Saturday 2 Nov, HHN day 22: Boat anode bolt installed. We go wild on Amazon and the hull polishing exercise begins.
Winter is definitely coming, this morning we found the rain water frozen on top of our dinghy. Last night we left the heating on, and even so the duvet seemed to be not big enough for the both of us. Time to head south as soon as possible, if we don’t want to wake up to snow one of these mornings!
The day starts with preparations to install the boat anode. Floorboards up in the aft cabin, to gain access to the bilge where all the negative DC bus-bars are located. Glen investigates where he should drill the hole for the new anode. Once decided, the drill is out and we have another hole in the hull! I have mini-heart attacks each time I see new holes drilled in the boat, even though this is a very small hole by Glen’s usual standards. Soon after that the backing plate and anode bolt are installed, all firmly sealed in with 5200.
While he is near the negative bus-bar we measure electrical continuity to the engine, the generator, and the propeller shaft, where the only anodes are located. All good, less than 0.5 Ohm. But surprisingly, the steering gears seems to be isolated. We wonder how the rudder shaft can be protected from cathodic action? Maybe we will ground it to this new anode.
On the outside jobs front, a second coat of epoxy is applied on the new wood shelf for the bow bilge and also the new backing plate that the solar MPPTs will be mounted on. Sticky stuff epoxy, but it sure does a great job to seal up the bear wood.
During a coffee break we bring out the online shopping list and go wild on Amazon, ordering all sorts: 24V DC fans, a new Dyson vacuum cleaner, electric connectors, heat shrink, laundry basket, mesh bags for storing vegetables, etc. And of course, the Nespresso coffee, 300 capsules of it. Shopping like this is like eating a feast before you know its going to be famine time!
We receive an email from AB Marine in Rhode Island, confirming they can supply the Gori propeller tip part which we have somehow lost. Can be shipped Monday and with us on Tuesday. Great news. What is not so great, is that the part costs $5 and the UPS Red shipping will be $50+. To make up for the shipping cost, we order two of them and a few other parts, so we are covered for future silly loses. And so the launch date is now postponed by yet another day, to Wednesday. We cannot launch until the propeller is fully back together again, obviously.
Now that the boat anode is installed, we have officially ticked all the tasks on our list of hull jobs. As Glen steps back and declares jobs finished, he cringes looking at the yellow-looking gelcoat which has lost its shine. Especially the thin white strip between the antifouling and the blue stripe above the waterline. Armed with the new boat wash which we bought the other day in Fawcett and with alcohol 70%, he tries to clean it the “traditional way”. Alcohol does absolutely nothing. And the boat wash is so nasty that it takes off the color of the antifouling where minor drips went underneath the masking tape. That boat wash was a waste of money, same as many others we bought before.
As a last resort, the polishing machines are out, which triggers a “where on earth did I put the polishing pads” hunt. Even the “storage” excel file didn’t help, as these “consumables” items were not included. Hence Glen descends into the cockpit locker and digs out all the boxes, where he finds the pads and the bottles of CeramicPro. And since all the boxes are now out, we do include their contents in the storage file. Which would have been helpful to have done before, as we would have known we already had 1 gallon of InterProtect onboard and no need to buy yet another tub of it! Durrrr!
Mid-afternoon Ray pays us a visit and he bares gifts: ribs from his favorite local venue. Two stacks of them! Thank you, Ray, very thoughtful. We were running out of ideas of what to have for lunch with the limited range of supplies we have in the cupboards. Flaked mashed potatoes from our Gibraltar era will go perfectly with these 😊. And since he is around, we pick his brains on a couple of other projects, like making a security lock for the outboard.
In the last hour of daylight Glen has a go at polishing just above the antifoul, where the white gel coat is really brown. Sadly, we stripped off the ceramic coating on that area when we wiped with acetone last December in Antigua. His polishing skills have room for improvement, but he does a good job. It is certainly getting whiter. But he soon abandons as the light is gone and bitterly cold.
After our very late lunch, Glen heads over to the customer lounge to download some BBC movies as we fancy an entertainment evening. Meanwhile, I carry on with Amazon search for stacking boxes to match our current collection. When he gets back, for once we have a nice relaxing evening watching the last 2 episodes of the BBC series “The Capture”. What a pleasure!