Plan was to get a long list of jobs done, and a long list of jobs we did!
My Sister and Brother in law were down, with their daughter at an RYA zone squad training event, so they popped over, and SWMBO, the kids and S-i-L dissappeared off to Oulton, and then the shops, leaving me free to get on.... which suited me just fine....
Initial task (thankfully with the cockpit tent up, as it was thrashing down) was to fit two additional clutches on the starboard coachroof.... so we now have both the kicker and the spinny halyard/spare genoa halyard through clutches, where previously they had to be locked off to a cleat or through a jammer, neither of which made life easy...
Next came the fitting of a Hydrostatic release to the life raft.... I bought this nearly two years ago, and its been sitting behind the chart table taunting me for all that time... well hah!... I got my own back, and it was dragged out into the rain to do its job properly....
After this, I got round to mounting the watermaker on its new base....
Sounds easy huh?
Well.... if you count crawling through a small hole, carring 35Kg of metal and plastic, doing bolts up with one arm crushed into a 1" gap and the other twisted through 45° and inserted under half a metre of wood just 3" off the hull, then yes I guess it was easy....
The biggest challenge was drilling the holes in the base in the correct place.... after several abortive attempts to mark up, I eventually sellotaped several sheets of A4 paper together, dragged the watermaker back out of its tiny hole (remember its 35Kg), and made a template..... I then took a deep breath and drilled the holes....
The water maker is then dragged (at 35Kg!) through the tiny hole... this time with 4 bolts hanging out the bottom (no room to insert the bolts once its in place) so even more difficult without trashing the aft cabin, and plonked on the base.....3 bolts immediately drop straight through the holes.... the 4th?..... well that took 40 mins of cussing and swearing until it relented and dropped into position..... I then had to maneouvre my arms into unatural positions to tighten the bolts......
This was repeated for the pump unit, which proved a whole load easier... its smaller lighter and the bolts were accessible.....
So, with skinned knuckles and severely bruised knees, its was in....
I finally plumbed up the bits of pipe for which I do have the fittings...
I'm rather pleased with the end result even if I do say so myself!
Saturday night was one of those impromptu evenings that proved to be great fun.... Alan was about, down to collect his new boat, and so we gathered him and his crew up, and dragged them to the Shipwreck, where a quiz night was on.... with an excellent quizmaster who spent the whole evening taking the mickey out of everyone.... we came mid field.... not bad for the amount of Adnams and white wine consumed!
Sunday was a cleaning day..... We started by scrubbing the deck from bow to stern with boat shampoo.... lovely... all nice and white again....
Then the cockpit got the same treatment... it needed doing desperately, after getting a lot of muck traipsed in while she was ashore....
Next was the transom.... this had become rather grey... and had a few distinctly grimy areas around the Eberspacher outlet...... I had tried Oxcalic acid last season, and it had little impact on it..... so we tried a new approach.... we decided that a degreaser was needed... so SWMBO bought a spray dispenser of Cif..... well... wow!... this worked spectacularly well..... the previously stubborn marks simply wiped away, revealing a shiny white posterior again!
Last, but not least was the cockpit teak..... I had bought some of the highly recommended Wessex teak cleaner.... I can confirm.... this stuff really works.... on went the first component.... and off poured loads and loads of grimy black and brown gunge..... lots of water was applied, and the second component was sponged on.... revealing lovely rich reddy brown teak again..... all all with no sanding or damage to the teak through excess rubbing.... marvellous!
Swmbo, after depositing S-i-L and her offspring back to Oulton meanwhile attacked the interior.... oven was scrubbed to within an inch of its life, floors were hoovered and wiped, lockers rearranged and repacked... lots of accumulated junk disposed of, and generally making her tidy again....
We'll still need to do a little polishing below, and we've brought the carpets out of the cabins home to clean properly, but she's looking pretty good!
Only remaining jobs on board now are to polish all the stainless... eg the stanchions, pushpit, pullpit etc.... there's a lot of it, but it'll need doing..... and to use the teak cleaner on the cockpit table and grab rails... which shouldn't take long.....
Hopefully next weekend, if the weather is kind, we can get a sail in finally!
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