Frozen!

By Sailor Keddy -
Everything is frozen on the Winchelsea. I mean, everything.

It all started on Thursday night though, when I got up to use the head in the middle of the night and realized, after I had relieved myself, that the holding tank and all of the associated hoses had frozen solid. I decided to sleep ashore the next two nights. It got down to a mere 4 degrees Fahrenheit both Friday and Saturday nights, and luckily I have friends who are sympathetic to my life in general and let me crash on their couch. When I got back to my boat Saturday all of my freshwater was frozen. The pee from Thursday night that I was unable to flush was a solid yellow block. I'm also pretty certain my Y-valve is broken (the valve that leads from the black water holding tank to the discharge/pump out) from liquid freezing inside of it (I won't go into details as to how I figured this out as you may be close to eating lunch). Any moisture that had been in the air was now ice on the walls and ceiling. Even my onions and potatoes and transformed from an edible breakfast to solid balls of veggie ice.

I spent last night on board and woke up to my breath frozen on the ceiling above me as small, hard hemispheres of ice that were never able to drop. I was toasty in my electric blanket though, which really does make all the difference in the world.

Comments

Anonymous said…
He he been there, done that and lived to tell the tale!. I gather Winchelsea is a single skin glass boat with no insulation? I did the winter 79-80 in a 26foot single skin boat in Toronto. Burned out 7 baseboard heaters in 4 months. But Imagine the looks on the faces of the PCYC crowd at their New Years ball when we came ghosting up the river under full sail, the motliest crew you've ever seen, in snomobile suites and furs. Great fun. Keep at it.

Sabre
April 21, 2010 at 7:42 PM
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