studs. We're lucky that a friend of our's was able to get this guy to our house on Wednesday afternoon. Thanks, Jemanda!

We also had the flood insurance adjustor come, and even FEMA come down to inspect pretty soon after the storm. We were lucky from what we are hearing from our neighbors and co-workers. Even our homeowner's insurance guy got to our house within a week.

It's sad to see our whole house, basically, go into a dumpster, but I have to say that we are one of the lucky ones. We've made good progress toward restarting, especially compared to our neighbors. And we have a warm, dry, and safe place to stay. A family who lives behind us was headed to a shelter because the place she was staying at was too cold for her asthmatic kid. I mean, how do you complain about anything with stories like these all around you? Poor me! All my Patrick O'Brian books are gone! This isn't fair!

There is a lot of real destruction out here right next to a lot of fake destruction - or toys destruction: boats on top of each other, though some of the wrecked boats are guys who still do actual clamming. Hearing them complain on that relief telethon about the destroyed boardwalk made my blood boil. (even now, today, hundreds of people gathered to mourn the loss of the boardwalk in Long Beach. Get a grip, people!)

But I have to say, most people are doing/did the right thing. In my little perfect, pleasant village the locals who were not affected rallied at 9am every day for weeks after the storm to go around town with coffee, sandwiches, warm clothes, and help. We had about 15 friends and friends of friends at our house on the Saturday after the storm to just help get everything cleaned up, and must have had a dozen volunteers come by to offer even more help. We sent them away, but it was nice to know help was there for the asking. Maybe the most surprising act of kindness was the lady who walked up the driveway with a bag full of home-made cookies that her middle school students made! She drove them in from Westchester! Thank you, "Jose P. in the 8th grade" for your delicious chocolate chip cookies!

I'll spend a few posts sharing some pics from the storm. Here's a pic from The Atlantic that might as well have been from the boatyard up the creek from me. Or down the creek.

Redwing is for sale!

Now that we have a baby, a bigger boat is in order. The Redwing is for sale! We have our eye on a new good, old boat, but we can't have two sailboats at the same time and so we're looking to make a move quickly!

This is sort of a sneak peek - once the boat is launched the ads will go out far and wide!

Spread the word!

mast step rebuild

 One of the notorious weaknesses of C&Cs is the deck-stepped mast. When I got the boat from the previous owner I noticed the deck was sort of bowed in where the mast sits on the cabin top. Over the next few years I noticed it getting worse and worse, and got nervous that some catastrophe would take place. So this year I decided to take care of it once and for all.

While it was in the boatyard, I had a local fiberglass guy come and take a look. His plan was to take off the metal mast-step, core out the fiberglass, reinforce it with wood or marine plywood, glass that all in, and put the shoe back on. It turned out that the metal had become too curved to be reused, so we had to manufacture a new one. The new one is what you see here in this picture. It looks great. All the holes are for the lines that are led aft to the cockpit. Almost every control line leads back to rope clutches, making single-handing easier.

This is what it looks like from inside: this is a teak box he built to cover the wires and the seams of the new fiberglass. Yes the wet locker and head door are still fully operational.

all back together

Old Ford Blue

Once everything was primed, I hit it with some Old Ford Blue. I've seen some Atomic 4s in red, or that Moyer Marine kind of bronze color - which is also the color that Montrose Electric used when they rebuilt my alternator and starter. The blue kind of makes it look classic and classy at the same time.

spray on

Once everything was removed from the engine compartment we took the block to a joint in Amityville - they have the technology; they can rebuild him - and I primed everything I could.

Rust monster

 You can see how rusted the pistons and cylinders got. Basically fused together. The engine shop said that three of them came out fine, but the 4th was a real mother. No way I was getting them out with slippery lubricants and the puny force of a hand crank.

And in this one you can get a sense of the rest of the damage to the rest of the engine. Now that all of the parts of the engine were off and disassembled, Crumbolst and I took the block and new parts to the engine shop. And then, while I waited and waited, I painted the engine.

...and you're out!

 This first picture is where the engine would be sitting. What you can see in this picture is: the coupling to the propeller shaft and the cutlass bearing; the clear-ish tube is the bilge pump hose; in the top right corner is the exhaust pipe; and at the bottom of the picture is the gear shift lever. Also, you can see what a dirty mess it was under the engine. I try to keep the boat as clean as possible, but there are some areas my hands just can't reach.

I guess this picture is sort of upside down, but since the engine is on its side, it doesn't really matter. What we have here is the entire Atomic 4. To the left is the front of the engine, where the flywheel is, and to the right, where the gear shift ever is, the transmission. You can also see where the oil pan separates from the rest of the block. This is just after I learned about those two long bolts holding the oil pan to the transmission. What a dirty, dirty engine. I have always wanted to pull it to clean and paint under and around the engine, and give the engine a makeover, so this is sort of a blessing in disguise.