In this blog post we are going to be talking all about how we prepared out boat for a circumnavigation of the UK. We discuss antifoul, preparing out propeller, tiling the bathroom and unexpected lift out.
The first job to tick off the list was to get the boat lifted out, blocked off and secured so that we could work on her out of the water. We were hauled out in our friendly home marina Shamrock Quay for 3 weeks which we did eventually have to extend further.
As you can see from the growth on the hull - there hadn't been much sailing in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. After some extra TLC - approximately 5 hours of sanding and scraping the hull was smooth and ready for the next stage: anti foul. Anti foul is a paint which you apply to the bottom of your boat in order to stop marine organism growing which can block engine water inlets and ultimately slow you down. We used Hempel Tiger Xtra in True Blue (3 x coats = 2 2 litre tins).
Although a positive thing in terms of boat maintenance, the environment suffers greatly as the paints are full of biocides (resins) which are essentially poison the marine ecosystems surrounding you. The Green Blue have some interesting resources on using more eco friendly alternatives that you can use instead.
Due to ongoing jobs on board we had no access to running water and relied heavily on transporting water from the pontoons, up the ladder and onto the boat in 20 litre jerry cans. The washing up also had to be done off the boat - usually involving sitting on a wooden block and using a bucket.
This year we decided to anti foul our prop, something we haven't done before. We went for a silicone based anti foul by Seajet. It was a 2 part mix - 1 primer and 2 a silicone based outer which together created a super smooth surface which should minimise sea growth to the propeller.
A friend of ours who works in the marina kindly let us use his aluminium tower so that we could reach the rubbing strake which is a sacrificial wooden strip that runs along the edge of the hull and acts to protect from damage. We were recommended to use sharp tungsten carbide blades and a mixture of sand paper grits which really helped take the old varnish off. Once this had all been scraped and sanded we then applied a few coats of International Woodskin to help seal and protect the wood and also give a nice shiny finish. We have found Woodskin to be much easier to use than varnish as it doesn't require sanding in between coats however it isn't as hard wearing but we are happy to top up throughout the year if required. You can see it below on one of our completed grab rails on deck.
We removed out anchor windlass from the deck so that we could prepare and seal the holes which bolted it to the deck. We wanted to do this because this is a piece of equipment which sees a lot of hard work - slamming into waves and of course bringing up and down an often heavily coated sludgy anchor. We wanted to make absolutely sure that no water could seep into the deck and rot the core where this heavy duty piece of machinery is secured. We used our trusty West Systems Epoxy kit for this with some added thickener.
We resprayed our anchor chain with red markers every 5 metres to ensure that we can keep a track of how much anchor chain we have dropped which is called scope. To work out how much chain we will need we use the 6:1 ratio. For every one metre of depth we put 6 metres of chain out. For example, in 5 metres of water we could put out 30 metres of chain.
Another important job was to replace all of our fresh water drinking hoses. Firstly due to the previous pipes being approximately 30 years old and secondly we have modernised the system which allows for easier maintenance and clearer visibility throughout the pipes. We also combined this with attempting to re-pressurise our hot water system, in particular relating to the forward shower. Spoiler alert: using a wider bore pipe helped to keep a consistent temperature instead of the shower alternating from scalding to freezing.
With all the boat jobs coming to a close we finally started the tidying up procedure of packing away all of the tools to make the boat look more like home. However, after getting lifted back in the water we sadly found a leaking seacock in the ensuite aft cabin head. After some googling and research, we knew what had to be done. We decided that we needed to be lifted back out of the water in order to repair this leak before we could set off. The marina staff kindly slotted us in and we had 17 hours in the sling for the repair to be completed. It turns out that the seacock although recently serviced the hull - seacock joint had moved at some point and requiring resealing. As we were feeling the pressure of time we decided to avoid any further risk and opted for a brand new seacock at the expense of £184 + lift out fees. In total, we think this extra job cost us an extra £750.
This was haul out in particular had the added stress of ensuring we had safely completed everything ready to set off on our adventure and we certainly had a few spanners thrown at us along the way. However, we got to learn more about the boat and how she works and that this hard work and preparation would reward us in the future.
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