Boat maintenance begins

For those of you not familiar with the yachting experience, there is an annual event called Boat Maintenance. This is different from ongoing boat maintenance in two respects. Firstly it involves the removal of the yacht from the water and secondly, it is expensive.

For the owners of super yachts this activity does not interrupt their normal life because they do not get involved and might not represent a financial burden because they are wealthy enough to own a super yacht. For normal sailors like ourselves, this activity is inconvenient and a finical drain. To minimise the former, The Owner, aka the Blog Mistress had arranged to return to Perth to supervise the birth of our fourth grandchild. This means that The Skipper, that is the 'Bloke', is left carrying the 'can' on this one. So for one of us this is the super yacht experience while for the other it is hard dirty work that cost a lot of money.

Enough of the complaints. What is actually going on? Well, the boat is maneuvered into a cradle that is submerged to a depth below the keel. Of course while the wind is non existent both before and after this maneuver, during the process it will gust up to 30 knots from the beam, making the handling very tricky and a little frightening. Once secured to the cradle the boat is then hauled out of the water, revealing the algal and moluscan hitchhikers that have accumulated over the preceding 12 months. On this occasion they were in limited number, suggesting that they did not want to cross The Great Australian Bight nor Bass Strait or that a boat in motion is difficult to attach to without the use of arms or legs.

To remove those that were successful in attaching, the boat is high pressure-washed, removing the hitchhikers and leaving all surrounding craft covered in a thin blue film. Once washed, the yacht is maneuvered to its resting place on the hardstand where the real work can begin. This involves firstly acid washing the 'scum line' before washing the hull with detergent and water. The result is a clean hull ready for polishing. On this occasion, the water line was to be raised so the polishing had to wait. Mark the shipwright, inspected the hull and confirmed that due to a built up of antifoul paint over the past seven years, the hull need to be dry sanded. Did I mention that this process is expensive? Further inspection revealed a slight cracking in the gel coat around the front of the keel which would need repair.  So Mark rang the appropriate expert for a quote. They arrived very quickly, inspected the damage and came up with a price. Did I mention that this process is expensive?

To try and reduce the expense, I helped Mark dry sand the hull. This was a most interesting activity involving the removal of the old anti-foul with a sander attached to a vacuum cleaner. Now why the latter was needed exactly is in doubt because it seemed that most of the old anti-foul ended up either over the surrounding boats, in my hair, on my skin, up my nose or in my throat. Three hours later, I have saved $100, shortened my life by 10 years through the increased chance of cancer, discovered muscles in my arms and back that I thought I would never use again and turned into a pretty good impersonation of a blue smurf.

To end on a happy note, the staff at the 'Royal' have been great and the boat is improving by the hour. I am confident that Zofia will be better after this exercise than when we started and the standard of the work will warrant the expense.

Did I mention that this process is expensive!!!!!