You will recall, dear reader, that when I last posted we were due to lift out the next day
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| Pagan waits patiently for her lift out ... |
The couple of days on board swinging about mid-river had their moments. That's where the shake it all about comes in as it got a bit bouncy for a few hours!
Battery capacity was heading towards being an issue by the morning of our lift out and had we not lifted I would have had to either move onto the river pontoon to plug in or run the engine for a couple of hours before the end of the day but other than that everything was satisfactory.
So now we're back in our accustomed spot in the boatyard with a winter of jobs planned.
Top of the list is further investigation into the faulty depth sounder. It remains to be seen whether it's an easy fix or whether we're going to have to throw money at it.
Then there's a whole raft of stuff to do ...
All of the deck wiring needs remaking (radar, VHF antennas, masthead lighting feeds etc).
We're also going to have to knuckle down and remove and re-bed every single deck fitting (stanchion bases, rail fittings, deck eyes etc.) that hasn't already been done as we've got two that have now developed leaks and the rest are sure to follow
On a similar vein, I'm going to have to clean out and reseal the keel to keel foot joint (which I last did seven years ago) as four years ashore has caused the sealant to dry out and likely as not some movement of the keel with carrying the weight of the boat for so long.
And then there's the question of running rigging, sails, solar panels, batteries etc. as already discussed.
I'm leaning towards making the rigging and sails the next priority as we currently have a motor boat and not a sailing yacht. That might be slightly contentious though as replacing the anchoring gear had been considered a higher priority. I'm also considering getting quotes from local sailmakers for the new suite of sails althogh they'll have to be competitive with Crusader (on the South coast) who we've previously bought sails from and been very happy with the quality and the price. Either way, if we're going to have new sails for next season, we're going to have to get moving on ordering them soon and that means having the rig set back up in order to measure up for the new sails.
Anyway, I've got two one week working trips coming up this autumn before we put the boat to bed for the winter. And then come the spring I've got another two one week or so trips so in total I've got about four weeks to get everything done before we, hopefully, get to go sailing again properly!
Oh and I realise I forgot to mention that we were able to sort out the insurance, once the standing rigging was replaced, with our former insurer GJW on the basis of the pre-purchase survey we had done in 2016. We will need a full survey by 2026 but that shouldn't be a problem. And the insurance came in substantially cheaper than before too! (Albeit we have cut back our cruising grounds to UK and Ireland Coastal dropping the Northern Europe Coastal and Inland waters cover as we have no need of it for the next year or two at least).
And finally, I am going to make a real effort to keep the blog up to date on a more regular basis!
That's all for now ...
