Day: 30 April 2017

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