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This missive will, I believe, mostly appeal to boaty people. Or perhaps to people who just like lists. I certainly won’t be offended if boat ‘spannering’ is not your thing and you choose to skip these words.

This is what we’ve been upto during our time in North Carolina, more specifically Bock Marine Boat Yard. Now we’re floating it feels appropriate to release this data, Cambridge Analytica style.

• Mast compression problem sorted…. Rotting wood removed, new 5.5” fibre glass slabs both inside and out, new gel coat, new plinth, bilge area painted etc etc
• Deck fittings remounted on new gel coat plint
• Toilets serviced and new pipes in fwd heads
• Starter circuit and earths cleaned
• Glow plug circuit installed
• Generator serviced
• Starter motor – main and spare both serviced
• Gear box oil changed
• Oil changed
• Fuel tanks drained, diesel polished and both tanks cleaned
• Solar panels installed on Bimini and wired in
• All seacocks serviced
• Outboard serviced and flushed before haul out
• Holding tank installed with pipework
• Taylor’s Kerosene Heater factory reconditioned
• Water tanks flushed, cleaned and new pipe and new seals installed
• Seals on all oval port holes replaced
• Seals replaced on two round portholes
• New cutlass bearing
• New pump for pressurised water system
• Prop shaft pulled and polished
• New plumbers block
• New pressurised deck wash pump installed
• New engine battery installed with new independent earth cable
• New vinyl windows, new piping, new zips on spray-hood
• Hatch Garage completely disassembled and rebuilt including recaulking to stop leak
• New 90 amp alternator installed
• Vents on deck resprayed
• Anchor chain remarked and sprayed
• Hull work – pinholes sanded, epoxied, and copper coated
• Paintwork remedied and rub strips in place for both anchors on bow sprit
• Canvas spray hood water proofed
• Anode posts reset in hull
• Bilge cleaned
• New shelf in cupboard in saloon
• Lids on 4 deck boxes recaulked
• Port and Starboard deck boxes stripped, painted internally and revarnished with 9 coats
• Belay pins and pin rail stripped and 9 coats of varnish applied
• Bulwarks, grab rails, gas locker, hatch garage, boom gallows and butterfly hatch all stripped of old varnish and at least 6 coats of new varnish applied
• 2 x Anchors painted and chain resprayed
• Engine realigned and 4 new engine mounts installed
• Stainless steel stanchions polished
• Sheaves swapped on mast for better halyard runs
• Hull awlgrip paint waxed
• New storage system in lazarette configured
• 5200 squeezed into gaps on bulwarks
• Teak decks cleaned and treated

Not quite ready to depart yet. Some fettling remains to be done. Things that could only happen once we were floating again.

The rig is not finished. The engine needs a once over and we’ll get Brookes the mechanic to check the valves etc.

And we need a weather window too. And my ankle needs to less elephant like.

I now know how to varnish. Period. I’ve put the time in. I’ve visited the importer for Epifanes varnish in Maine. I’ve read the book. I know the different properties of Wood Finish and High Gloss. I’ve scraped and sanded and acetoned and tack cloth wiped. I’ve done 25% and 5% and splash mixes with thinners.

I have a table in a notebook of how many coats have been applied to different areas of the boat and when sanding is needed between coats. And tomorrow will be the start of the final two High Gloss coats before we get relaunched. The weather is set, the brushes are ready and the platform (trellis) is in place. And then hopefully I will start to talk about something other than varnishing. I have become a varnishing bore. Be grateful you are far away.

Two things to report from the weekend. We had a particularly snazzy brand new black hire car. Laura the manager at Enterprise looked after us well. We unsurprisingly book the cheap and cheerful, less than ten pounds a day option when we choose to have a car. The cheap Kia or Noddy car equivalent. To drive away in a 3.5 litre V6 thing which had quite a bit of poke in sport mode was a driving treat. It was slightly embarrassing to take it back with assorted boat yard dirt staring out from the black carpet foot wells.

Trips to Enterprise have been a little like living in an episode of the Archers. I’d describe the Archers as a BBC radio soap opera for middle class people if you have never heard of it before. Think that’s fair. Anyway, Enterprise offer this great pick up and drop off service which works a treat. A retired police officer  who’d I’ve never met before gave me a lift back to the boatyard one day and after chatting for a while, I said, I know your wife Cheryl. You live in Newport. He was dumbfounded. She had cut my hair a few weeks earlier. Small world.

Then there was the serving Marine who did a bit of driving on his days off. I asked him about the sparkly equipment the American military provide and he laughed and said, ah, the stuff we get to use is from the 1970’s and we spend all our time fixing it. The sparkly stuff only comes out for Military shows.

And finally the sales assistant who was involved in a paternity test after finding out on a ski holiday that an ex girlfriend of his was 7 months pregnant and he may be the father. Turns out he wasn’t but he had an interesting two weeks getting his head round that little scenario. It made for a somewhat more interesting conversation than just talking about the weather. Why he chose to tell me this stuff I have no idea. Script writers get yourselves down to Enterprise. It’s a microcosm of life.

We took the car to the Newport Pig Cookin’ Contest. A bit of North Carolina madness. Think Hog Roast on steroids. We ate pig then left.

It’s up. Our Easter pole offering.

Inevitably problems to sort.

Tweaking and new bits needed.

But it’s going to be 75 degrees today so not all bad.

Off to the beach for a Helen hikette before any chores today.

Have a good one, whatever you’re upto.