Being on the hard means hard work all day long (and a few times into the night–ever tried to apply black antifouling in the dark?). As we live on Pitufa, we cannot walk away from the building site in the evening. We usually need at least one bit from every single one of our many lockers and by the end of the day there’s no free surface available. In order to being able to sit down, we first need to stow away at least the worst of the mess.
Of course such chaos also means searching for bits and pieces and it’s especially annoying when you think you’ve handed down all the stuff that’s needed for a job (by bucket elevator), only to find out that there’s one tiny bit missing–4 m up the ladder, around the deck, 6 steps down into the boat and the same way back again. At least we can’t complain about lack of work-out.
Fortunately we managed to get all jobs done within a single week (antifouling, paint repairs, new shaft seal, new cutlass bearing, new depth sounder in a bigger thru-hull, closing a no longer needed thru-hull, fabricating a platform for a new swimming ladder, having it welded on, installing the ladder, etc. etc.) and we splashed this morning! Hurray!! We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the boat and clearing away the chaos. Oh yes, and Christian of course couldn’t resist finishing the installation of the swimming ladder–a job that turned out to be more complicated that expected needed bits and pieces from hidden storage spaces. Anyway, now we’re done and ready to have an after-work beer!
We needed a new cutless bearing
Toxic stuff...
Birgit's painting the new antifouling
Boatyard chaos
After welding mounts for our new swimming ladder, plenty of fairing was necessary.
Deep draft means working high up on the hard.
After just one week, Pitufa splashes again.
