Hauled out

Thursday turned out to be a long day. As we were rousing for breakfast we were visited by the sail maker who wanted to take some measurements of the rigging. Once that was complete I made another wine run in the car and to pick up some milk (priorities, priorities). I also paid off our marina fees so we were good to leave. Back at the boat I prepped the lines for leaving the dock and performed some basic checks to make sure we were ok. The wind was up so I turned on the instruments to keep a track of the wind strength. Once this was all done I settled down to rest until we were due to go.

Shortly, though, I received a call from the yard as they were a bit concerned about the wind there and suggested I came over to take a look. At the yard the wind was around 15 knots and gusting up to 20 almost right into the dock. I felt we’d be ok with that but agreed to prepare the stern anchor just in case we ran into difficulties at the entrance. Back at the boat I roused Helen to help prepare the stern anchor, rode and chain.

By then it was time to go. We knocked on Albatross III who’d agreed earlier to help with the lines. I also let the folks know on the neighbouring boats as people usual like to keep an eye on things. Leaving the dock was fine. Motoring down the river was a bit slow due to the head wind and from the drag from all the crud on our hulls (see later pics). We even had a bit of a squall as we approached the yard.

Earlier concerns about approaching the yard proved to be cautionary rather than real. Even though we had a bit of a tail wind coming in the boat handled well. Hull crud doesn’t make a difference during slow maneuvers and so the boat was easy to maneuver in the winds as we approached one side then the other to throw lines ashore. By about 1 we were settled in the dock with six lines ashore holding us steady.

Then it was time to place the cradle beneath the boat. Derek who’s in charge of all this was incredibly careful. He’d been to see the boat in the marina to check out where the bulkheads were and checked and rechecked positioning of the supports. The cradle was driven under the boat and jacked up to touch the boat. Then it was off to lunch for the workers and us providing time for the tide to go out and leave us propped up on the cradle.

After lunch the crew got back to work and dragged us up the ramp and out of the water. Here they scraped and power sprayed all the gunk off the bottom of the boat. It took some time and required a complex three point turn so that the second hull to be washed was positioned near the ramp. During this time we were provided a ladder to get off the boat which we were grateful for. On land we met John from Sea Mist nearby and Tom and Kim from Emily Grace. All are here in the yard with us. I also ran into the owner of Endless who left the marina last week. He had had a hell of a time getting out as he also had crud on his props. I’m glad I cleaned ours (despite how disgusting it was) as we may not have made it against the wind if we had not.

It was past five by the time we were finally placed in position in our assigned place in the yard and the boat chocked up for support.

We ate dinner aboard the boat but I had to lug the washing up to the communal area. When I’d finished that, John, from Sea Mist, gave me a ride into town so I could collect our car.

We have water connected and we have a couple of our wastes connected via hoses to 10 gallon drums but we have to be careful about our usage. We also have to be careful about our electrical usage aboard. The weather is not good so we’re not getting much sunshine for the solar panels. The wind gen is helping but with the fridge running and our using our laptops we’re using more than we can make. We’ve decided to run like this while we can before transferring the contents of our fridge to the communal fridge. Without that running we’ll run a net surplus. If we’re stuck here for a while we’ll alternate back and forth every few days.

This morning the works manager, Peter, has already been around to discuss work to be done to the boat. There’s not a lot that can be done due to the wind and rain. However, they can sand down the hulls under the bridge deck and if they get lucky they may be able to do more. We’re going to go through our work list in a little more detail later today and discuss what Helen and I can accomplish over the weekend when/if the weather improves.

In theory we could do a lot of the work we’re having the yard do. Given that one day I know I’ll go back to work I’d rather pay people to do the grunt work and get us back in the water much sooner than we could ever manage. That may give us a little time in the islands of the north shore before we leave for Fiji.