New Prop

I feel a lucky boy, my skipper has been working hard on cleaning my hull over the last few months. First I get a chemical wash, bit like a T cut, which takes off the film of dirt that has dulled the shine and then rubs in an acrylic polish and buffs me up.  Recently he's gone one step further.  He's gone professional and located two products that has made a huge difference, a rubbing compound by Turtle Wax and a polishing compound from 3M's.  Each has it's own Lamb's wool pad so as not to contaminate one product with the other.

The blue stripes have become oxidised over the last 5 years yet clearly you can see that this has been removed bringing back a show room shine.



The clear line between before and after.



The shine achieved using the compounds prior to finish polishing with the Acrylic wax

The shine achieved, although this side requires the blue stripes to be redone !

 

I understand that next year he's going to set upon all the scratches and marks I have on my hull to return me to a showroom condition.

 

There are just two more panels to work on along the port side and by panels I mean the width of the scaffold tower my skipper has.  This enables him to reach from Gunnels to water line, whilst working on a reasonably stable footprint.  He recons that if he gets two more days he'll have me cleaned up ready to go back in to the water.

 

He's also ordered a new prop a 20" to replace my 18" and found out loads about the deal Yanmar made with Hanse whilst I and others were being built.  Apparently the 20" is the correct size for my 75 hp engine, so that'll be interesting to see how much more power I have and how much further I can go for the same 2,200 rpm cruising revs.

 

With this due to arrive this week I could be back in the marina by the end of the month.  My skipper has done this as the manager is struggling for room on the hard, plus he can still work on my Webasto heater and other things whilst I'm on the water but providing he has an electrical supply.  He's come to an arrangement so I assume he's happy with that.

 

I'm hearing rumours of the first planned trip over the Easter break.  A run to Weymouth at 0900 on the Friday picking up the back eddy outside of Cowes by Egypt Point and then using the 6 hours of ebb tide to get us there.  Meeting up with some of his friends before a pleasure sail around the bay on Saturday.  Sunday off then an early start Monday to grab the 6 hours of flood tide back, of course as always Mother Nature has the last say.