Wednesday 24 October: Herrington Harbor North, yard day #8 – Red Sky starts polishing the hull, we service genoa and cutter Furlex and few other jobs.

It’s full on action morning. Theme of the day is “ life is too short to have an ugly boat”.
Karen (Red Sky Detailing) arrives and she gets straight on with the hull polishing. From under her hands the blue stripe comes out looking better. She tests several compounding products till she is happy with the result. And so are we! We feel like we have been infused with positive energy seeing how dedicated she is to re-vitalize the color and shine on our boat. Today she finished compounding the port side. Karen used the Osprey’s hydraulic lift for the job, and Glen had fun driving it around the hull. A bit of a dangerous job, as it wouldn’t take much to make a dent in the hull!
While Karen is dedicated to her job, we lower the anchor onto the ground to cut 3 links off the chain. Due to the reaction between 2 different materials (stainless steel anchor and anodized steel chain) the first couple of chain links get a bit rusty and we cut them off every 6-9 months.

Next on today’s agenda, the genoa Furlex which needs cleaning and servicing. Has been on the jobs list for 9 months now, but we needed the genoa taken down to access under the hydraulic motor of the Furlex. So we lift it with the spinnaker halyard. It was a bit jammed, but we manage to lift it in the end. It was making some squeaky noises, and Glen cleaned the lower swivel and greased the bearing. But he still has to resecure the upper locking points which have ovalised. He does this by gluing small bushings into the enlarged holes in the extrusion, then sanding down flush. And of course, it’s all polished and shiny.
Cutter halyard goes back up after new splicing, and we next lift the cutter Furlex. Glen is servicing the lower swivel and re-greasing the drive bearing. And himself! After the cutter Furlex gets polished too, they both sparkle in the sun! The only let down on the bow is the bow roller, which needs polishing next.

In between jobs, we pay our daily visit to West Marine across the parking from us. Glen buys a new Windex wind vane ( last one had about had it) and new oars for the dinghy to save us refurbishing the old ones which have not only list their varnish but are now falling apart. And I happen to stumble on a light weight windproof jacket and some t-shirts. Couldn’t be helped.

Buster (Phibbs) comes over to have another look at the gunwale damage (after the collision in Cuttyhunk), and he confirms it can be rounded off no problem. That’s good news. We just hope they will come do it in due time, before the rain starts on Friday. Once the teak gets wet, they can’t work on it. And on that note, I start peeling off the varnish along the damaged length. It’s such a satisfying job, to see it come off. And peels relatively easy, in big chunks.

Glen takes off one of the davit extension arms for cleaning and polishing. It’s got a little rusty after we collided with a schooners jack-stay in Antigua in May.
Then it’s back under the boat to finish all the mechanical items ready for launch. Fridge keels coolers cleaned with anticalc and replacement anodes. Finish off installing the Gori prop and bow props back on, also with new anodes.

And after all the mechanical jobs, which Glen loves, late afternoon is dedicated to getting dirty again: sanding the epoxy filler on the keel bulb. Several hours of it, and he is a grey man, covered in fine epoxy dust. But pleased with the job, it’s coming out nicely. When it’s too dark to see anything, the noise of the sander stops and I know we can have our lunch, at long last. Or does it count as dinner, since it’s already 7pm?

Then the workshop moves indoors. The box fridge under the day fridge has been switched off for few days and had plenty of time to fully dry. It is now time to add the insulation. The swimming floats are cut to measure, which was not easy. Cutting was, measuring wasn’t. Bent over the fridge, head inside, and armed with a mirror to see exactly what irregular perimeter the new insulation needs to fill in. We’ve done this exercise before, for a dry run, so with that experience behind us now it wasn’t too time consuming. The swim floats are now stuck in place with silicone, waiting to dry. Tomorrow we will finish sealing the perimeter, once we buy more silicone.

Now that we bought and programmed the second McMurdo Epirb, we can dispose of the old ACR Epirb. Nothing wrong with it, it tests ok, but the battery passed its life span on paper. So Gibraltar Registration Authority has deactivated it. We only need to physically dispose of it. It breaks our hearts to take apart such a good and expensive piece of equipment, but has to be done. Batteries removed and electronics destroyed, ready for disposal.

It was a good day. It must have been, as we didn’t get annoyed with the birds!