Sunday 24 April 2016

Lousy Weather

Mekicevica and crew are ready at roaring to go. Even my motorbike is ready for the summer.
And then the weather turned worse than for Christmas and no improvement in sight.
Where was this weather in winter when we wanted to go skiing?

Tuesday 12 April 2016

Caring for the Keel-Bolts

The bits about most sailing boats that make me really nervous are the keel bolts. That is one of the reasons my next boat will have an encased, long keel. I watch very careful for the slightest signs of rusting, so when brown stains started to appear where the keel bolts pop-out in the bilge I got worried. It turned-out it was just dirt accumulating on the irregular surface of the epoxy barrier that cover the bolts. To be on the safe side, I cleaned it thoroughly with acetone and added some more epoxy, this time in a fluid mixture to create a smooth surface.
Bilge-pump and the keel-bolts covered with epoxy to keep water out.

Sunday 10 April 2016

The Big Wash

This weekend was time for the Big Wash. After a lot of scrubbing and rinsing with a jet-wash, Mekicevica is free from all the green stuff and shinning clean again.
In the boat-wash, baby.

Wednesday 6 April 2016

Back in the Water

Today Mekicevica went back into the water. After all these years, Tom, the crane operator, and myself have the process well rehearsed and we must be setting new records on how fast and smoothly a boat can be put back in the water. Even in a windy day as it was. I also pleased that my manoeuvring skills still were not lost during the winter and all went perfectly.

Tuesday 5 April 2016

Creaky Cockpit Sole

During the past season, Mekicevica's cockpit sole started to make creaky noises when we step in. At the same time some small hair-cracks appeared. Solving this problem was one of the priorities of the maintenance season.
The first step was inspecting the cockpit sole from below, which involved removing the shelving under the companionway. It turned-out that the cockpit sole is reinforced by three glassed-in, transversal wooden-beams. Suspecting one of these might be cracked causing the noises, I sanded-out the fibreglass covering them. No easy task, since they are in a position very difficult to access.  After all this trouble, I found the beams in perfect condition. I guess they just creak in the way an old, wooden floor creaks. So I re-covered the beams with woven glass and epoxy, repaired the cracks from the outside with the same material, and decided not to worry with the noises. I'll just keep an eye on any other cracks that may develop.

Sunday 3 April 2016

It's That Time of the Year Again

Boat maintenance season is here. Mekicevica is nearly perfect and the task list is not very long this year:

  • repairing some cracks on the cockpit sole
  • find and fix a leak in the starboard cockpit locker
  • check the epoxy coating on one of the keel bolts
  • make two drain holes in the inside lockers, so that any water in them can flow to the bilge and be drained by the bilge-pump
  • the usual cleaning, anti-fouling, etc.

Ah, the joys of owning a boat.

Relaunching is scheduled for this Wednesday, so we must hurry.