Holiday's over, back to work

On Friday 19^th April, Escapade was lifted out for the first time in 2 years. We were impressed to see that our regular snorkels and dives to clean the hull had paid off and there was very little growth. The yard gave her a quick jet wash and, after a day scrubbing and another removing stubborn barnacle remains, the Coppercoat was as good as new.

As Escapade had not had a good gel coat clean since our last haul out, my three weeks were mainly taken up working on that. Scaffolding was hired and, armed with my trusty polisher and, of course plenty of new cleaning compounds, I set to work to strip, clean, cut, polish and wax the gel coat. It was a long and tiring job, but worth it in the end as the gel coat was mirror shiny.

Our other below the water line jobs included changing the anodes and re antifouling the skin fittings, the sail drive leg, the rudder heel and the bowthruster. More cleaning for me!

Martin was very busy too. He worked on flushing out all of the hoses and the sail drive. He added some extra Coppercoat to raise the waterline at the stern. But the big job was to change the four main batteries from AGM to lithium. Obviously, this wasn’t a straight forward job as three new battery chargers needed fitting with new cabling to suit.  But he was pleased with the end result which is currently working very well.

We also replaced a very rusty anchor chain and had the anchor re galvanised.

By the time she went back in, Escapade looked like a new boat and was ready to set sail again to new adventures.

Whilst at the Airbnb, it was a big birthday for me and the celebrations lasted a month with BBQs, meals and many friends. One  of the highlights was a truly spectacular Australian feast prepared by Desi. A massive thank you to her and also to Katy for her co-ordination  and, of course, the delicious cake.