Safe, Happy, and Damp

Sandy is gone – and good bye and good riddance to that.

Given all the scenes of devastation and destruction we saw as this storm passed through I’m happy to report that we passed through this at anchor completely unscathed.  As it turns out we picked a pretty protected spot, as we never even saw a single gust of wind that reached 40 knots.  We saw some in the high 30’s but most of the time the wind was fairly constant at 25 or less.  Breezy enough to make the boat move a bit, but not damaging to a tough boat like Evenstar.

But we are a bit damp.

First of all riding through a couple of days of heavy rain coupled with constant wind is kind of like going through a car wash in a convertible.  Or blasting your house with a firehouse.  Water works its way in to things.  The water finds leaks you didn’t know you had, and all of a sudden you get drips coming in places where you never had any.  So we’ve “pressure tested” the boat and have found a few spots that need re-sealing.  In particular one deck fitting, the main hatch window over our bed, and the new face plate I put on the binnacle right before we left.  None of these places were gushing water in the boat but you really don’t even want drips to come in.

The second issue was one of moisture and condensation.  We’ve noticed since living aboard that when cruising in cooler climates like Maine the outside of the boat gets cold, and this passes through to some of the window fittings.  They are aluminum and conduct cold (or more correctly conduct heat) and get cold.  The net effect of this was that water vapor from the air (caused by a lot of things from our breathing, cooking, and just being in a damp environment) condenses on the window frames enough to cause some dripping.  Even to the point where it’s mildewed some of the curtains, but at least the old curtains keep the water from dripping elsewhere.

Through the hurricane this condensation was ten times worse, not only the window frames were covered in condensation – much of the boat’s uninsulated inside surfaces were covered in condensation, leading to a lot of stuff that needed to be wiped up.  With the cold air and the constant rain and cooling wind this got kind of old!

But with half of New York City out of power, much of the Jersey Shore swept away, the tragic loss of the HMS Bounty, and a number of fatalities if I can get off with just a bit of complaining about some water dripping off the windows on me while I’m sleeping I’ll say we’re pretty damned lucky.