Check out what I found on on SailingX.

Glow-in-the-dark draft stripes. The same company, Glowfast, also makes sail tape, rope clutch labels, general purpose tape, safety signs etc etc.

Seems useful both for (a) safety (b) seeing your sail when racing in the dark. Mind you, as Tyler said, glow-in-dark tell-tails would be better :-)

Steveston Marine is opening the store just for Tiddlies Thursday April 2nd, from 1900-2100, and offering us special deals. Steveston shopping night specials for TCYC members include:

• 20% Off all white tagged items in the store,
• 20% off white tagged blocks and rigging items from Harken, Barton, Ronstan, Spinlock, Seadog, Victory and Perko,
• 30% off all docklines,
• 25% off all Zincs,
• 10% off all anchor chain,
• Specials on the new 2009 Henri LLoyd, Helly Hansen, & Gul clothing lines,
• Boatshow pricing on Walker Bay Boats.

**Please note that while these specials are on in stock items, Steveston Staff will try to offer special pricing on any orders that are placed too.

The event is at the Vancouver Store, Thursday April 2nd from 1900-2100:

Steveston Marine
1603 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, V6J 1K1,
Phone (604) 733-7031

See you there!

The Steveston Marine TCYC shopping night has been rescheduled from March 26th to Thursday April 2nd. Details on hours and specials to follow. Basically, They will open the store to TCYC members only after regular hours with special pricing for in stock and special order items for us on that night. Please update your calendars, see you there!

Special Pricing

• 20% Off all white tagged items in the store,
• 20% off white tagged blocks and rigging items from Harken, Barton, Ronstan, Spinlock, Seadog, Victory and Perko,
• 30% off all docklines,
• 25% off all Zincs,
• 10% off all anchor chain,
• Specials on the new 2009 Henri LLoyd, Helly Hansen, & Gul clothing lines,
• Boatshow pricing on Walker Bay Boats.

Well, "LITHIUM's smooth bottom" that is..

Drove by Langley today, where in John Boyco's garage/bay/workshop/whatever-you-call-it Tim has been slaving away the winter, re-finishing LITHIUM's hull. Ended up sanding epoxy for a couple of hours..

Quite the nice setup. Beats the hell out of working on the "hard" somewhere, in the freezing rain. John, hey, can I book for next winter? SARANDIS could use a fresh coat of paint too..

The proud papa, endorsing Interlux Interprotect^® water barrier

Touch-ups on the rudder. Coughlin has become quite the epoxy-meister..

This could be you!

More photos, by Rob Isseyikasso, on the forum

Springtime is here!
Have you booked your haulout yet? How much work do you excpect this year? Got any questions?

Perfect timing (it's the third Thursday of the month already): For this Thursday's meeting, Trevor Salmon is returning for a Boat Maintenance Q&A.

Bring your questions: Fibreglass, blisters, paint, wax, deck hardware, soft cores, soft decks, you name it.. Trevor is TCYC's own personal advisor.

7:00PM, at the Maritime Museum, as always.

or...
McGuiver VS the Marine "professional"
aka what you do when the guy at the boat yard wants to charge you $100 to borrow his $60 tool

Earlier this year I decided to finally get rid of my ridiculously underpowered, prop-walking-machine, 11' Campbell Sailer

.. for a nice 13' feathering J-Prop (like a MaxProp but better, with an external pitch adjustment)

The problem was that the old Campbell prop was stuck and would not come off - not by hammering nor by any other direct/violent/brute-force technique.

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I thought they called it "Snuba", but it turns out I was wrong and it is actually "Hookah" (isn't that an Iranian bong-smoking bar??)

In any case, Snuba is basically a diver's oxygen tank that you tow behind you on a tiny inflatable, so you can dive with a long breathing "snorkel" without actually having to "wear" the tanks and assorted gear. It looks like this:

The cool thing about this is that one can dive "freely" and without the need for certification or specialised training. This is essentially snorkeling without the need to surface for air every 30 seconds...

I thought the club should buy one, which we can use for in-the-water boat maintentance and also for fun at the club cruises.

It turns out however, that Snuba is not a product, but some sort of licenced service. They are not for sale, only provided as a guided tour, in various exotic locales.. what a shame.. but a good idea for your next trip to Mexico, or Hawaii, nonetheless!

The alternative is something called Hookah (actually, the very nice folks at Snuba told me about it). Essentially, an electric air pump, attached to a breathing regulator at the end of a long hose, these Hookahs seem like even less maintenance - no tank to fill!

The unit is electric, it will run off your boat's battery. A standard 12V deep cycle shoudl provide at least an hour of diving. So you throw this baby in your cockpit, plug it into your "cigarette lighter" outlet and off you go to wet-sand that hull with 500-grit for tomorrow's race!
Who needs a diver!

Check it out at www.seabreathe.com
What do you think??

Born of the Nintendo generation I cannot imagine how I would live life not being connected to a computer and the internet. I have found that this has assisted me in all aspects of my sailing development and boat ownership. One of the sites that I have used extensively in refitting my 30 year old CS 27 is Craig's List (http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/).

Craigslist is a simple free no-frills classified ad website that has taken off. It is huge; and beats out eBay for ease of use. Essentially it is identical to a newspaper ad except everyone is using it because it is 100% free.

Owning a boat means that I am perpetually short on funds so saving any money I can usually means the difference between fixing something or just living with it broken. It has also allowed me to get better equipment with my limited budget.

How does it work? It is exceedingly easy; simply click on the URL: http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/ or Google it. Select your city. Click on the For Sale: Boats link and you can browse the ads. Search is an effective way to narrow your results but I like just cruising through it. You never know what you'll find and with a 100+ items added to the Vancouver boating section everyday it is a buyers market.

What kind of stuff can you pick up on Craigslist? Here are some items I have recently purchased:

• A Lowrance GPS Chart-plotter with Charts and all the accessories for $100.
• A brand new Marine Head in box for $60.
60' of Anchour Chain $20.
• A 10' Zeppelin inflatable dinghy (Zodiac style) $50.
• A climbing harness to ascend the mast $20.

The list goes on. I am currently keeping an eye out for: a small out board for my dinghy, Ronstan jib cars, and a used tiller pilot. I am certain in a few months I will have all of these items purchased well below the retail value. Good luck; and happy hunting!

Moorage available @ Heather Civic until the end of March.

Will accommodate up to 34 ft. @ Per diem rate.

Contact Terry Davies @ 250-740-5502

This Product Sucks! No seriously it sucks; it is supposed to do that. I have a Yanmar YSE 8 (8 HP) diesel inboard on my CS 27 SEA WEASEL. As most of you know better than me changing oil in a tight enclosed place on a boat is a messy and frustrating affair. When I knew I couldn't avoid it anymore I went down to Canadian Tire and bought a $15 universal pump; the kind of pump that looks like a bike pump but with two hoses. One hose goes down the dipstick hole into the engine and the other goes into a waste receptacle (in this case a plastic orange juice container). Of course the hose was a little too big for my dipstick hole (man this sounds dirty) so I had to duct tape some thin hosing onto it to get it to work. It seems like this should be pretty straightforward. Pump the pump and suck the oil out. One problem that quickly developed was that the vigorous pumping that was required often meant that I accidentally pulled the drainage hose out of my orange juice container spraying liquid joy all over my cabin floor. By the time I was done my first oil change I had discovered a healthy dislike for it. The Boat and I were sticky, frustrated and dirty (man this really sounds bad now).

This fall when my engine required another oil change I broke out my filthy universal pump. After about 3 pumps the damn thing broke apart in my hands (a common experience for those accustomed to using Canadian Tire products). Frustrated I went to the chandlery and bought a $42 Pela Oil Extractor Pump. This thing kicks ass. It has one hose and a reservoir container. I simply stuck the ample hose down the dipstick hole and lightly pumped away as the oil spat cleanly into the reservoir (make sure to pre-heat the oil by running the engine for 5-10 minutes as it makes this much easier). Following that I dumped in the new oil and then poured the old oil into the now empty oil containers.

Well most of you probably already know the value of one of these devices and are laughing at me for having to do it the hard way first I thought I would pass this product review for any of you about to embark on this journey for the first time. Pela makes various sized pumps. The one I purchased had a capacity of 2.5 Liters at a time and can be found at Steveston Marine ($39) or Martin Marine ($42). When I went to purchase it Steveston was out of stock in the Vancouver location.!

http://www.pelaproducts.com/

by Tyler Campbell

I have a 29 year old single banger diesel engine and when I bought the boat I was nervous about it. My boat would not easily take a retrofitted outboard and I could not afford a new inboard so I wanted to make sure I could get several years out of it and had it inspected by a mechanical surveyor. I have had no issues with the engine from the start. I did however not know/trust that any recent maintenance had been done so I quickly went out and purchased all the necessary hardware to "freshen" up the engine. I installed new engine anodes, belts, raw water impeller, changed the oil, and finally the fuel filters.

As a DIYer I figured I could manage all of this myself and actually did all the tasks in one foul (and I do mean foul) swoop. Bleeding the fuel line though turned out to be a struggle for me. I had air in the fuel line and did not know how to bleed the fuel system. With a book I found on the boat "Be your own diesel mechanic" and a poorly translated YANMAR manual I figured it out and ran the electric fuel pump bleeding the system. Then unwittingly I set myself of a path of engine mayhem.

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