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Hibernation

Matilda is on the hard again for some repairs and the annual maintenance.

Snow on deck

And temperatures below zero

But the next spring is not far away…

Ready to go

There was some additional delay because of the extensive rain last week. The primer could not be applied. Now after the rudder quadrant was remounted the antifouling paint was finished and the engine was tested, Matilda is ready for the water again.

Waiting for the travel liftIt was a good feeling finally applying the antifouling on the rudder

After replacing the accumulators and rewiring the echo sounder transducer to the old depth instrument (which I wisely had kept in place), Matilda is ready to go and will be on an Aegean Sea circle for the next 2 weeks.

She will head north first and pass the sliding bridge of Khalkis on Sunday about 2 hours before midnight. She will visit the Sporades and sail to the Khalkidhiki. Depending on the weather, Limnos, Chios and some of the Cyclades are on the schedule but nothing is fixed.

Location can as always be tracked via “Marine Traffic” on the “location” page of this blog.

There won’t be any posts during the voyage but a little report after completion of the voyage.

Matilda is finally back in the water! …and I have to leave :-(

Today is the day; Matilda is going back into the water. I had detached the struts from the radar pole and had tilted it in a horizontal position. I also had to remove the back stay in order to allow for the small travel lift to move above Matilda and lift her into the belts. Although quite old, the travel lift has been doing what it should for the last years and therefore, I was not expecting any adventures. Matilda was lifted out of the cradle and the areas where the pads had been were sanded and painted with antifouling. After some time in order to allow the antifouling to dry, the travel lift started moving and Matilda was coming closer to the water. Just 50 meters away from the shore, a big bang stopped the journey abruptly. One of the front wheels of the travel lift had burst.

Waiting for the wheel to be repaired

It’s spring time and about time to get Matilda back in the water. Several antifouling layers have been removed from the bottom, some work was done at the rudder, new antifouling was applied and the propeller polished. When the old antifouling layers were removed, I noticed that the antifouling was applied directly on the gel coat without any primer in between. I was happy to see that there wasn’t any evidence of osmosis. I had measured the humidity in the hull and found that it was quite low (below 2% in most areas). The hull had time to dry out for the last 4 months on the hard of course but providing that Matilda had been in the water for almost 3 years, I was prepared to see higher values. Good girl :-)

Old antifouling layers removed

New antifouling applied and propeller polished

Ready to go

This winter is colder than usual in Greece.  I did the procedures I was used to in Northern Europe (I even had a couple of “antivries” bottles left over from Holland :-) ) to avoide any freeze damade and I am safe. Matilda is now covered in snow waiting for warmer days.

Although more than one year has passed now since my last post, this blog is not dead. I will compile and post the remaining videos of my Round Europe voyage when I find the time and will also update the page on technical stuff and changes/upgrades on Matilda. So, stay tuned and have a look from time to time.

I didn’t do any longer trips last year and there were many reasons for that but I still enjoyed some local sailing on extended weekends with friends and relatives. On my last trip in October 2016 where I visited a couple of the Cyclades islands I was surprised by a heavy thunderstorm with more than force 10 squalls and almost got washed ashore. I had anchored in a bay at nice weather and clear skies. We went swimming, had a Greek salad for dinner and were enjoying a glass of wine.  Suddenly, at about 21:00 the stars disappeared, the night sky turned black and the light wind veered 90 degrees to W. A few minutes later the scenario changed completely. Heavy rain was flying horizontally such that I couldn’t see the surface of the see any more from the cockpit. The wind meter was showing 48kn of gusts, the anchor started dragging and the big motor yacht behind me on the permanent mooring was coming dangerously closer. I started the engine and tried to keep away from that motor yacht whilst my brother in law was trying to lift the anchor. Although heavy lightening is not sailor’s favorite weather phenomenon I was thankful about it because this way I could figure out where I was in the bay and where the other moored boats were in relation to me. After a 20 min fight with the elements, the anchor was lifted and the wind had dropped to about F6. I moved the boat to the neighboring bay and went alongside at the pier. I went to a nearby pub where I met some other sailors. Everyone was talking about the thunderstorm of course. After midnight, I was sitting on a bench in the rain next to Matilda enjoying my last beer for that day and I couldn’t believe that she was still afloat. Some days later I heard from other sailors that many yachts got damaged that night and one even sunk. The phenomenon was heavy and although very extended it had not been forecasted. Finally I must say that I am quite sure that the anchor (even dragging) had helped preventing stranding. I wouldn’t have managed to turn Matilda into the wind using engine power. If I knew it was coming I would have preferred to stay in open water. In any case, that was another lesson learned.

Now after almost three years in the water, it was about time to get Matilda out in order to give her underwater body some attention and prepare her for the next season.

Matilda being put on the cradle

After powerwashing

It was about time

Several layers of self polishing antifouling can be removed easily with the help of a spatula. The red one seems to be hard antifouling. It comes off together with the other layers where – as it seems – no primer could be applied because of the cradle support pads but holds well on the rest of the surface

It has been a while now since I arrived in Greece. I did some local sailing (not much though) and flew back to Germany about one month ago. Although life has become quite “usual” again, trying to compile some videos of the voyage has kept my memories alive. The first video took a lot longer than anticipated but now it is ready. I hope the other ones will follow a bit faster.