Season III – Extended Journey Project Planning

Ep99 Sailing and Swimming at 50 Point Beach and Marina

Can we make it back in the dinghy?!

That isn’t so easy!

Summer holiday recap swimming on Lake Ontario, sailing through some cormorants on our way to 50 Point, a local favourite spot as you will hear from the kids out at the beach; noisy! We stayed at 50 point marina for some safe docking and showers were a plus. The marina is a little dated but facilities are good, showers warm, and people very friendly! Compared Uber to the non-existent taxi service.

Ep98 Hatch and Electric Motor Throttle Tweak, oh and Lots of Rain

These hatches have not been replaced since original, and although I cleaned them up they leaked like a sieve!

Just in time for some summer lightning storms!

Made some adjustments to the throttle programming to create better throw on the throttle.

Ep97 Installing the Raymarine AXIOM

I have been watching Erik A from NBJS https://www.youtube.com/c/ErikAanderaa for a while a tracking his solo adventures in the North Sea and decided that I would try and learn from his experiences. Thank-you Erik! I think the cockpit location next to the companionway entrance is sheltered as it’s under the dodger and I always stand in front of the wheel except on long sails. But I do have to cut through the fiberglass…

Ep96 Easy test sail with Raymarine AXIOM Chartplotter hookup

Acting like a tour guide in #HamOnt Hamilton’s Harbour as I test the chart plotter, Raymarine’s AXIOM with Navionics. Quick hookup and then out for a sail.

Ep95 Custom Electrical Cupboard Door and Blue Sea Systems 12V DC Panel Install

This project like the galley took over 2 months to complete. Aside, I was really happy the way the door panel worked out and I have room now to expand to 3 panels.

So I think I am in good shape, and I wanted to throw out a shout-out to Teal from SV Basik. I was very inspired by his clean wiring work and with patience and clean install, my electrical wiring is starting to look a lot more organized.

Ep94 Finally tackling that elusive galley work….

It’s been almost 2 years now and for a variety of reasons it just didn’t make sense or I didn’t have the opportunity to tackle the Galley finishing. The structure was made way back in Ep33, and the cabin gutted back in 2019. So it’s been a while I guess is my point. Good things come to those that wait right?

Apply fairing compound, sand, sweep and vacuum, repeat.

At some point you paint to make sure you are not taking off too much or applying too much, and once everything is a solid colour even with all the imperfections you can take a breath and be proud of the progress so far.

Apply fairing compound, sand, sweep and vacuum, repeat….

Ep93 Plumbing and attaching sink; Leaks!

As I am way behind in many projects I am going to have to get some of these done in the water.

I relocated the thru-hull for the sink from the forward v-berth to directly below the galley and started plumbing. I quickly realized that the the sink was leaking. This is a short how I refitted the old galley sink video.

Ep92 Launch Day 2021, I’ve got the jitters but it’s a go!

Well, that day is finally here, able to get Northern Comfort in the water for 2021. It’s a very strange time, as we’re still in lockdown and we are allowed to move our boat from the launch shipyard to the marina, but not able to go for a pleasure sail.

I am at least grateful that we’re one step closer to being able to use the boat.

Last preparation, getting sails on and then thx to my friend Ed for helping me get a sail in from the shipyard to the marina. At least a taste of being able to sail free with the wind.

Ep91 Clutch Cleaning and Installation

Tore apart the clutches and let them soak for a while in some degreaser only to find that one of the spinlock XA clutches was made of a metal that was reacting with the degreaser. All the others were made of hardened plastic material and didn’t have this issue. Had to do some extra maintenance on that one XA.

Ran out of time, launch day!

Ep90 Finally Installing Winches and Clutches 1 Day Before Launch

After 2 months of fibreglass work, fabrication and painting I’m finally getting the winches installed, 1 day before launch! As as it seems sometimes things just don’t go right, I broke my 1/4×20 tap in the middle of our severest lockdowns. Thinking out of the box I found a used tap and die set on Kijiji and managed to get it done with no time to spare.

Ep89 Finishing Custom Clutch and Winch Mounts

Here is part 2 of the project, as this actually took many days over a 2 month timeframe as I was preparing to get the boat into the water. I had difficulty with the lockdowns getting parts, so I had to jump between projects which made documenting this a challenge to keep the timeline linear.

I used 1/2 ply as the base for the clutch mount and fiberglassed them in with 2 layers of 17 oz biaxial. Then finished with multiple layers of fibreglass including a 24 oz really thick grid mesh fibreglass for the elevated winch mounts. In total over 50 oz of fibres so super strong.

I like the layout better, but my 8″ winch handles are still a bit long, might have to custom fabricate a shorter winch handle.

Ep88 Fiberglassing Clutch and Winch Mounts

The original layout for the mainsheet cleating had all the ropes up at the mast tied to a bunch of cleats. There were at least 7 cleat points up at the mast. In my quest to bring everything to be controlled back in the cockpit, I picked up some matching clutch mounts to be installed in the cockpit header. This video goes over the starting process of the clutch platform and I moved the winches further away from the dodger in order to create more space for the winch handles.

Ep87 Theodore Tugboat and What Sailing is About

Had a great time learning how to paddle in the marina and out at Burlington Beach. We were treated by a boat parade for Theodore Tugboat making his way to his final stop at Harbour West Marina in #HamOnt Hamilton Ontario. What sailing is about, simply spending time together making new memories.

Ep86 Sailing for the fun of it, beating the storm back

Canada Day weekend, had some tome to get a sail in to practice some solo skills, took a tour of Hamilton Harbour, and made it back before the storm front made it’s way in can gave Northern Comfort a good wash.

Ep85 Thanks and Project Update

A big thank-you to everyone commenting, subscribing and for giving us a thumbs up. Here is a quick project update where we are today and what the next 8 months will look like. Regular scheduled programming resumes!

Ep84 Tech Tips: Golden Motor 10KW 48V Electric Motor Live Test Data

Tech Tips: 10KW 48V Golden Motor Performance Data – amps / knots on a windless day. The wind couldn’t pick up the flag at the marina, a good day to get a rough idea on the power draw comparing boat speed with and without sails. I put together a test of measuring the amp power draw at 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 and 4+ knots using my Victron Energy Bluetooth monitoring tool, the BMV-712 battery monitor and the 150/35 MPPT Solar Controller data. I also put together a chart and observed some interesting data. I am sharing here.

Ep83 Building a Direct Drive Electric Motor Mount, Part2 the finale

Now that the base mounting plate is in place, I turned to the engine mount. This was a total custom welded mount that I created from scratch. I took many measurements and overall about a month in between warm days and being locked out of the marina yard to get completed.

As the engine shaft was one inch and the propeller shaft 7/8 inch I slipped 2 fixed couplers on the propeller shaft and welded them together. I figured that this would make them exactly straight and aligned but there was a little give and enough to wobble. So I went with a jar coupler and the flexible neoprene spider gasket between the two halves allowed enough tolerance to not wobble all that much at all. Overall very happy!

Ep82 Building a Direct Drive Electric Motor Mount, Part1

Thank-you for watching and subscribing! Catching up on the winter maintenance vids I changed the Golden Motor mounting from a pulley system to a direct drive (shaft to shaft) system to see if this make any performance gains.

I had to pull out the propeller shaft seal and 2 blade propeller and while I was in there I put in a new cutlass bearing as well. There are 2 parts to the motor mount, the mounting plate which replaces the fiberglass panel I made last year. I decide to put in a 1/4 inch stiff aluminum panel. To get all the dimensions right and the fitting to be aligned, I made a template first out of wood and then transferred the holes and cuts to the aluminum plate.

Ep81, Keel Epoxy and Fiberglass Strengthening

When I bought the boat, little to my knowledge the previous owner put a grinder through the back of the keel into the bilge. It was about 1/4″ by 5 inches. It was filled with bondo which ended up of course swelling with water.

It was covered of course with bottom paint when I bought the boat and it was missed in the survey.

When the crane lifted the boat up off the keel and was ready to put into the water the weight of the keel weight pulled down on this spot and the crack appeared; right on launch day! 🙁

Ep80 [How To] change the propeller shaft cutlass bearing

March 2021 preparing for launch as I was changing the motor mount it made sense to change the stuffing box and #cutlass bearing. Even though I converted to an #electricmotor I am still using the old propeller shaft. I watched many videos and talk to a couple local sailors and all exclaimed it can be a difficult exercise but for Northern Comfort it seemed to go fairly well.

Ep79 [How To] Eye splice in double braid rope

I found that our 1/2″ halyards were a bit tight going through the mast exit block so I decided to downsize them to 7/16″ New England ropes. After I replaced the main and jib halyards and had to splice in the shackles and with the old halyard made some new dock lines.

This vid shows how I use a fid to create some new dock lines, by splicing in a large eye on one end and used whipping line to secure.

Ep78 Moving the boat and testing the drifter

Solo sailing on a super calm day, needed to move the boat to a different slip and a good excuse to test the drifter and run another motor test. Warning, this is a super calm sail!

Ep77 Vector VEC500 Golden Motor 48V BLDC Electric Motor Controller

As I am having an issue with this new throttle I have from Golden Motor and I could not find many videos on the software I thought I would put one together as I go through the settings. I changed from a Hall Sensor throttle ( from an e-bike ) to a joystick more weather-proof style throttle and in the end the main setting to change was at the very bottom of the software ‘Throttle Type’ which needed to be changed from ‘Hall Type’ to ‘Potentiometer’ and then I had to disconnect all the switches (reverse etc).

Ep76 the short version: Golden Motor 10KW 48V BLDC Electric Motor Sailboat conversion after a year

For anyone wanting the long version, watch Ep 75 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbhem6H47n4 This is the short overview of the motor, the controller, Batteries, Shaft Coupler and the throttle from Golden Motor Canada https://goldenmotor.bike/

Put together a video that goes over all the components of the electric motor sailboat conversion including touching on batteries, motor controller, the Golden Motor 48V 10KW BLDC electric motor, and thrust bearing. An overview of all the components and key notable factors of what we learned after a year.

Ep75 After a year, a rundown on the Golden Motor 48V 10KW BLDC electric motor sailboat conversion

Put together a video that goes over all the components of the electric motor sailboat conversion including touching on batteries, motor controller, the Golden Motor 48V 10KW BLDC electric motor, thrust bearing, solar panels, charging systems and monitoring from Victron Energy.

Here are some more lessons learned and thoughts on the #GoldenMotor #electric #motor sailboat conversion after 1 year. An overview of all the components and key notable factors of what we learned after a year.

Ep74 a winter of lost opportunities, lockdowns and a long winter with no project progress

We’ve had lockdowns, and various restrictions now for over a year. It is cold, and I planned on taking a break November and December but wasn’t able to do much come January. Boat was also snowed in and the power buried in ice.

At the end of February 2021, we can get on the yard by making declarations of private matters to people that we have no idea what systems that they are putting in place to protect our personal health data. But with this we are allowed to get on our boat from 8 to 8 weekends now, and 4pm to 8pm weekdays so that we can get some work done.

Ep73 Preparing for winter storage, mast and dinghy

Some necessary chores, preparing the mast for winter storage and after inspecting the dinghy closer, the handles needed a little love… or love handles? Maybe both.

The masts over the winter get stored off the boat in a racking system for protection from the harsh winter months. All the rigging needs to be wrapped up and the halyards tied up so they don’t fall apart over the winter. I can see after inspection that the mast is still in very good shape but the black finish is getting quite weathered. Going to have to do something about that.

Also our trusty dinghy is starting to leak air and will need some attention.

Ep72 A Trip to the Boat Yard, Haul-Out

The start of season3 for SV Northern Comfort begins with the haul-out and cleanup for projects. How exactly do we fit so much stuff in such a small space.

Sailed an easy lazy path to the boat yard 3km away from the marina, and successfully maneuvered without crashing into the dock.

Still have to figure out how to get prop wash to work for me.

With the cold weather coming, a bit of a break before starting on some projects but little did I know about more lockdowns coming making things difficult again.

Ep71 Season 3 Winter Projects Recap – If I don’t get blown off course with this Pandemic

Putting together the list of projects that I hope to get through this winter. After getting knocked off course last season I have a lot of unfinished projects as I didn’t want to sand my way through interior fiberglass projects. I am hearing rumbles of a second wave here in Ontario so it might be wishful thinking on my part to try and accomplish as much as I would like to.

Some of the projects include:

Solar Arch
Motor Realignment
Looking at a new Prop
Installing the Traveler
Waterproofing the Control Console

Ep55 Season III Rundown

Jumping ahead a bit here in the timeline due to the upcoming Christmas holiday break, here’s a quick update and message from Northern Comfort.

Winter projects include finishing the galley, head and quarter berth (interior projects) as well as, yes, another motor mount !

Merry Christmas everyone celebrating and Happy New Year!