UP COMING EVENTS

Don't forget , we have two events to look forward to this month. 

 

On this Saturday, August 10th, let's all get together on the Club House Patio for the BCYC Bar-B-Q. 

Cancel that.  I've just been informed that, this has now been rescheduled for next Saturday August 17th @ 6:00pm 

That's the latest. 

 

Then on August 24th we have the annual Corn Roast to look forward to. 

 

I would tell you to mark your calendars, but obviously you have to correct your calendars. 

 

 

 

LET'S ALL JOIN IN

 

 

 

 

 

A STORY ABOUT DOG GUESTS ON BOARD

Now that it is over and we have all survived it, I will convey the story of

FELIX

 

 

"Felix and the GARBAGE". 

This happened more than once.  One time I had just cooked liver and onions and had put into the garbage, all of the left over flour from dredging the liver.  You can imagine what a mess that made, but I didn't think to get

a picture of it that time. We finally learned to always put the garbage up, when we left Felix alone on board. 

Howling

If we leave him on the boat he howls that wailing howl that only Beagles seem to have mastered. 

 

Aggression to all other dogs. 

One of our neighbours has and American Bulldog named Diesel.  Now these are very powerful and tenacious dogs.  Well the first time Felix saw him, he walked right up to him and before Dan knew what happened, he bit Diesel, right in the face.  He is lucky to have survived that stupid move.  He's lucky Diesel is such a sweet and gentle dog and was quite taken aback by the attack that he didn't even react. 

 

 

MISTY

 

Is getting old. 

 

Misty is a sweet little thing, but I think she is getting a little senile, as she seems to get distracted easily.  Sometimes when she is eating, or when she is supposed to be out doing her business, she will just stop and stare off into the distance.  I always wonder, what is she thinking of. 

 

Where she sleeps. 

She has taken to sleeping on my clothing.  I have a storage area under my bed with no door on it.  At first, I chased her out of there, so now she waits until I'm asleep then she sneaks into that cabinet and sleeps on my cloths.  Every morning when I get up she comes out of there stretching and yawning. 

 

 Cleanliness. 

 

More than once I have had to give Misty a soak in a tub.  There is nothing that shows dirt like a white dog.   

 

 

 

 

ALL OF THEM




Once you have fed them once, they follow you everywhere. 

So, you can never have a meal without an audience.   

 

 

 

We all survived and I think they had a good time.  But, I know they will be really glad to see their own pack.  I'm sure we do things differently than they are used to and I don't know if we trained them or they trained us. 

 

 

 

 

 

DIY: RE-BUILDING THE PILOT HOUSE ROOF

One of the most damaged parts of Thunderbird when we purchased her was the pilot house roof.  This roofs interior was very decorative, with beautiful inlays, (visible at the end of this blog) but was originally built with a huge hatch in the centre of it.  This hatch was located right up above the engine hatches, so that with engine hatches and roof hatch removed the engine could be lifted straight out with a crane.  Well, this upper hatch had been leaking for years.  The leaking in fact was starting to show up on the mahogany interior finishes.  So, the roof repair became our top priority

The boat was sitting in our yard at the time.  Because of the weight of the centre hatch, the entire roof was sagging slightly and therefore the water was laying on it and not running off.  Dan tried to figure out ways to straighten, reinforce and strengthen it, all to no avail and we had to face the inevitable, the roof had to come off.  In researching this project we found out from a couple of diesel mechanics that her engine was in good shape but if it ever died, it could be stripped down, and would be able to be removed out one of the side doors.  But it didn't look like that was ever going to be necessary.  So the decision was made to rebuild the roof without a hatch. 

This is a picture of Thunderbird without her fly bridge.

That fall, we started the process of deconstruction.  First we removed the fly bridge, arranged for it to be painted as it was still the original bare aluminium, and we ordered the huge decal for her name to go on that fly bridge.  

Then we started removing all the interior ceiling woodwork.  As we removed each piece, we numbered them in the hopes of salvaging as much as possible and putting this puzzle back together again.  We took the large hatch down into our basement to salvage what we could of the decorative inlays that were on it.  When we got to the main cross bracing beams we found a few that were undamaged so Dan carefully removed them and took them, some pictures of the original roof shape and many many measurements to a custom carpentry shop to have them reproduced.  She ended up totally open to the sky.  Then we tarped her down for the winter and hopefully we would solve this problem in the spring. 

Armed with our new beautifully shaped structural beams we started the re-building process that next spring.  Our new carpenter JCK Millworks did a fabulous job.  Everything went together perfectly.  Then came the process of many thin layers of plywood kerffed and glued into place onto those beams to form the curve of the roof, as the original had looked, only with out the hatch.  Layer after layer kerffed, glued and screwed.  Another old expertise brought back into use.  Dan learned to kerf boards to bend them around corners when we built our Motorhome many years ago.  So the roof started to take shape and it was stronger than the original.  It still needed to be fibre glassed, but that would be done when we got the boat back out to Gimli.  For now it was time to turn our attention to the interior. 

We had a huge pile of interior pieces that needed to be sorted and hopefully put back into place.  So, we started on the outside edges and worked our way in to the centre board by board.  We had managed to strip the inlays off of the badly damaged hatch and were able to glue them onto a thin layer of plywood in the centre, where the hatch used to be.  Then we were only missing about 2 or 3 inches that we were able to fill in with some decorative trim boards.   

When Thunderbird was returned to the storage hangars in Gimli, we arranged for the roofs (pilot house and galley) to be re-fibre glassed and repainted.   And we have no more leaking. 

These are the lovely inlays the Dick Watt added to her ceilings. 

And in our travels down around southern ports, we have since been able to find a decorative brass item to compliment our beautiful ceiling inlays and I am very pleased with the results. 

 

 

THIS WAS A MAJOR STEP FORWARD IN OUR REFIT

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

ISLENDINGADAGURINN 2013 (CRUISE)

Well, it's Islendingadagurinn 2013 and I've got my Icelandic flags flying and ready for a cruise to Gimli. 

It is almost impossible to get a parking spot if you take your car to Gimli on this weekend.  At least not near any of the festivities.  So, this year we decided we would try going by boat, to see if we could catch some of the action.  We cruised on out of the harbour, to see what Gimli had to offer. 
 

It was a very relaxing cruise as all of the excess passengers can attest. 

But, unfortunately the small guest dock at Gimli harbour was full, so we did a little cruise through the outer harbour and I snapped a few pictures of the Viking Village all set up on Bill's Hill.  (One of my favorite tours)

We waved a quick hello and goodbye, to Barry on John Buoy and to Barb and Mark on Nikko. 

Then we cruised on out of Gimli harbour.  So much for that idea.  Oh, well it's not as if we haven't "Done" the Icelandic Festival before. 

Then we had a further leisurely cruise back to our home port of Boundary Creek Marina, it was certainly a lovely day for it.  In fact it was such a lovely day we should have stopped for a swim, cause you never know what tomorrow is going to bring.   

AHH, HOME SWEET HOME PORT

 

 

 

BOUNDARY CREEK MARINA IS LOOKING GREAT

 

There have been big changes around the Marina in the last month. 

 

 

 

 

 

First we all got new high and dry boarding ramps.  They are so solid to walk on and they certainly will keep us high and dry when we get those high water "wind tides".  


 

 

 

 

They also planted some shrubs on each side of the dock entrance, which should be very nice once they grow a little more. 

 

 

 

 

All in all it looks really GREAT!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISLENDINGADAGURINN - BEST DECORATED BOAT

Back in the 90s when Dan and I still owned our 25ft Bayliner, the "LINDAN" and Susan and Jack Watt had just gotten the "Thunderbird" back, a group of us decided to go to Gimli for (The Icelandic Festival)  "Islendingadagurinn".  In those days they always had a boat decorating contest on this long weekend.  Everyone would decorate their boats with streamers, flowers or balloons etc. and around noon on the Sunday we would all cruise on out of the harbour, down the beach front, then back to port.  We were definitely going to take part in that. 




 As the plans started to be made, we started to think about the boat decorating.  Our group were taking three boats to Gimli that weekend and all of us decided not to decorate our boats and to concentrate on decorating the "Thunderbird".  Being the Icelandic Festival we decided to turn her into a Viking ship.  








We divided into groups each responsible for part of the
decorations.  The Bird was given a pop up tent for a Viking Helmet, stuffed orange garbage bags shaped with clear packing tape, made her horns.  She was given a Paper Mache Dragons head as a figurehead and was decorated down each side with cardboard  Viking "Shields". 

When we were finished she certainly looked Icelandic.  We were all on board partying as we cruised on out of the harbour and got rounds of applause from the shore, as we passed along the beach. 




We didn't follow the others back to port, but instead we anchored off the beach and spent the day swimming and partying.  When we did put into port we found out that the "Thunderbird" had won first prize of a gift certificate at  Seagull's restaurant in the brand new Lakeview Hotel.  It was great fun and the prize was just a bonus to the fun we had coming up with ideas and creating the decorations. 

A REALLY GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL

 

 

DIY: THE REFIT STARTED WITH SOME WELDING

When we first purchased our retirement project.  We had her hauled to our yard.  We were living along the river on Henderson Highway at the time.  We knew we had a couple of years of work to do on her before we could ever launch, so we thought it would be convenient to have the boat in our yard to work on it, at our leisure. 

The first thing we arranged for was  the addition of large stabiliser fins to be welded down each side of the hull.   We had spoken to the commercial fishers in Gimli harbour who have similar Lake Winnipeg hulls and they highly recommended them.     These long fins, running most of the length on each side of the hull really dampen your roll, when you are being broad sided in rough water.  

The other thing was a couple of "Cat Walks"down each side of the engine.  When down in the engine room, the hull of course sloped right down under the engine.  It was very difficult for Dan to work down there without loosing his footing and having his foot or even his whole leg slip down under the engine.  So while the welder was there, Dan had him install these small open grilled platforms to each side of the engine to provide better footing while working down there.    

THEN NEXT UP WAS THE PILOT HOUSE ROOF