Friday 1 Nov, HHN day 21: Finishing touches on the antifouling, and more hoses get installed.
Three weeks already since we landed back into USA, and we are still on the hard, but planning to launch early next week. We should’ve known that the planned two weeks will more likely turn into three or four! The wild weather and rain stopped in the early hours, but it is now very cold. Not a good temperature for outdoors activities. It almost smells of winter and overnight the trees have suddenly lost all their autumn colours.
Today’s priority is to finalize the antifouling: paint the patches where the stands were previously positioned, another coat on the keel and rudder, on the bow where we get all the sargassum seaweed, and antifoul the new skin fittings – almost a shame to paint them, they looked so nice, like gold nuggets dotted on the hull (well, they each cost about a gold nugget!). Thermal gear is out of the cupboards, including the wooly hat, and Glen ventures out to complete the job. This morning he comments he lost his mojo, enough of these dirty jobs. I feel for him, especially after he finishes painting and I clean his face of antifoul spots.
Meanwhile, I remain indoors in the warmth and have been assigned the task of varnishing the cupboard under the galley sink. Now that all those old pipes are out of there, we need to make it presentable. Glen didn’t trust me with a roller to apply the antifoul, but he trusts me with a brush and runny varnish… not sure he is wise on that one. He might find the bottom of his newly painted engine room floor covered in drips of varnish. Well, I must admit there were a couple of drops but I wiped it all clean before he saw it 😊.
My mojo might be on the verge of being lost too, not from too much work as I hardly do anything strenuous or dirty. But because of the lack of fridge. The block of ice we got 2 days ago melted already, quite fast this time. Time for a new one.
At mid-day Ray pays us a visit during his lunch break and we show him the boat anode we bought yesterday, following his advice. So we chat on what would be the best way to mount it, and as usual he has very good suggestions. Off we go to the hardware store to buy needed bolt, washer & nut. Then at the Weaver workshop, where Ray helps us routing a hole in the zinc anode for the nut to fit in.
Back under the boat, the anodes get reinstalled on the 3 FrigoBoat keel coolers, the prop shaft and the Gori. In the past, we’ve always installed new ones after each haul-out. But this time we reuse what came off because they hardly looked eaten.
Yesterday Ray brought us the finalized bilge shelf for the bow, a honeycomb laminate on which he sealed up the edges of the honeycomb with strips of wood (thank you, Ray). Last evening we tested it and fits perfectly the perimeter above the toilet outlet sea-cock, where we will have a new storage compartment. Today Glen sealed the wood with clear epoxy, and while at the epoxying job he also coated my fruit hummocks hooks and the dish drain rack, which showed signs of corrosion (and I drove him nuts asking for epoxying those).
Next job under the boat – servicing the Gori propeller. Having done this a few times now, it’s taken apart fairly quickly. The blades had been painted in PropSpeed last October so we didn’t touch those, hoping the silicon paint will continue to keep the barnacle-beasties from sticking to it. But the gears all needed to be cleaned of calcium growth and re-greased. The 3 rubbers also needed changing. With the blades off we check the cutlass bearing for wear. It does have some play but not enough to justify the tough job to re-new it. A job for next time.
Lots of marine grease and put the prop back together. At the very last stage, putting the tip anode back on, we realise there is a part missing. It was with the old tip anode. When Glen took the tip anode off, this missing collet was attached to it. The old anode went to the bin, together with the vitally important piece. Oops, we now need to find and buy a new one. A quick check of the diagrams confirms the prop or blades won’t fall off without this piece – it’s like the braces in “belt and braces”. So worse case we can launch and Glen will have to dive later and fit it. But not till we get back into warm blue water thank you!
Once the night and the cold chased him in, we finally managed to have lunch and treat ourselves with a home made sangria, in celebration of the hull jobs completed. Well, nearly completed. The boat anode still needs to go on, and the propeller tip if we can get the part in time.
After that is jobs in the engine room, re-fitting pipes. Starboard cockpit drain goes in easily, and they do look a lot better with new hoses on the top too. The generator intake is more of a tedious job, as Glen installs the multiple bronze fittings and strainer bowl one at a time, sealing them with 5200. Then the engine exhaust goes in no problem, a new hose too. But although it is exactly the same type of hose as our old one and flexible enough, this new one makes some slight kinks where it bends. Not sure about those, so we plan to keep the old hose as spare…. Just in case.
As the lights get switched off in the engine room, Glen inspects the result of my varnishing. And surprisingly, he is super impressed with my varnishing job. He says he cannot see any drip mark, nor even any brush-stroke marks. Hm, I quite liked it myself, but to get a confirmation from him definitely tickles my ego 😊 And on this happy note we head for the showers and aim for an early night.