3.11 – Monday

We finished painting yesterday, so today we’re ready to be put in the slings! Once we’re lifted up, we need about 24 hours to paint the spots under the boat stands, then 24 hours for the paint to set. Then back in the water!

We caught up with Sean this morning and he said he can’t get us in the slings until tomorrow, and he can only give us 24 hours in the slings.

If we’re not going in the slings today, then my only task is to wax the waterline, and Kyle’s main task is to get the saildrives back together. I’d waxed the sides of the boat right before we went to Florida, but since then they’ve gotten gray streaks in them. I figured the rain had washed bottom paint dust down the sides, but since it was waxed it should wipe off pretty easily.

WRONG.

Boat wash didn’t take it off, nor did a melamine foam (magic eraser). I had to use acetone, which also takes the wax off, so now I’m re-waxing the entire freaking boat. I’m so exhausted from painting. The weather wouldn’t cooperate. I made a little progress waxing but I had to stop every time it started raining.

In the meantime, Kyle put the saildrives back together. We’d painted the aluminum drives with 2 layers of barrier coat, Kyle now applied 2 coats of Trilux 33 aerosol anti-fouling paint. He also sprayed the old propellers with 2 coats of Trilux 33.

Kyle installed the new external zincs (we’re using aluminum “zincs”), which are sacrificial anodes – any stray electricity in the water eats the zincs instead of eating important boat parts.

Kyle used 3M 4200 to adhere the new rubber fairing to the bottom of the boat. He made lots of angry faces while doing this, he got 4200 everywhere, and the fairings didn’t fit quite right. Their purpose is to improve the water flow around the drive, they are not meant to act as a seal.

He ended up cutting a little piece out of the old fairings to fill in the gap.

The propellers and nose cones fit right on, but it looks like we don’t have identical nose cones because they fit against the propellers differently. We called our consultant (Kyle’s dad), who concurred with our conclusion – it’s not a problem, it’s just that they aren’t identical. There was a small gap between the propeller and nose cone on the port side, Kyle filled that in with 4200, mostly because a gap like that can be susceptible to tangling with fishing line.

After dark, he finished up the interior work on the saildrives – he replaced the drive oil and swapped out the internal zincs. The old zincs were in really rough shape, here’s the old vs. new.

3.12 – Tuesday

I started waxing this morning and promptly burst into tears. We’ve endured 5 straight days of hard physical labor from sun up to sun down. Apparently that’s my limit. I was completely exhausted. Kyle finished up waxing the acetoned areas, then added a 2^nd layer of wax along the waterline / boot stripe. What a beast.

We taped up our towels at the sling locations, those should protect the hull from the dirty, gritty lift slings.

Around mid-day, Lifty Man brought the boat lift over and they put us in the slings.

The lift gave us a few extra feet of altitude, and that’s where they left us for the day. We had to borrow a taller ladder!

Kyle quickly got to work sanding the last few spots of bottom paint, as well as sanding barrier coat off that thing that I wasn’t supposed to paint but didn’t know it.

He painted over the last few spots with two thick coats of barrier coat, and then a hotcoat of bottom paint. He put the final coat of bottom paint on around 11pm, we had to accelerate our “waiting periods” because we could only stay in the sling for 24 hours, but the bottom paint requires 24 hours after the last coat before putting in the water. We can only give it about 12 hours.

3.13 – Tuesday

We’re sleeping in a boat that is suspended in mid-air, and it’s a long way down. At about 4am, there was a loud noise from the slings.

There was a loud POP! Kyle immediately jumped out of bed. My first instinct was to stay put, because if we’re going to fall I’d rather be laying on a mattress than running around. We couldn’t find anything amiss.

In the morning, we talked to Lifty Man, who said our boat is so light that the slings were probably contracting a little after lifting a heavy sport fisher right before us. Apparently most boatyards stretch their slings but Detyen’s doesn’t.

Sean said we need to wait for high tide, but it’s hard to just sit and wait for a big event like seeing if you home still floats. Finally, Kyle figured out how to force the issue – he heated up lunch. Sure enough, we had to gobble down the last few bites because Lifty Man came over and told us to vacate the boat, they were ready to get moving!

With our width, we barely fit in the boat lift or the basin, so it’s nerve-wracking to watch, but the boat yard efficiently dropped us in the water and then we were floating again!

We opted to stay in the basin for 24 hours just to make sure there were no issues. We ran through some engine testing, verifying full propulsion on both sides, and no leaks from the sail drives. The bilges were clear, and I finally peed in my own toilet again!

We went out for celebratory beers at a local brewery!