It took a while for the weather to get warm enough for comfortable work. Winter kept teasing, and Spring was coy. Now, while it is certainly not as warm as it would be further south - where, of course, we plan to spend next winter - we have managed to do some work and paint and move back on to the boat. The whole process went something like this:
At the beginning of May the boat came out of the water. Finally, after three years - longer than we had planned - we had the chance to take her mast down, clean the accumulation of plants and creatures at and below the waterline and put new antifouling on to keep those clinging sea creatures at bay. And it was past time, as we saw when Into The Blue was finally sitting in the slings - mussels had decided she made a good rock and had taken up residence en masse. They were literally hanging off the hull, in curtains. Not much wonder the boat had been dragging through the water, and showing a tendency to wander off in one direction! Happily, those mussels came off quite easily, and in the end it was a cleanup, scrape-off job that was not nearly as bad as it originally looked. Then we had two weeks to get our out-of-the-water jobs done and some hard work ahead.
So: on the list, the usual things. Cleaning, sanding, painting, touching up, mending. And a few new things - headliner, to help keep the forward berth warm and dry. New curtains, to replace the now well-worn ones we left with. Beginning the job of repainting the inside. Rewiring and removal of unused wires. Running new wires through the mast. The only problem was the normal one - time. So when we started work we did the most crucial jobs first.
We started with the bottom of the boat - mainly Richard’s job - sanding and washing and fixing the odd spot here and there, followed by masking and repainting our waterline stripe with hard antifouling paint in a suitable shade of blue. Then we recoated with ablative antifouling below the waterline. With the mast down, this was our opportunity to fix our mast-top anchor light and redo the wiring in the mast. Or rather, as it turned out, replace the anchor light, which fell to pieces in Richard’s hands when he tried to take the lens off to change the bulb. And the VHF antenna had also, as it turned out, been quietly falling apart. So it needed to be replaced too.
On deck I sanded and oiled the outside wood. Then it was into the cabin to clean the winter’s accumulation of dust and damp and mildew, and sand where we planned to paint. Then clean, and try to tidy up, and clean... But at the end of those two weeks the boat looked like a construction site and there was still work to be done. And she had to go back in. And the day we had chosen to be out of the apartment was fast approaching. The pressure of deadlines made life a little stressful.
Back in the water, we had only three days before it was time to leave the Dartmouth Yacht Club. We prepared to go with much left to be done, planning to finish our work down at Alderney Marina. Then a new wrinkle appeared. There we were, everything we had on board at the time safely stowed away, lifejackets ready, warmly dressed, chart on the counter in the cabin and GPS’s at the ready. Richard hit the starter button, planning to give the engine a few minutes to warm up. Nothing happened. No noise, not a click or a clunk, the engine did not even try to turn over. Was it the batteries? He tried charging them, boosting them with help from another boater down the dock - but nothing happened. The problem was unwanted but not unexpected: he had been nursing the starter along, but now it had declared itself past the point of being nursed - it had finally expired. Either we were going to stay where we were until we could get a new one, or we were going to ask for a tow out and try to sail down. That had its own challenges - we would have to go with the right wind and tide, to make it comfortably through the Narrows. And it was evening, and the light would be going soon. Either way, we needed time. We went to talk to the Club’s manager.
We were treated with kindness - Curtis, the manager, told us not to worry about having to take extra time, that our situation was understood. We gave the starter out and paid mightily for its replacement - something to do with ours being an old Renault engine and having to bring a starter in from the other side of the country. At least it was the other side of this country - there was a chance we might have been importing it from another one. We kept working inside the cabin while we waited - sanding, cleaning, putting up the headliner. Finally the starter arrived, Richard installed it, and right afterward we were lucky enough to have a good day for leaving. We reversed out of the slip at Dartmouth Yacht Club in our own unique way (one of the interesting things about having a full keel boat being that it likes to pick its own direction when going backward). A couple of half-circles, backward and forward, and then we were leaving Into The Blue’s winter home...
The wind came and went, and we half-sailed, half-motored to our summer spot at Alderney Marina to continue getting the boat ready to move back on to. First, finish the work we had started, then clean the boat and move things on, then clean the apartment... Now that part of the work is done. We are back on board, and it’s feeling like home again. Still things to do, but also time to look forward to taking breaks and doing some sailing and enjoying the festivals and events around town.
Starting with the visit of the Clipper Round The World Race boats. But that’s a tale for another time.
There were days when it seemed as if Winter would never leave - although we knew it would. A late March snowfall blanketed the city, and encouraged us to enjoy its beauty from inside the apartment we were renting.
Technically it's Spring. But, in spite of the sunny skies, it's cold and the boats are not going back into the water in any hurry. So the docks at Dartmouth Yacht Club are sitting waiting...
When we hauled the boat we found out why we were moving so slowly, and the boat had a tendency to pull to one side - mussels. Lots of them. Hanging on to the bottom - at least until Richard took the shovel to them. If the water here were cleaner we could have had a nice boil-up!
Here she is, back to normal, with fresh anti-fouling paint to keep the mussels away and the waterline stripe raised and repainted with hard anti-fouling paint. Hopefully that will keep below the waterline, wherever it may be, clean.
A warm day before we left Dartmouth Yacht Club - boats in the water, people exploring the shoreline.
Back at Alderney Marina, brightened up with fresh paint, lively colours - and flowers crowning the poles the docks are attached to! A different approach to things...
