A look down at our 'house' from the park on Sunset Hill.  ~Paul   ETC

   Winter is here and we're nice and toasty aboard Kingsley with the indoor oil (plug-in) heater running, the indoor propane stove helping us cook tasty dinners, and the water heater/pressure kicking up the occasional warm shower...meanwhile, condensation is occurring.
   From doing our regular blog and magazine reading, even before buying a boat, we knew the threat is always there. Warm without too much airflow inside and cold outside is the perfect recipe for a rising humidity level. That combined with Kingsley's (we still love ya girl!) lack of insulation and two humans breathing all the time (and who knows what kind of moisture Kali gives off) and well, you get the picture - drops of water show up in a few spots.
   So, new additions this week: a few moisture trapping contraptions (top pic) for the aft lazarettes, a fan for the V-berth up front, and a cool little battery operated indoor/outdoor thermostat with a indoor humidity level reading. We had already added some wood slats for under our mattresses so the bed is dry. All of the above help, but as you can see in the thermostat photo, the stated outdoor temperature isn't that reliable - it pretty much just heats up into the 70s when the sun shines on it. Still, nothing helps more than opening a forward and aft hatch and letting some air flow. Word on the blog-street is that if we keep the humidity below 50 degrees we're OK and won't have to fight off any...gulp...mold.

   ~Paul, Amber, Kali   

We took a quick winter stroll today around Shilshole and Golden Gardens - the views were amazing! We had been hiding in the boat all day weathering the mini Christmas day windstorm. I had to cancel a little Northward paddling trip due to the wind & waves. It was nice to get out and walk around at least!
   ~Paul & Amber   ETC

   A few months ago I had a little digital camera snafu, I thought I had deleted some of my haul-out pictures...but...it turns out, I didn't! If you didn't see the original haul out post, click here.
   ~Paul   ETC

   This mini boat project doesn't come close to our previous adventures in the bilge, however, I like to post even the little stuff (it will hopefully help motivate me to finish what I started here:).
   When we purchased Kingsley we had never used a push button autopilot like the Raymarine setup we have now. I had always sailed with a tiller - the only autopilot used was one that plugs in and hooks onto the tiller - I was always scared of it (for no reason really) and didn't use it.
   Fast-forward to now - we like our autopilot. Motoring 5 hours back from Port Ludlow on the man-cruise this summer got a little boring (as steering goes anyway, being out on the water was/is always better than being on land!). Having to hold onto the wheel that whole time would have gotten a touch old too. So, new autopilot good, but... 
   Inside Kingsley, with a long cord coming out of the wall, was a remote for the autopilot. It had an extra long cord (for moving around the boat and using it), all stuck on the wall in the salon. I have always been a if-you're-not-going-to-use-it-than-loose-it type guy, especially since we live in such a confined space now, so I left the autopilot remote there for awhile, then finally decided to take it off (and save it in case we want to use it later). The only reasons it seems one would use it would be if you were single-handing the boat in shallow water and needed to control direction while looking down from the bow, or possibly for solo anchoring, although, it doesn't control speed, only direction...hmmm. Another reason I wanted it off for now is that I have a hunch that it is wired directly to our house batteries (which is a no-no)...I'm still chasing a few wires that are attached to the batteries directly (from the previous owner? Hopefully not from Hunter). Here's where the wires from the wall were connected to the remote.

   Boom, done. OK, well, almost done. I took care of the remote and stuff but still have this wire to follow - I think I'll power down Kingsley when I do, just in case...bzzzt.
   ~Paul   ETC

   It was actually just a coincidence that while the wife went down the road to the spa I stayed at home and did a little Kingsley bilge cleaning. Bilge cleaning is otherwise known as: the complete opposite of spa-time (or was it?).

   For any of our club members who are soon to be boaters, our bilge is an area beneath the floor in the main area of the boat (the main area of the boat is called the salon, or more historically accurate - saloon). The purpose is to collect any water that happens to get inside the boat. When it fills to a certain level, our automatic bilge pump kicks on and sucks the water out. When we take showers on our boat the water drains into the bilge. Also, our fridge has a drain to the bilge, if it ever defrosted and started leaking the water would go there. We have a manual bilge pump also - it has a handle up in the cockpit to pump the water out if the automatic ever quit.

   The whole reason for the cleaning was to continue the work that we had started when we purchased Kingsley. Our bilge was mostly full of sand and dirt - most of which we got clean the first time around. I wanted to finish cleaning this up and have a closer look at our keel bolts (the bolts that hold our keel on the bottom of the boat...a.k.a. super important). In the picture below you can see that I pulled our automatic bilge pump out so it wouldn't start pumping the bilge cleaner overboard.

   In the end the keel bolts look fine and the bilge is looking' pretty good too. There wasn't any oil in the water from the engine - that's good. As it turns out, the wifey returns from spa to find hubby's hands soft and smooth. I may have got a little spa moisturizing of my own after scrubbing the thing for about an hour.

~Paul & Amber (at spa, doesn't count)
Everyone's Travel Club

Zinc changing time? Not sure? In a new slip or new at this (like us)? Well, don't fear - rig a waterproof camera and a light to a pole and start filming!

On our first attempt it was getting dark (at 4:30!) so I used my waterproof paddling light to help out. It turned out to be too dark on that go so I waited for the weekend and some daylight (I still used the light during the day and it helped).

Secure the camera with some duck tape and grippy camera tripod thingy (we used two, one is probably fine).

Attach a little rope just in case and down you go. Try to stay as still as possible, but c'mon give yourself a break - your camera is duck taped to an oar! Check our one of our videos below, sorry for the shakes. Dive! Dive!
   ~Paul   ETC

Ahoy sailors! Just a few summer pics from the Lake Washington Thunderbird sailboat fleet. Ahhh, shorts - I remember those. Snow-birds: stay warm this weekend!
   ~Paul   ETC

   So, we're recapping a bit - we had Kingsley hauled-out over the summer for a few days to replace her stuffing box and paint her bottom. Her last bottom paint job was in 2009 so we figured since we were going through the trouble of hauling her out we might as well get it done. This haul out was last July, we had owned her for only 2 months prior, and we had spent most of that time scrubbing the green off of her (I still find green to scrub off her).

   Before we get into the specifics, just know that we are new to owning and living on a sailboat and especially new to engine work so if we call a torque-thing-a-ma-bober a shaft-prop-thingy...well, our bad, sorry, we're working on it!

   In the pic above you can see the problem - a problem we knew we'd have to deal with eventually (even though the surveyor didn't really mention it...don't get me started). You can see the corosion and rust surrounding this whole operation here. This is in the aft cabin, underneath the aft bed. At the top of the picture is our engine, followed by the coupling that connects our transmission to the shaft (long pole thingy that goes through the boat and out to the propellor). The stuffing box and tubing is the coroded blue thingy in the center of the pic, and is there to allow the shaft to rotate and prevent large amounts of water from getting in (little drips when using the engine are ok and expected). 
   To our non-boat owner/engine pros out there: does that make sense? This is everyone's travel club after all! In the most basic sense, the engine on our boat is on the inside and the propellor that spins and makes the boat go is on the outside (underwater). The propellor spins on the end of a long pole (shaft) which is connected (through the hull of the boat) to the transmission/engine. The stuffing box is 'wrapped' around the shaft on the inside, allowing this all to go down without letting tons of water in.
   I've read that a lot of boat owners replace or repack their stuffing boxes every time they haul-out, some do it while the boat is in the water (sounds tricky). The problem with our situation is that the moisture hadn't been monitored by the previous owner and he left the box alone for 10 years! Thus, the saltwater caused some serious corrosion and rust (of the coupling - the thing in the picture with the wrenches on it).

   Well, it wasn't easy, but we eventually got the coupling off. Yeah, those wrenches in the pic earlier, they didn't even come close - we had to cut the whole thing off and replace it. Unfortunately the new coupling barely fit, like didn't fit by a tenth of an inch, but it eventually worked out with lots of sanding and scratching our heads. We added a new dripless PSS (Packless Sealing System) stuffing box, apparently they're all the rage, and Kingsley was almost ready to go!

   All that was left was a few little things - we added a grate on the outside of the boat to the raw water intake (hole in the bottom of the boat that sea water gets sucked in to cool the engine while it's running), waxed the topsides, changed the zincs and added one more near the shaft, added our new tags and WN # decals up on the bow, and took off the grey racing stripes and old Hunter 320 lettering from the sides. It's been 4 months since all of the work and we are glad to report total dryness in the area we worked on...good to go. Kingsley, you owe us big-time!  
   Paul, John, Tom,   ETC

   Pia is a sailboat. Read about her story (and her amazing owner) here. We met both of them one night in Port Townsend, or I should say, we met both of them one windy night in Port Townsend.
   Earlier that day my friends and I left Lake Washington in Seattle aboard a 26' Thunderbird sailboat. We were crew on the sailboat, delivering and racing her over Labor Day weekend in Port Townsend. The day started out like this - 

   The winds were steady and, although they were against us, didn't seem to slow us down that much...at first. As we headed north in the Admiralty Inlet we started to notice that we weren't making that good of time as the waves picked up a bit.

   As we got closer and closer to our destination, it became apparent that we probably wouldn't make it by night fall. We could see the town in the distance but had to battle the wind and wave after wave on our bow, our little outboard doing the best she could.

   Luckily we were on the south side of the town, 'protected' in Port Townsend Bay. Imagine what was going on in the Strait (of Juan de Fuca) just around the corner! The picture and video above is the last footage I took before we eventually made it safely into the marina, where we still had to battle the wind to dock our little T-bird.
   That night we awoke to the sounds of the lift - we had heard that some folks had rescued a sailboat that had sent a mayday call earlier in the evening, around the time we were coming over. It turns out the boat had been punctured on a nearby island and was taking on major water. The word was they were trying to reach Port Townsend from the other side, they had engine trouble, couldn't sail, and got blown up against some rocks. The Coast Guard had also been called in to rescue some boaters in a different boat (a powerboat) who had capsized in the very same waters.
   We eventually went back to sleep and awoke the next morning to lighter winds and a busy marina as the T-birds & crew prepared for a day of racing.

   The sailboat that had gotten rescued was Pia. We walked over to the yard to find Pia and see the damage.

   We said hi to the owner, who introduced himself as 'Mench'. He told us the story, how he was a boat builder and had brought Pia back to life. He thought he had lost her last night. He vowed to bring her back to life yet again (read about that amazing story here). It's an amazing little tale of dedication and perseverance, we were equally sorry it had happened and blessed that we could be connected in a little way to such a story. Good luck Aho'i!
   ~Paul, Josh   ETC