TRUE GRIT

Well, it is another dark and stormy day. The wind is blowing, rain lashing down and there is constant thunder and lightening. So not a day for outside work. Inside, Dave is fiddling about under the sink and up and down to the tool room, so best thing for me is tto hunker down in my corner and do a bit more blogging in between spanner handing and torch finding. The sink pump died, so the sink is being emptied at present into a bucket. The new pump is a bit different to the old one so there is a lot of umming and aaahing as to where it is going to go. It is a better pump in my eyes as it does not need a filter – and cleaning the sink filter is one of the ookiest jobs I have. No filter, big joy!.

BOTTOM FACTS

When we were in Tobermory getting things ready to set out we investigated long term anti-fouling for the bottom of the boat. We were convinced by the blurb for the coppercoat antifouling, which promised years and years of no need for the annual anti-fouling saga. We spent months in the boatshed at Corpach getting the hull ready as the preparation was quite arduous as there was no grit blasting permitted there, and all the old anti-fouling had to be taken off by paint stripper. It was a foul, messy, and exhausting business. We then applied the coppercoat as per instructions and felt quite pleased with ourselves.
Until last year when we were lifted here in November and found large patches had separated from the hull. Discussions with the firm gave us what to do, except the importing of the stuff from the UK is prohibitively expensive as it is classed as dangerous cargo. We were able to source what we needed locally from someone who had just done his boat and had some over.
Imagine our dismay on this lift when we find things are still pretty bad in places and also that we had a bad attack of coral worm. This was after we had had an interim underwater scrape in Gozo in the summer when we had collected so much weed we could not go over 3-4 knts. So it has now become a real problem. The cost of the stuff and the additional cost of the carriage is making it a nightmare to consider, and it is not performing here in the Med at all. So it is back to basics – it all has to come off and start over with the conventional. We have been inspecting all the boats as they are lifted out and trundled past us in the travel hoist – they are all better on the conventional than we were on the expensive stuff.
To clean the hull means to get it back to the bare metal, and this means grit blasting. We had it gritted 16 years ago, so all the accumulated coatings were there to come off. Once it is blasted it has to be painted with at least one coat of primer immediately, like in minutes, before the rust starts. So the day came. Now in the UK at the last gritting, the chap turned up with a domestic pressure washer and a bag of sand and set to work. Which was what I was expecting.
Norman, the yard foreman comes by and tells us we need to cover the boat in plastic before the gritting. ‘Really?’ I ask
‘Yes, really. We do not want it getting on the boats beside you.’
That seems reasonable, so after getting instructions on what to do’ we set to work.
The task involved dropping sheets of plastic from the guard rails to the ground and taping them up. Sounds simple, but that is a lot of plastic. Now, my cost conscious husband spies some plastic on the ground near us where a boat has just left – aha, free plastic. So off he goes and drags it back to us. It does fit, but we soon find it has been used on a boat which was having the antifouling sanded as is covered in blue powder that gets everywhere. We pull it up over the guard rails, and as it can’t be taped to anything, bring up long logs and hold down the edges on the deck. Then more logs for the bottom. Meanwhile, the wind is getting up and the whole contraption starts billowing in the breeze, so the bottom logs have to be re-enforced with large slabs of rock fetched on the sack trolley. The joins can’t be taped as the powdery surface won’t stick, so it has to be hosed down. Eventually I walk around the whole thing with a roll of tape to try and stop the billowing out, cable ties are used up on the guard rails to re-enforce the logs. This has taken most of the day, and we are now enclosed in plastic like an entry in the Turner prize art competition. And we are very blue, and very tired. All night we have flap, flappity flap but are pleasantly surprised to see it is still in place the next day. I am still bemused that we need all this preparation.






7.30 in the morning and there is the loud noise of vehicles approaching the boat. Looking out we see a pick-up truck with a crane towing one of those large compressors you see in roadworks places. Next thing is the truck is unloaded – long, thick hoses are laid out, a large hopper and sieve appear, and a very large cement bag of very black grit is lifted off the truck by the crane. The two lads with the truck start joining everything up, and eventually the boss returns with another huge bag of very black grit. The set-up is inspected and things are about to start.
‘You won’t want to stay here’ says the boss man
‘Oh?’ says I
‘Very noisy and dusty’ says he
‘OK’ says I, thinking it cannot be as bad as the grinder and sanding machines. Wrong.








From behind the truck appears a figure more akin to a deep sea diver, complete with helmet. He has thick padded overalls and top, gloves and a helmet thing with a glass face plate and is toting his air hose behind him. This is not going to be a bag of sand job. It has been decided the best for us will be a dry grit blast and off they go. Deep sea diver disappears under the plastic, the compressor winds up and then there is the most ear spitting din I have ever heard as the grit start to blast out of the hose. We run half way up the boat yard before we can hear each other, the gate guard shuts his door but still can’t hear his TV, and we realize why they wear ear plugs under their ear defenders.
The we notice the fine dust escaping from the plastic, and when the first hopper of grit is finished we go in and have a look. The gritted surface is amazing, the ground is covered in black grit and I am glad we elected to have them clear up. The plan is half the boat done the first day, half the second, so we can get the paint on in time. We have seconded help from a chap here we have made friends with, and once the gritters pack up for the day, they get straight to work. I go up on board to make a cuppa and get the shock of my life.
The whole of the deck and the cockpit, everything, is covered in an inch of black grit. Everywhere is black. No one mentioned this part of it and I must say I was at a loss for some time as to what to do. It was too much to sweep up, and too much for my little car vacuum. Best plan was to clear an entrance into the cabin and not do anything till it was all over. At least I had shut the hatches or we would have had a cabin full of grit instead of just being dusty. The cockpit was worst as we had had to have some blasting done in the back locker where the rudder had come out. Just imagine everything covered in snow – except it is black snow. Must remember that the finish it perfection itself so it must be worth it. Just.
Next day 6.30am we are greeted by the roar of the gritter again – it is better in the boat than outside – and off we go again for the second half of the drama. At last it is over and the clear up begins. A broom starts sweeping off over the side, and then we are lent the air hose to get the worst of it off the fore deck and all the stuff we had stored there. I managed to look pathetic enough in front of the management staff that I was leant the industrial vacuum cleaner from the liferaft servicing people over the weekend, without which I could not have managed. Needless to say we also had to airblast the boats beside us too, as they also had collected some of the dust. But at the end of it all there was a lovely bottom, complete with the strip around the waterline for me to sand off.
So we are in the process of painting and preparing the hull. We scrounged a gantry type thing for me to sit on and sand the bits left over, and Dave has been painting and filling for the last week – in all there will be 15 coats of various paints on it. It had better work. We have had some super heavy rain since, all of which helps clean things up, but I fear the grit will be with us for some time to come.
Now all we have to do is decide what colour the anti-fouling is going to be. Not a lot of choice, but it still takes days of decision making!

ON THE HARD

LIFE ON THE HARD

Well now, it is a not so good day and Dave has all the tools I need for my jobs, so it is a good excuse to get down to a bit of blog writing. As you know, we are in the boatyard, still, as it always takes longer to do things than planned. I have to let you kniw that having the boat lifted is very stressful. First you have to get into the small dock and have the travel hoist come along with its straps to go under the hull and make sure they are in the right place, then it it is off the boat and watch it slowly rise up out of the water. The whole thing trundles along up to the parking place with us walking behind, looking forlornly up at our house and home swaying in the breeze. Then the props are put in and chocked up, the straps taken off and the boat let settle onto the sticks. Travel hoist away, we gaze at the undersides and see the coral worm infestation and the stuff still wound around the propeller. Ages later the man comes with the pressure washer, Dave sets to with a scraper and we gaze on the sorry sight of the undersides. The all singing anti-fouling is not all singing after all. Sigh. Big decisions to be made, but that’s for later.





Spirit on the hard, with the mast out lying beside her.






Glossary:

Mouse: string tied to a rope or cable that is being removed to be replaced. The cable is pulled out, the string follows and leaves and end to tie the new one onto to thread it down the same track. If the string comes off the cable half way along it is a nightmare as it is impossible to thread a new mouse. High stress situation!
Bilge: These are the spaces under the cabin floor wher the engine sits, pipes and wires run and wher we stow things. They are the real bottom of the boat and as it is a steel boat we have to watch for rusty bits.
Now where are we up to.

I think we are progressing, the new autopilot is almost in, the hull is almost half done, and the repaired guard rails are half done as are the bilges inside the boat. So I am hoping the second half of the half done goes a tad faster than the first half! The good news is that the mast work is done. We have changed the lights to LED ones as the old ones were so old they hardly glowed through the crazed glass and chomped power. So the mast has been re-wired, loved and cherished, inspected and cleaned and a problem or two sorted. And we did not loose a mouse!! Quite a feat when pulling over 60 feet of cable through a tight channel several times over.
The mast was taken out when we were up on the hard. A ginormous crane was brought in as the mast is 60 feet high and has to be lifted out of the boat, up in the air and over the guard rails before being lowered onto trestles. A game soul went up the mast to put on the strop from the crane, the last of the supports was undone and away it went. This sounds easy, but it took a full days preparation to get it eready so we did not hold folk up. So there is was dangling in the breeze and going down onto the trestles. Then a moment of consternation – it looked as though there was not enough room for it, and the crane could not move backwards. Much pacing out and then a holding of breath as it just cleared the wall. The photo does not show the aerials on the end of the mast very well and that there is just enough room to squeeze around the top end.















2 views if the mast. The blue and white boat is not us - it is behind us.



So here we are up on the props. It was a bit disconcerting at night at first, especially in the gales we had last week, as the boat was shaking a bit. But we have not fallen down, and gradually we are not noticing the movement as much. It is so much better being on board than going off to a flat in the evening as we did last time. We have fixed up the drainage into jerry cans, so life goes on much as normal. However, there are two drawbacks– the ladder and the loo.

There are times when one has to get off the boat, and the only way is by the ladder. So after climbing up the companionway steps into the cockpit there is a moment of meditation to think of all the things needed before going down – finding out the essential item is upstairs means another trip up and down. The old knees are really taking a hammering, even Dave is finding aches where there once were none.


















Then there is the loo. Again we are parked just about as far away as you can be, so calls of nature are a camel hike there and back, and another camel hike for the shower. Thankfully our disinfectant system for liquid waste copes with most of nature’s needs, a trip out on a dark and stormy night is not to be undertaken except in extremis!

In the picture the loo is the small white building in the far distance in the middle of the picture.

















Story
The intrepid duo have just finished a lovely meal created by Dave, a bit later than usual as work got in the way. Jen gets up to do the washing up.
‘Daaaaavvveeee?’
‘Yes, jen’
‘We have run out of water’
‘Run out of water? Now?’
‘’Fraid so’
Big sigh as this means down the ladder, get the hose from the water supply, drag it back and up onto the boat, then wait ages for the tanks to fill. Then down again to turn it all off. But washing up needs doing, bodies need washing, and the bottle supply is rather precious. So the job is done.
Jen returns to the galley to do the washing up. Fills the kettle for the hot water for the sink.
‘Dave’
‘Yes Jen’
‘We are out of gas.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yup. What bottle is next?’
Big groan. ’I can’t remember. I’ll go’
So Dave gets up and into the cockpit to try to work out where he is in his new idea of gas rotation. At least it is not a ladder job.
At last, gas, water and hot water. The washing up done, the duo decide it is time for early bed as the fellow with the grinder may be arriving at 7.30am – so an early start.

BACK AT MALTA

I am in deep trouble from all quarters – I have been remiss in posting blogs! So, before any more folk berate me for being an idle hussy, I am taking advantage of a very windy and rainy spell to down tools and get some words written. I do apologise for not writing, all excuses are no reasons in the end I suppose. But my excuses are good ones – to me at least. The main reason was I was too hot. Yes, I know it is hard for those of our friends in Scotland to understand, but it is true. We happened to be in Sardinia and the Aeolian Islands just north of Sicily for the 3 hottest months of the hottest and driest spell in any summer ever recorded. It was merciless – day after day over 40deg C, not a cloud in the sky. It was far too hot to go below, even though we had the whole boat covered in sunshades, and all you could do in the afternoons was sit in the cockpit and quietly melt into the woodwork. (And sew patchwork squares if the needle was not too big and heavy!) A little relief came at night when the temperature dropped to about 36 – 38, and we could have the fans on. Sleep was not the easiest as at times it was also quite humid. And the brain fried and went into a complete torpor. We did move the boat from place to place, setting out before the sun got up and hoping to be able to get it anchored and settled before the heat was too much. As we were restricted to day trips anyway due to failure of the self-steering mechanism (more later) this was not a problem, especially in the islands, and we did enjoy our time there. You will be given details soon.
As there has been such a time since the last blog update, it will be a backwards blog again, as I have to tell you all where we are now and then I can go back and fill you in with all the summer doings. We are back in Malta, with the boat up on sticks in the boat yard to get some work done. We called in at Gozo for a week or two ion the way back from Sicily and it was so great to meet old friends again. And in the boat yard we are in the spot next to the one we occupied when we were here last year – the furthest you can just about get from the loo and showers. This time we are living on board instead of going to a hotel and it is much better. We have a drainage system of a couple of jerry cans and all the comforts of home at the top of the ginormous ladder. This ladder we come to love but groan in despair when the thing you want is at the other end of it.
On the way from Sicily to Malta we managed to hit a fishing float device which the locals use to catch lampuki, one of the favourite fish. These are made of a polystyrene box covered in black parcel tape with a palm branch sticking out from the side. They are attached to the bottom by a long thick rope. The idea is that the lampuki like to come and rest under the shade of the palm branch and then the boat comes along and surrounds the buoy with a net and catches the fish. All well and good, except you cannot see these boxes in the water. And we were motoring along in the customary no wind situation and then there was an almighty BANG. Quick dive to turn the propeller off and then the observation that we were now stationary in a sea of polystyrene bits floating all around. And there appeared to be a rather large rope going under the hull. Horror and nightmare as it was difficult to figure out where we were caught and what to do. So we waited and slowly the rope began to sink a bit and an hour later we had floated free of the area. So what to do now. No wind meant motoring so we gingerly tried the propeller, sending if forwards and backwards and watched it spit more pieces of string, plastic tape and rubbish out. There is a cutter on the shaft just before the propeller and it was certainly doing something. But although we had propulsion it was not the same as before so it was a very slow journey to Gozo. So slow in fact we were too late to get in to the marina and had to anchor off. We were so tired, a little jaunt had turned into a marathon. However next morning we were alongside and happy to be “home” again, and in a very nice berth on the end of the pontoon so we could step ashore and not have to use the ladder over the bow – heaven.
So now we had another reason to go to the boat yard. We had already come to realize that there was a steering mechanism problem as Harriet and Terry were just refusing to steer the boat. We were having conversations such as
‘Dave,’
‘Yes, Jen’
‘This wheel is getting very stiff’
‘Nonsense, Jen, you are imagining it’
‘Nope, definitely stiff, can’t spin it with one finger any more.’
‘Hmmmph’
‘I think it is the rudder’
‘Can’t be the rudder, ‘cos then we will have to take it out, and that’s a nightmare, and awful and horrible and don’t want to go there. I’ll squirt it with WD40 that cures everything.’
A week later after many times a day anointing of the rudder stock with WD40 and much wiggling of the wheel by Dave, the time came to test the steering out. No improvement.
Another test, disengage the wheel and use the emergency tiller, maybe it was a problem in the linkage.
So we locate the emergency tiller from under all the junk in the back locker and put it on. This is supposed to let us steer the boat if the wheel gear breaks down, as it fits straight on to the top of the rudder itself. Now we find we can hardly budge the rudder at all. No way could we steer with it for real. The mechanical advantage built into the wheel steering was the only thing allowing us to steer at all, and no wonder the steering was heavy.
Now we had a very despondent Dave. The rudder will have to come off. Now he admits we should have had it off before, but was hoping to get away with avoiding it.
Then there is the eternal anti-fouling. The all singing, repels all, very expensive stuff we put on in Scotland after months of hard graft preparing the hull, has definitely not done what it is supposed to do. Not only are things growing in profusion, requiring a diver to do an underwater scrub when we had so much growth we could not go faster than 4 knts, but it is coming off. Big decisions to be made here.
So we arrived, were lifted out on the big travel hoist and propped up for the work to begin, and we are now in our happy chaos, all lockers appear to be emptied into the cockpit or the cabin, I am relegated once more to bilge renovation, and we end each day looking like little grubby urchins. Bliss.
Who said retirement meant rest and relaxation!
‘