We moved the boat on Saturday, 01/12/13, from Herrington Harbour North to Whitehall Creek Marina, located just outside of Annapolis, where Hinckley has their yard. We had moved everything we needed off the boat the weekend before so this was a simple drop-off job. It was a beautiful day, clear sky with temps in the low 50's but there was no wind so we motored the whole way, 6.5 to 7 knots, on glassy water and arrived in three hours. This marina is tucked way back there on the creek and I even managed to run aground in 12' of water (don't even ask). "It's not my fault, it's not my fault"! Not sure if that was actually said out loud or not. The picture at the top was taken the next day, cold, damp and miserable. We definitely picked the right day for this.
OK, so by the end of the first week we're past the point of no return. The boat's up on the hard, parked high and dry next to the shops. They have a pretty cool setup with a second floor deck around the building. With the boat standing next to it they can put a gangplank from the deck to the boat for easy access. Beats having to climb a ladder all day. This is especially nice for the kind of work these guys will be doing, having to carry in cabinets, tools and bulky equipment.
In that first week they removed everything in the galley from the countertop up. Once the counter was off we quickly spotted the problem with the freezer. There's a gap between the hull and the side of the freezer box that was filled with expanding foam but it didn't go all the way up, leaving a 2" gap underneath the cabinet along the starboard side. We suspected something like this because we'd been having problems with this cabinet being constantly wet inside and actually icing up at times. We'll shoot some more insulation in there, the expanding foam type, and hopefully that'll solve our problems. We actually dug down into other areas around the box and the rest of the insulation appears to be in good condition. We also got a better look at some of the real problem areas of the cabinets and may come up with some better ways of dealing with them.
With the boat up on the hard we got our first good look at the hull in three years. This is the original bottom paint, put on in April 2010 and it's looking really good. We used Pettit Trinidad SR which is a hard, non-ablative paint, meaning that it doesn't come off with time. Ablative paints are made to ablate (duh) so when a critter attaches itself the paint just flakes off and drops to the bottom of the Bay. Keeps the boat clean but I gotta think it's gonna be hard on the Bay, all those little flakes of paint piling up over the years. Except for a few areas around the water line and at the bottom of the keel where we plowed through the mud a few times the paint has held up really well. We'll be raising the waterline about three inches because of the weight of all the junk we've brought on the boat since we moved aboard. The area of the keel where we ran aground (more than once) is down to bare fiberglass and will need to be sealed with a barrier coat before being painted. While I was getting a good close look at the hull the sun worked it's way around to the West and highlighted another problem area. Our rudder has blisters. I've never had to deal with this and had to look it up (click here). Basically this is water finding it's way past the gel coat into the fiberglass. Apparently there's a number of causes and a range of severity. The repair is handled differently depending on the amount of intrusion into the layers of fiberglass. There is a chance that this is just surface blisters and involves only the paint. We'll soon know. The rudder is being removed to repair a leak where the shaft enters the hull and the blisters will be repaired while it's off the boat. The shaft for the rudder is so long they have to dig a trench in the gravel to get it out because the Travel lift can't lift the boat high enough. This is called "the snowball effect". Little problems turn into big ones. Big ones turn into disasters. Conversely, as the problems increase in size so your wallet gets sucked into itself simply by repeated opening and closing, becoming smaller and smaller until it implodes. The sound this makes is usually mistaken by others for flatulence and the final result is much the same. It stinks so you wrinkle up your nose and move on. Get used to it. You own a boat.
Well, it's only been a week and things are really happening. Some good, some bad, but at least this is a good time to be taking care of things. We still have 700 days to go.
In the meantime.....plans are moving ahead for the rally to Bermuda (click here). We're signed up along with 10 other boats and it's planned to happen in late May of this year. We're taking three weeks off for this, figuring one week of non-stop sailing in each direction with a week to play on the beach while we're there. Much of the work we'll be doing this winter will be getting the boat ready for this trip. Much to do I assure you. I'll tell you more in the next installment.
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