Winter 2022

Seasons greetings,

It is that time when I'm back out of the water for a spell on the hard for a deep clean inside and a wash and polish out.  However, as with these things the mere fact that there are three months in front of you, there's an option to leave it for another day. Certainly, this cold snap does not bode well for the Skipper to dip his hands in buckets of hot water only to splash it all over my cold sides to remove the salty sticky, polluting particulates that adhere to my sides.  So I'll give him that, it can wait and it is bound to rain at some point too!

The electricity charge of £5/day has been resolved with the fitting of a meter maid that like your electricity meter at home just counts the kWh used. At £0.19/KWH plus an admin fee of £0.27/day, it means that I have just the single oil-filled, timed radiator in the master cabin disseminating the heat through the saloon to the rear cabins if it hasn't gone cold by then.  When Skip arrives on some occasions he does run the Webasto heater, which runs on the diesel he topped up before moving me to the marina.  That tends to warm me throughout and probably him too whilst spending time down here.

As usual, a visual inspection of my hull is carried out whilst I'm in the slings and being jet-washed, this defines if there are any areas that need attention due to the build-up of weed, that the Copper Coat in the main keeps off.  As is usual, the crack between the 3.5t lead bulb and the cast iron keel from which it hangs, is closely inspected for any deterioration.

My Keel last year

 This year when I came out in August, to have another prop fitted, the tail of the lead bulb was slightly damaged. When inspected more closely, it appeared this was either a repair from a previous event or more likely a feature of when the lead bulb was formed and miss-shapen. Once fitted, it was then reshaped with a filler.

This has proved also to be the case for that annoying crack.  A few areas of rust have appeared on my keel and so Skipper went around with a wire brush and a hammer. When he looked at the crack more closely and tapped it he realised that it had been filled and went on to remove it back to the lead underneath.  Once cleaned up a bit more he'll build it back up in resin layers, with fiberglass fragments cut into the mix, before finally finishing off with a filler to give a smooth surface.

Then it'll be rubbed right back to the Copper Coat previously applied and re-coated.

The filler material removed exposing the lead

The first job, which is the easiest, is the removal of the prop and cleaning it at home.  This is where it is likely that last year the job wasn't completed as the rear anode wasn't available and it was put back on but not torqued up, then forgotten.

As most marine life forms other than fish and other large marine animals etc consist of calcium carbonate structure, the use of a 'limescale' remover dissolves the build-up as can be seen with the main body of the Flexofold body below.

Prob body in a bath of Limescale remover

I brush each blade the same and it comes off without any scraping or mechanical process.  You do have to pinch an odd baking tray from the kitchen though, but as you can see this has the same blue as the keel!

It is hoped that the deck wash pump, stainless steel deck fitting, and the sea/fresh water switch valve can be fitted and ready for next season.  Sea water, to wash down the anchor and deck, the build-up of green fungia which only grows in fresh/rainwater, so a dash of seawater kills it leaving my decks free of a green coating.

The loud hailer is still to go up the mast, Skipper has already fed the wiring up there ready and has it working from the radio set.

Another winter project is to re-make the connection from the manual anode to the earth (base of the wind generator). It was noted that one of the two anodes fitted to the prop was nearly eaten away and that was replaced in August of course.  The state of the manual one is whole, suspicion grew that it wasn't doing its job properly when weed was spotted growing on it. The bolt at the base has corroded and so stopping any residual current from flowing that should prevent galvanic corrosion.

Well, that's about it for now, I'll update you as progress is made or not if the cold weather continues.