Beached, Petrella is back on the hard for her annual TLC. Think I need to break the cycle of losing two weeks of the summer, bite the bullet and arrange to drag her out again for next January; it'll only have been six months in the water, but if I scrub off her bottom and change the anodes, that'll move her annual maintenance period back into deep winter, when we hardly ever get to sail anyway.
That said, the weather for the next week looks pretty grim, particularly for next weekend, which is shaping up to be wet and wild. And is, of course, the weekend I've booked off from the band to spend working on the boat.
Though we've got help. We booked some time with a local company, Fast Tack, for them to do most of the work for me. The copper coat just needs a light burnish, there are a few patches of anti-foul that the copper coat doesn't cover that need renewing, and the domestic water pump has failed and needs replacing.
In addition, they're going to install shroud gates on port and starboard, to make it easier for Dad, Nik and Lottie to get on and off. This will involve Kevin (one half of the afore mentioned Fast Tack) bracing the couple of stanchions nearest the shrouds on each side to strengthen them and adding quick release clips to the guard rails.
I've long been contemplating adding davits to the stern for the tender. Our new tender, a 2.5m Honwave, has an aluminium floor and is quite heavy at 45kg. The weight isn't really the problem, and I've got a good battery powered pump to inflate and deflate it, but fitting the floor is an absolute bind if you don't have a flat surface, like a pontoon, to work on. There aren't that many flat surfaces aboard Petrella.
The weight was an intentional choice. I'm hoping the additional stability it'll offer will make life much easier to ferry Dad and Nik and, potentially, Lotty between ship and shore.
However, talking with Kevin and Martin (Fast Tack in its entirety) this Sunday just gone, we've got misgivings regarding the complications involved in fitting davits to the stern of Petrella. All the obvious complications of suspending 50kg of rubber and aluminium off the stern of a 46 year old boat and hoping things won't break.
Kevin suggested a possible alternative might be weaver davits, which essentially flip the tender up to hang vertically on it's side across the stern of the boat. Conventionally, that can involve needing to fit hardware to the transom, but with the strength of our aft cleats and the position of their fairleads, he thinks we might be able to set up a system that achieves the same with webbing straps. We'll take a close look at the possibility once Petrella is back on the water.
Pulling her out of the water went smoothly. Maneuvering her in the tight confines of the marina still puts my heart in my throat. It essentially takes a three point turn using the prop wash to assist to get her out of her berth and into the fairway before then motoring astern out into clear water. Once out of the fairway, however, it was a two minute motor around to the back of the marina to reach the slip, after which the banksmen in the marina's yard took over the handling and my part was done.
Happily, the copper coat, now eleven years old, is holding up well. The year's growth on it didn't amount to much more than a layer of slime, easily hosed off with the jet-wash. A light burnish and it should be a good for another year.
We relaunch Monday 16th. Then I'm really, really hoping chance and the weather play ball for a long overdue shake-down cruise to Fowey and back the following weekend.
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