It's tempting to give you the context and detailed results for every drop of sweat ... but we don't have time to write it and you don't have time to read it. So instead here's a summary, and if you want more info or to discuss anything then drop us a comment.
Lifted out 04 Mar, lifted in 8 weeks later on 30 Apr - both wonderful weather days, howlucky were we. Positioned btw two large motor cruisers, with less than foot of space at the gunwales - they pack 'em in at Gillingham. At least we were not too near the trees with their dreaded sticky droppings. The pigeons are a nuisance, wherever you are - spreaders are obviously a great place to sit and sh*t.
With reference to the winter sailing and good performance, she didn't have a huge amount of weed and barnacle, and the yard guys got it off easily with the pressure washer.
The focus of the yard work was those things that cannot be done in the water:
- serviced seacocks (original Blakes, a bit pitted on the cone, still work fine)
- serviced winches (because if we dropped something it was a yard hunt rather than an underwater hunt) - turned out our Lewmar 44s were hybrids, the base being the original which has to be removed from the boat to full service the gears & pawls - good advice from Amber at Aquafax was that if they are not back-winding then do maintenance in situ by cleaning and regreasing the gears whilst winding the handle. Our Lewmar 30s are rarely used and seem fine, so simple maint for them too. Of the three Lewmar 8s on the mast, 2 worked fine and 1 was seized - eventually freed the latter after taking out the key and putting WD40 in for a few days - all three serviced.
- replaced main hatch (big leaks last year) with a Lewmar Ocean 60 (ow that's expensive, but we aspire to blue water one day, so let's get the best) - work done by Jean-Pierre of Hadlow Marine to an excellent standard and a good price, ably assisted by Paul Ledsham.
- rebuilt one cockpit locker lid because the ply on the underside was badly rotted, whereas the teak was still very serviceable and matched the rest of the cockpit
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| they pack 'em in |
- stripped all varnish off the boat: cockpit, coamings, washboards, handrails, and 80' of toerail - used hot-air stripper with the triangular tool to great effect. Bloody hard work.
- used oxalic acid on external wood and gelcoat to great effect. This is the main component in all those expensive hull and wood cleaner products in the chandlery, but you can buy oxalic acid crystals in tubs on the internet and make up a much more powerful solution yourself (with gloves and mask) - it really does get the grey out of exposed wood (where the varnish had failed), and cleans up the GRP better than anything we've tried.
- teak oiled all external wood, three coats, and it looks as good as when varnished, and in future all we have to do is wipe on more teak oil.
- cleaned and polished the hull using Autoglym with a hand applicator and hand polishing - might get a palm sander next year and polish with that, see if we get a better finish, but pretty happy with it now.
- anti-fouled with Cruiser Uno, Navy colour which looks very good (yes, I know, you can only see 2" of it when she's in the water).
- replaced the shaft anode which was fairly shot and could come loose (new last year), left the 4 disk anodes and 2 pear anodes as all wearing very slowly (inherited with boat) - maybe next year for those.
There was probably more but that is the gist of it. We didn't touch the engine or the sails.
Launching is always a bit of a trauma, however Kevin & Clive at Gillingham always do a great job and take immense care ... and nothing leaked, and the engine started. So that's all good.
Bit slack with the blog - here's a rather late catch-up for the record.
02 Feb: F3-5 SW, warm & sunny downwind, foresail only, Geoff & Ness on board. The Log does not record how far we got. Beat back with tide, reefed main & foresail, 25Kn gusts. Entry to the lock (Nic) was rather sideways due to tide, and assisted by rubber on lock side - shameful, but everyone's done it.
01 Mar: F3 WNW, cloudy sun, big HW. A few boats out. Got as far as the gas jetty. GPS distance log reads 1,361 nm (in a shade under 2 years - we bought her on 04/04/12). Entry to the lock (Lesley) in a cross tide was perfect.
We-ell, was there really nothing notable since last August? Yes and no. We've only been day sailing down the Medway and back, so not much on the way of passage plans and navigation. Not adventuring as such. Yet every trip out has its moments, and every sail is a joy. So let's catch up a little bit with quite a long blog of log extracts followed by some general notes on river sailing.
30 Aug: F3-4 NW, sunny, warm, many boats, lovely calm sail down river with foresail only, turned at Stangate Creek and beat back. Had Kevin our decorator on board, many years ago he worked at the Isle of Grain docks, interested to see it from the water for the first time.
01 Sep: F3 W, hazy sun, foresail only to Stangate, saw Orca (Geoff & Ness) on their way back, tacked back into F4 with full main & 1 reef in foresail (makes winching on short tacks less onerous)
08 Sep: F2-3 SW, motored down into early flood, wind built at Darnett Fort so foresail only in F3-5 to Stangate buoy, tacked back with the main flood into SW 5-6 gusting 7 with full main and 2/3 foresail
18 Sep: F3 NW, full sails, ~3kn against the flood, last of the flood down to the bottom of Stangate Creek, tacked around S of Slaughterhouse Pt., motor-sailed back in F4-5 NW
12 Oct: F3-4 E, cool & sunny, tacked all the way out past Sheerness. Colin & Jo on board from Trutz - the lovely people who gave us a sail in their Nicholson 35 out of Chichester harbour on a blowy day before we bought ours, so we could see how it handled. (Obviously we liked it :-). Wind died on the return, motored back, saw a seal close by in Kethole Reach.
15 Oct: F3-4 W, cold & sunny, went out to fill fuel tank for the winter (fuel pontoon is outside our locked marina) - as we were out, we motored up to Rochester bridge, the upriver limit for masts, and sailed back under foresail only.
17 Oct: F4-6 W, both sails - the Log just says 'down and back' ! I think that's when we started leaving lockers open and running the dehumidifier - clever machine that, very effective
05 Dec: ran engine on pontoon, doubled up the warps
25 Dec: drank a toast to sailing in general and SIRENA IV in particular, dehumidifier being too clever, thinks there's blockage in outlet pipe to sink, fills it's own tank and stops
18 Jan: F5 SSE, beat up to cranes with one reef in main and foresail and roared back on a beam/broad reach - cold but not bitter, lucky to miss large swathes of black cloud. Saw a seal again (see 12 Oct). Lock-keeper said "thank god someone is going out". We had to force ourselves a bit to go out, and once out were extremely pleased that we did - it's the way with winter sailing. Despite sporting a nice skirt of weed, and probably plenty of barnacles underneath, she sailed very well reaching 6kn through the water.
General observations: short tacking above F3 for us older ones is a lot easier with a reefed foresail (ours is a 140% genoa) and does not seem to reduce performance; short tacking up (or down) the river with the tide is ok - doing it against the tide is soul-destroying and we choose to motor-sail with just the main when against the tide; with the wind behind and no particular hurry, sailing under foresail only is easy and pleasant - the bends in the river would mean multiple gybing and anyway the main masks the genoa (when we buy a whisker pole, we might use the main more, with a preventer of course).
