Despite having covered the blue gel coat with side curtains during last summer, the white chalky oxidation is very bad and we can clearly see the previous name of the boat on the bow where it has 'come back' with a vengeance.
We spend the whole of our first weekend on the boat cutting and polishing the topsides by hand. We are up at 5 am to beat the heat and work until 7pm each day. By the end of the weekend we are happy with our work and drop the curtain/covers as still have to apply wax. On Monday morning with arms aching and feeling tired, Pippy takes the cover off to find the previous name is still showing really badly and the white patchy chalking is still obvious. We decide we must need more muscle so Richard buys a professional polishing machine from the marina shop. He gets stuck in with it but his arms are a bit tired for some reason and we decide to leave it for the next day.
We have spied a young Turkish boy working on a boat the same colour as ours across the yard and he is getting amazing results without much apparent effort. We find out what polish he is using and go buy some - still not a great result. By Tuesday he tells us he has "finished" his boat and for an agreed sum will be happy to do Matelot. We accept with huge relief. Kennar has to sort out his "insurance" so he can work for us and much to our consternation, disappears for a couple more days. Its not looking very hopeful but one day he pops up again and gets stuck in with the polishing machine. He makes light work of the topsides and we are suddenly transformed from night to day!
Kennar is young and strong and is our life saver on a difficult task!
Our launch date of Friday 17 June is looming closer but now we have to acknowledge we are not going to be ready. We put off our return to the water until Monday 20 June.
How many degrees of separation? Alistair and Pam on SY Fabiola invite us on board for a drink. Richard and Alistair discover they have mutual friends in NZ!
Matelot gets a present - her name on the bow with attitude! We have seen the 'other' name off this time. ...and we are Finished!...... Matelot has been thoroughly cleaned off underneath, given a coat of something with a long name, then 3 coats of navy blue antifoul plus an additional fourth coat all around the waterline. Her boot top has a new coat of a very hard antifoul which can be cleaned off without taking it all off at once. It is grey and smart. We are satisfied that we have done our best for her and are ready to launch.
Wow....!
Some last minute decisions are made and three holes get drilled in the bottom of the boat for future installations.
More Holes and last chance to get it right before we go in the water!
Jes drills the hole for the sea cock for the future watermaker.
Three hours before launching Yunis comes on board and fits a ground plate for an SSB radio. This requires two more holes. Its quite hard to watch the drill going in and looking through to daylight below!
Its Monday 20 June we wait all day for the crane to come for us. In the end we give up in frustration and duck across the yard for a quick swim off the platform opposite. Just as we hit the water we hear the crane moving again and sure enough it is coming for us. We will probably look back on this launching in years to come as our most traumatic ever.
Pippy is up the ladder quickly throwing on some clothes and grabbing the camera.
The noise from under the boat and the feeling of it being jerked around is pretty graphic and the hammers bash out all the wedges holding up the poles around the steel cradle. Matelot shudders as each hammer blow hits then eventually settles into her cradle. When the posts come off the damage is heartbreaking. In every place where there was a post, the paint has been scraped back to the epoxy coats we put on in Slovenia 3 years ago. There are 6-8 patches of damage down each side of the boat.
Richard runs around with a roller and tray of antifoul He tries to repair some of the damage but it is only ever going to be one to two coats in the 15 - 20 minutes we are allowed, whereas before there were 4 or 5.
We are stunned as this has never happened to us before.
We have the engineer on the boat as we are lowered into the water. This is to make sure that work done on the engine at time of layup is all okay. She floats - thank goodness and starts first turn of the key... wonderful. We are held up waiting for a berth in the marina while the crew disappear off for half an hour. The engineer disappears too. When the time comes to follow the Marinara Richard puts the gear shift forward.... nothing happens! He pushes it a bit further and THWACK! We hear the propellor crack open. That does not sound quite right. Once we are settled in the Engineer comes back and works on the 'mechanical clutch' for some time before things sound normal again.
Phew! Richard looks a little drained over his evening beer today.
1 comment:
Not sure you caught up with fact Phil purchased Manitou the classic 62 foot yawl which was used by President JFK. He's had it shipped to Majorca and is sailing in regattas out of Palma
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