Man it got cold fast. Glad I'm not in Buffalo! I pulled the batteries and measured up for a few winter project. I mentioned the exhaust but I have to source the gaskets. The place I get Universal parts from has changed their system. They don't ship to Canada. I will have to call them up. Not touching it until those gaskets are in my hand! Working on speaker brackets for the cockpit and I want to replace the bracket that holds the flotation ring on the stern rail.
Oil is changed and the motor is winterized.

Took the mutt out to Point Pelee for the remainder of the day. Here I explain hole digging while Marley gives me the "You're insane" look.

Well that's a wrap for 2014. I took this shot traveling
down the Detroit river toward my winter storage area. These ships, both Ocean going and Lakers were lined up to get road salt for the coming winter.
I winterized the engine and did an oil change. The tanks are flushed with pink antifreeze. Just have to pull the batteries and wrap things up. I'll get some projects done during the Hell that is winter.

This is going to be one of my winter projects. The exhaust is leaking. I guess it's a pin hole in the weld. Looking at the crappy job here, it doesn't surprise me. I noticed that the engine sounded a little different a month back. This is a bit of a learning curve. I have to find out where you get this high heat wrap and I plan on pulling the manifold off which means getting a new gasket. All this ugly will finally be gone. I have two speakers to mount in the cockpit and some little jobs such as converting all the lights to LED. I think back to my power boats and all the problems that I had, I think Sailors complain to much! The little diesel always starts and the boat always gets me where I am going and home again. It's a little like a sports car from England. You have to open the hood once in a while and nose around. (The exhaust for example) but more often than not, you find little or nothing wrong. A power boat with all that bashing through the waves constantly develops problems (VERY EXPENSIVE ONES!!!). Yeah, I don't go fast, but I always get there.

 Last day of Summer on Lake St.Clair.

Detroit from a distance. Boat is running and sailing great! I hope to get out on the weekend as it is suppose to be warm. Hard to believe but in a few months there will be ice floating by.

Port Credit boat show

We ran up to the port Credit boat show on the weekend. The sailboat that caught our interest was a Morgan / Catalina 38.1 center cockpit. We were blown away by the amount of room below created by the raised cockpit. The bedroom in the stern has a large comfortable bed. It ticked a lot of boxes.

This particular example was over priced but this proves out a few theories we have. 1#- You can not get the feel for a boats size from pictures, you have to see it.
 2# -There is a boat under 40  feet that will work for us.
 We are getting an early fall but hopefully we will get a few more sails in before the long freeze. The day is getting closer when we sail south and skip a few of them!!

We continue our search for a bigger boat. Looked at a 38.4 Morgan in Lasalle Michigan yesterday. Very nice but it failed the important question. "Could you handle living in this cabin for two years?" NO! The beds were small and uncomfortable. Great boat for a week away but at the end of the week you would be looking forward to your bed at home. We were going to look at a 37 Tartan but it has tighter quarters than the Morgan. I don't want any more boat than necessary but the layout has to work. Designers always short-sheet the beds in favor of features like 'Spacious Saloon' or 'five heads!'  Our search continues. We met a couple on a Corbin 39 last week. Nice ride, I will have to keep an eye out for one to look at. We are going to check out a Brewer 44 in Tampa this fall. A little on the huge side but the more I see, the better informed I am. I make my intentions clear to people selling their vessels. I just need to see it for an hour and nothing more. If the layout doesn't work for us, we are on our way. Still- they get very upset with you. I have sold four boats and I know what a PITA it is. I figure that I will be up front about my interest and requirements and ask them for an hour at their convenience. Never ask for a ride out or anything else. That's as fair as I can be.

AUGUST! ARE YOU KIDDING!

AUGUST! ARE YOU KIDDING!!
A trip up Lake Huron never materialized this year. I worked hard to get the boat ready but in the end we called it off. The water up there is really cold and the weather patterns are odd for late July. I watched the weather and estimated where we would have been. We would have been stuck twice! I figure at least a 2 or 3 day stint in either Tawa or Lexington harbors due to high winds from both northerly and the South easterly directions and above 20 knots. Waves were 2 meters...not fun. We took off on a road trip to see some more sailboats. First a 36 Nauticat in Niagara on the lake. I had forgotten what a circus this is. The boat was in terrible condition with 'upgrades' that included a cheap fridge from Home Depot attached to a 3000 watt inverter attached to a single deep cell battery. The teak deck had been sanded with a disk grinder which left deep gouges, then finished with deck stain from- you guessed it...Home Depot. We ran away.
The next stop was very disappointing for me, I have always been a fan of Whitby 42's. We drove to Port Credit near Toronto to see a real beauty.
 I am 6'1" and my wife is 5' 10". We didn't fit in the boat! The alley that takes you to the aft cabin was so small we had to sort of bunch up and push through and then reverse to get out. I couldn't believe how small the beds were. It was built for shorter people than us, BUMMER!
Next stop was a Reliance 44 in Whitby Ontario. This boat was a surprise. It needed a lot of work but the price was right. Very roomy with big beds. I just don't think I am up to such a big project at this point in my life, also she had a full keel with a deep draft that won't work in the Bahamas.
On to Midland Ontario to see a Bristol 43.3. The boat was sold 10 seconds after we boarded her. God! What a nice vessel. We climbed off after an hour to meet the Broker who was busy with someone else. Before we shouted "SOLD! " He let us know that she had come off her mooring in a storm on Georgian bay and pounded on the rocks for days. The hull was badly damaged along with the skeg. The survey showed the repairs were not done correctly. BUMMER!
Then we saw the best boat I ever had the privilege to board. A Cartwright 43. The owner had ordered it as an empty hull in '89 and built it his way. This man was a Tool and Die maker. His workmanship was outstanding. The table was made from a slab of Birdseye maple. The Engine was cleverly hidden under the sink unit which tilted back like something out of a Bond movie. The boat is flawless.....but- the owner is 5' 5" and his wife was 5' tall. The beds were to small, the table to low. The dodger was level with my neck when I stood at the wheel. It would be a gigantic task to change all of this and a crime to destroy the workmanship in this vessel. I learned a lot and will keep looking while enjoying my O'Day .

A trip up to Harsons Island in the St.Clair river. The wind was blowing twenty knots all night!

The big keel on the BIG Reliance 44.