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Monday 19 August 2013

We had to come home, leaving poor Freyja in drydock ;o(

We battled to do as much as we could on Sunday, I got up about 07.00 and set about connecting the Whale Gulper to a nearby sink drain, (a nice quiet job which wouldn't disturb the holiday let people) so now, we should be able to have a shower, without flooding the cabin bilge ;o)
I then started to re-connect the raw water, this was when I discovered that both the gearbox oil-cooler end caps were cracked, then discovered that you can't buy replacements on Sundays. Even in Oundle!
So off I went again, attacking the sides with a borrowed angle grinder and a wire wheel, Glenda recommended that I get the bows done as they would be more difficult to reach once she's back in the water.

There were all the colours of the rainbow under the layer of blacking, we decided to take it all back to the metal, Glenda spent 2 days labouriously scraping the bitumin off (as power tools heat it up, melting and smearing it) I finished the job I was doing and started to scrape using a second tungsten scraper, I realised that if I put pressure on the back of the scraper and dragged it backwards, it would take off an eighteen inch strip at a time! Glenda was a bit pissed off that I hadn't shown her this technique 2 days ago! So a few hours later we went from less than two metres of boat scraped to all thirty metres done and dusted.
Unfortunately, there was a side effect, the scraper screeched, like fingernails on a blackboard, amplified through a P.A system!
I was not a popular person that day!

We will repaint with matt black between the rubbing strake and up to the gunnels, on the gunnels will be red paint mixed with petshop grit for extra grip.                                 

The wire wheel went all 'Kojak' on me! Determining when I should finally pack it in! (much to the relief of the holiday cottage hirers!)