ACE First Work Party

With ACE going in the water on Fri Apr 10 (less than two weeks!), we had our first work party to get her ready to splash.

• Me
• Mike
• Michael
• Jenny
• Peter

On Friday night, it was -18 degrees Celcius, so the water at the club is still turned off.
I borrowed an electric sump pump with a connector on it for a hose.

While Mike got the gas pressure washer going, the rest of us got the shrink wrap and frame off:

The sump pumped worked well.

It was about 4 degrees Celcius out, but with the wind, the water was freezing on the hull.

End result was pretty good.  Too cold to clean/buff/wax the hull.
I think the bottom paint is Micron CSC, and looks pretty good.
We will give her a quick sand with some 400 grit paper to get her smooth.

We got the mast/boom off the mast racks and onto the lawn on stands.

We drained the oil in the saildrive:

The oil was very cold and flowed SLOWLY.  There was NO TRACE of water in the oil, meaning the seals on the lower unit are fine. When it is a little warmer, will let the rest flow out and fill with 2.2L of oil.

In the above picture, you can see the ice forming on the bottom of the hull.  You can also see the severely eroded zinc.  The replacements come this week.

I went in the cabin and  hooked up the VHF, Zeus T8 chart plotter, and Actisense NMEA 0183/2000 gateway.  Got them powered anyways.  Much work to be done here.  Spent some time tracing the wires.

CS34 Asymmetric Spinnaker

The Asymmetric Spinnaker for big Still Time is coming along.

Durk in Nova Scotia has finished cutting panels and is starting to stitch them together:

This is the head section

Five panels to go!
The others are assembled and stitched.

She is going to look great!

UPDATE: all together:

Finishing touches:

ACE Lauch Date

We were just told that ACE will be lauched on Friday April 10th; that is two weekends away!

To be ready for launch we need to do the following:

• remove shrink wrap
• power wash the bottom
• pole sand the bottom
• touch up bottom paint
• replace zinks on motor
• lubricate folding prop
• repair leaky head through hull
• de-winterize the motor
• clean/wax hull

The 14 day forecast does not look good; minus nine degrees today and most of the next couple weeks.  It will be a challenge to get all this done.

The water at the club probably won't be turned on until Easter weekend (weekend before launch).

ACE Footholds

Michael brought the new carbon fiber footholds that we had made up:

There will work nicely, and weigh NOTHING.

ACE B&G Zeus Touch 8

Brought one of the new chart plotters to the boat.

They will fit nicely, but we will probably remove the compasses that we really don't use.

ACE Main Sail

Michael Cullen and I brought the racing main for ACE upstairs in the WYC Club House.

What a large sail!

The main is in great shape, only sailed for one season.

However, the leach line needs to be replaced, and we need a reef put on to compete in the Lake Ontario 300.  Also need the bolt rope repair done at the head.

We took the battens out and flaked/folded the sail to be sent to Durk for the work.

CS34 Front Hatch

It has been so cold and we have had so much snow, that I really haven't been able to make it on big Still Time to check her since before Christmas!

Temperatures got above 10 degrees Celcius today, so I waded through about 2ft on snow to get on the CS34:

The cover has held up well; no rips!

Hooked of some power to get the batteries charging.

Went below and it was surprisingly warm.

The batteries were still pretty much full, so no worries.

Took some time to remove the forward Lewmar hatch.  All I had to do was remove two pins from the hinges. 

The V-Berth hatch is original and the gaskets are hard and compressed.  During a hard rain, or pressure watch, the V-Berth gets wet.  It had gotten so bad this year, that when we weren't on the boat, we would put a large bowl in the V-Berth to catch water.  During a hard rain, the bowl would catch a couple of litres of water.

Compressed Gasket

Crazed glass

Tired Gasket

Chris Mace from the club turned me onto a company called Atkins & Hoyle out of Napanee who specializes is hatch lens and gasket replacement.

Going to get this done in the next couple of weeks.

UPDATE:

The company in Napanee cannot get the gasket material.

Contacted Hatchmasters in Conneticut who specialize refurbishing hatches like this.
The cost is $291US to replace all gasket and lens (plus shipping).

However, they can't have it done in time for launch, so I will get it done next winter.

Volvo Ocean Race Game Leg 4

Out of over 180,000 racers