Friday 14 December, Jolly Harbour, yard day 4: Progress on several fronts – hull sanding finished, good start on keel coolers, handrails started.

Heavy rain last night, and again this morning. How can we possibly hope to varnish in this unpredictable weather? Hired help starts late and their boss seems to be not so happy.

In daylight, Glen can see the result of the sanding he did last night inside the bow thruster tunnel. In some areas there is now some bare glass fiber showing, so epoxy resin is needed to seal it up.
We venture to the Budget Marine chandlery to buy some. And what should’ve been a hit and run takes us 40 minutes. They are so inefficient in that shop. Always employees around, but they don’t seem to be doing much. Always a queue at the counter, they never know what’s on stock, the system is down and they can’t check. Not to mention that a month ago we ordered a thru-hull skin fitting with a strainer for the engine inlet, and to this day they couldn’t tell us if it has arrived or not. We went in 5 times to check, each time the system was down or the right person isn’t answering a phone… or something else. Just how do they do business in this shop?
Anyway, we do manage to get the epoxy resin and Glen sets about to start the job, but it pours with rain again.

David, the heavy duty works guy, comes onboard and starts working on the fridge keel coolers fitting. He is a very nice guy, really knows what he’s doing, and he is meticulous. He goes straight onto the job, no faffing around.
First part of the job is to apply resin around the holes where the backing plates will mount, to make sure the surfaces are even and parallel on the surface of the hull. We are impressed with how patiently and neatly he applies the epoxy, just the right amount and without getting any drop on his fingers. Soon all three plates are fitted, with the keel coolers gently tightened in place. He uses a heat gun to start the curing process before any excess starts to run.
The fittings will remain like this for two hours, then once dried David will return to remove them. When we finally fit them, using underwater sealant, the holes will now be level, reinforced and sealed. Very impressive piece of work. And to think, in Martinique, they tried to persuade us these keel coolers could be fitted without hauling the boat out, using a diver. 3 x 1 1/2” holes drilled under water. How crazy was that proposal?!

Meanwhile, it gets quiet under the boat. The sanders have stopped. Jesse’s guys finished the bulk of the sanding job, the only bit left is the waterline.
Glen borrows one of their sanders and throws himself into a mission to make the keel bulb as smooth as it was after Herrington. Within minutes he is covered in blue powder, but he is happy to be doing something constructive.

Then up on the decks, on the handrails. They were also varnished with Coelan two years ago. But where the teak plugs were put, the guys in Almerimar did not complete the job properly. They over sanded the plugs (so that they recess) and also did not apply enough Coelan for a good seal. Result: each one is absorbing water and going black. So we now need to take out all the plugs, put new ones in and try to repair the Coelan.
Glen started removing the plugs, by drilling a small hole in the middle, then poking them with a very small screwdriver. Some come out easy, some don’t. In Budget Marine we found 10mm plugs, but we will ask Chris, the woodwork guy here in the yard, to come and have a look first. We need the plugs to be similar shade of teak to the hand rails.

Once the sanders finished sanding the waterline, we move the activities under the boat. We noticed earlier that previous antifouling jobs have been painted 1/2 cm above the original factory waterline. And now we want to correct that. Armed with sandpaper, acetone and rags we start a marathon of cleaning all the antifouling that was painted above the original waterline. It is a tedious job but very rewarding, to see a clean white stripe again.
Glen sands and I wipe with acetone behind him. We progress quite fast, and at sunset we have finished the port side. Then mosquitoes start ravaging is, despite the burning coil at our feet and the Autan we have sprayed ALL over our skin. These must be a very special breed of mosquitoes! Nothing puts them off. So after completing a small section on the starboard side, we give up the fight. Work will resume early morning tomorrow before the guys arrive to put on the first coat of InterProtect.

The evening sees us again barricaded inside the boat while the mossies buzz around outside our hatch screens trying to get at us!
A better day today. We feel there is positive progress in the right direction on several fronts: hull is sanded ready for paint, keel is protected and smooth again, bow thruster tunnel epoxied ready for sanding, a good start on the keel coolers and the hand rails started. We go to sleep feeling satisfied with ourselves 🙂