Sailing Vessel Froo Gal

29 August 2017

A great example of getting on the water inexpensively: Sailboat Refit The Launch (Squires Lady)

Congratulations Squires Lady! (The hard work and innovation has paid off).

28 August 2017

"The Master Foragers"

The Froo Gal Crew Charters in British Columbia

The Froo Gal crew, joined by Nick from Ty Dewi and other occasional visitors, charted a Catalina 355 from Comox, Vancouver Island for the last two week. The itinerary included: Princess Louisa Inlet, Egmont, the Skookumchuck Narrows, Smuggler Cove, the Sunshine Coast and foraging for oysters, mussels, clams, huckleberries, blackberries, and sea asparagus and other money saving tips (see below for the complete list).

This area of British Columbia (BC) is particularly beautiful. See this short montage video for some of the highlights (Thanks Nick).

Things we did to save money:

1. Shopped around for cheap flights and charter rates when deciding when and where to take a charter trip. We ended up with the new(?), no frills Air Canada Rouge (and were lucky to get a free upgrade on the way back which saved on the cost of a few glasses of wine on the way back). LateSail.com did a great job booking us the charter boat, as usual. Make sure you take a tablet or smart phone (or a book) and download the Air Canada Rouge to get access to the in-flight entertainment.

2. Used local knowledge for provisioning. Nick did a sterling job provisioning -- food and alcohol -- for the trip. He is a particularly frugal and saved us a significant amount on our usual. hurried efforts.

3. Nick's home brew wine. Nick supplemented the shop bought wine stocks with his kit-based home brew wine -- we and our various guests during the trip did not spot the difference.

4. Anchoring avoids costly mooring charges. East of the Georgia straight, from the Sunshine Coast, Princess Louisa Inlet and Desolation sound is a Mecca of small bays. Stern-to mooring to rocks below the waterline is legal event near private islands. Many places have rings. Some areas have government docks or municipal park mooring buoys, for which a modest charge or donation is requested.

5. Were few opportunities to eat and drink out on our itinerary. The gas BBQ on the boat was well used.

6. Foraging for shellfish was easy and legal pretty much everywhere. A licence was simple to buy on line. There were limitations on numbers, types and areas for line-caught fish. We only tried for rockfish and threw back the couple of tiddlers that we hooked. We recommend a good first aid kit (including my personal favorite, superglue) unless you are experienced a shucking oysters. Huckleberries and blackberries were easy to find and plentiful -- great in pancakes.

7. Hitchhiking. Taxis are hard to come by in the more remote areas of BC. Locals are friendly and a used to picking up hitchhikers between the various ferry terminals from the mainland to Vancouver Island and the smaller islands.

8. Borrowing kayaks. Nick lent us his kayaks, saving us on rentals and providing a great foraging platform. Similarly we borrowed mountain bikes to ride great trails in Cumberland on Vancouver Island.

9. Making your entertainment, as we had failed to bring any playing cards, Nick make a pack our of a breakfast cereal packet.

10. Second hand cruising guides were adequately up to date for this largely undeveloped region. We were lucky enough to find a local thrift store bargain for a fraction of the cost of new (just a few dollars).

11. We had the luck of stumbling across great free music -- a string quartet on a cat. that was moored with us in Princess Louisa Inlet.

12. Wildlife watching come free with the package in BC -- we saw a humpback whale, bald eagles, seals and pelicans to name the highlights of this trip. During our walks and rides through the forests, we were pleased not to see a bear or cougar.

This was a magical trip for us. Family, friends and being frugal added much (for the Froo Gal crew) to the natural beauty of BC.

10 December 2016

Frugal and Environmentally Friendly Eating

Lionfish is an is an invasive species in the Atlantic. Spearfishing them and eating them is therefore generally acknowledged to be a cheap and responsible source of protein. Monday Never's VLOG is an entertaining introduction to the topic. Many websites offer advice on the topic. Do your own research and come to you own conclusions!

The NOAA website states:

Since lionfish are not native to Atlantic waters, they have very few predators. They are carnivores that feed on small crustaceans and fish, including the young of important commercial fish species such as snapper and grouper.

Unfortunately, NOAA researchers have concluded that invasive lionfish populations will continue to grow and cannot be eliminated using conventional methods. Marine invaders are nearly impossible to eradicate once established.

A NOAA fact sheet states that young lionfish have been found as far north as the states of New York and Rhode Island.

The Guardian reports that they are now found in the Med.

Great advice on Saving Money

These kids () are savvy when it comes to saving money on boat work. Their VLOG Q&A advice is to do the work yourself, buy second-hand parts and if you are struggling seek advice. And, as a last resort pay for a specialist to diagnose problems and provide advice to allow you to do the work. All in all they say that they have saved saving thousands of dollars.

They also point out that doing the work yourself allows you yo learn about your boat and you'll know that the work is done right -- not something you always get when you hire others to do the work.

The Froo Gal crew is looking forward to their upcoming VLOG post on how they make money, whilst living and working afloat. They seek like great entrepreneurs.

23 October 2016

TREATING THE KEEL (PART 3)

Doing a proper job this time (Autumn 2016)

Well, the moment of truth; the hurried repair from last year did not seem to have made the corrosion on the keel any worse. And if anything the anodes had done their job, slowing the corrosion to next to nothing (although we lost the Saildrive anode altogether, but without any damage to the Saildrive or prop).

There were a couple of large blisters on the port hand side of the keel, where the incompatibility of the single-part red oxide primer with the two-part epoxy primer really showed.

The growth on the bottom 15 centimeters of the keel is a bit of a mystery, but the pressure washer took it off pretty cleanly.

The starboard side was different. There was damp solvent between the part layers, which caused about half of the anti-foul to peel off (easily) in large sheets.

Of course, the other half clung to the keel and would not budged with less than an aggressive grinding disc and wire brush on an angle grinder.


Two coats. Copyright (c) 2016. Froo Gal. All Rights Reserved.

This time, we took the starboard side of the keel back to bare metal, sanded then de-greased it with thinner, filled and fared the corrosion pits with West System 407 filler epoxy mix and covered it with four coats of Hempel two-part light primer. Great.

As a bit of an experiment (and to save time) we just patched the areas that had bubbled on the port side. With just a day of anti-fouling to go (after a week of curing), and adding new anodes we will have finished the job in three weekends, weather permitting.

20 August 2016

Re-Founded UK Maritime Mobile Net

Skipper Froo has been busy sailing during the summer of 2016. Among other developments in the UK good and bad -- a great Olympics performance by Team GB and Team GB sailors and Brexit -- the UK Maritime Mobile Ham Net has been re-founded on 14.303 MHz (alt 14.306): https://ukmaritimemobilenet.wordpress.com/

“This is G4FRN for the UK Maritime Mobile Net”
This was once a call familiar to long distance, ‘blue water’ sailors. For many years the UK Maritime Mobile net operated on the 20m amateur radio band at 08:00 and 18:00 UTC every day. Bill, G4FRN, Bruce, G4YZH and Tony G0IAN were regular net controllers. It was a place to exchange position reports, weather information and generally chat to like minded people. On occasion, the net also took on the important role of receiving distress or safety traffic and passing it to the authorities.
Although the net has been silent for a few years, we think that there is enough interest on behalf of radio amateurs both afloat and ashore to re-start the net. If you would be interested in getting involved, as a net controller or in any other way, then please let us know via the contact page.
We would be particularly interested to hear from anyone afloat who is a licensed radio amateur who might be interested in the net and would be willing to make test contacts with us on or around the old net frequency 14,303 Khz or the alternative frequency, 14,306 Khz.

Although Ham and Marine single side band radios (SSB) are not as popular as they once were amongst long distance sailors, as the more reliable satellite systems are priced comparably, a budget or second hand Ham radio marine mobile station, for the Full amateur radio licence holder could be the frugal option. The cost-conscious, long-distance, blue water or live-aboard sailor on a budget, living away from cellphone and wifi convenience, might choose this option. It could be fun to combine these hobbies (and be a little more ready for the zombie apocalypse).

9 August 2015

VLOG EPISODE #3: TREATING THE KEEL (PART 2)

TREATING THE KEEL (PART 2)

YouTube video: Episode #3: Treating the Keel

CopperCoat delivered the resin, hardener and copper powder that we needed to complete FROO GAL's keel.

We were lucky to get an evening of dry weather where we lightly sanded the epoxy primer layer to give the CopperCoat a key. Mixing the CopperCoat was straight forward, as we had brought some cheap kitchen cooking scales, some plastic containers and a wooden spoon!

We mixed small batches and applied two coats of Coppercoat over a period of three hours or so. The crew made it light work.

The final product looked pretty good. But we'll only know if our surface treatment, coatings and anode help reduce corrosion after she has been back in the water for a while... fingers crossed!

The final step after a few days to cure, was to burnish the surface to allow that copper to take action, repelling all boarders. We also added the anode and added some clear epoxy to the bottom of the keel.

Take a look at our VLOG (Episode #3: TREATING THE KEEL) for the keel story.

We be grateful for any experience readers have on treating rusting keels, the benefits or otherwise (and compatibility) of Red Oxide Hammerite and other observations.

Out next VLOG is likely to be about selecting and rigging a cruising chute for about half the cost of a the typical retain cost.