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Refit Two- here we go again....

This was a weird summer for us. Having sailed her all the way down to Poole, we moored her in Poole Town Quay marina and lived on her from the winter of 05/06. However, she really had not been kitted out as a liveaboard and it was hard work- much harder than we were prepared to put up with. The main problems, such as having nowhere to keep our cars and have to commute miles each day, were not actually the boat's fault, but it all added to a general feeling of discontent.

Things came to a head one very blustery evening in February, when Kat was 'home alone'. Having settled herself down for an evening of hard studying for the new job, she was just about nodding off when CRACK- the most almighty crash ricocheted throughout the boat. The new radar had just fell off the mast and decimated the only wooden part of the deck- the hatch! "There was a huge hole and wind and rain were getting in and the whole thing was just horrible- and also pretty scary. You didnt know what was going to happen next". The bearings in the wind generator also went at this point, which didn't help as it felt like the entire boat was vibrating and the noise was never ending- really got on your nerves. The wind also badly damaged our canopy and our sail cover.

Anyway, after this we got a caravan for a few months- that was actually quite fun. If we couldn't boat for some reason, that would be a second choice of lifestyle for us. Meanwhile, the boat was sitting patiently in Poole waiting for us to come back and love it again- our berth was up at the end of March and we desperately needed to take it out of the water- we hadn't been able to check it after our incident with some rocks at Portland.

So we found a great yard further up inside Poole harbour and on one particularly rubbish day at the beginning of April we sailed her round to Dorset Lake Shipyard. This in itself posed a new challenge as we had to pick up a mooring buoy- something we hd never done before (except a botched attempt in the middle of the Irish sea. Dont ask! )

We also had two friends on board who we hadn't sailed with before- this is not the day or the way to introduce people to sailing, but we didnt know that at the time.

So anyway, we sailed her around with no problems, found the buoy we were supposed to moor to (having stressed repeatedly that we are 16 tonnes and will this teeny tiny red thing actually hold us in this horrible weather ( it was about 25 knots with wind against tide). Once we got there, Kat and Rob tried to pull the buoy onto the deck- no such luck. We tried this two or three times and every time got pushed either backwards or forwards too quickly- depending on how fast the wind was blowing at the exact second we came up on the buoy. Eventually, Jay went forward and climbed out over the bow- not a procedure we recommend- and proceeded to break his fingers whilst retrieving the buoy and doing a very inelegant pair of splits as the boat and buoy parted!!!! We were all very proud of him, but I think he was in too much pain to care!

The next episode of fun came soon after when Dorset Lake sent their shore boat out to pick us up off the mooring. We had told them many times that we were concrete and dont get too close, but unfortunately when the little wooden boat arrived a wave picked it up and smashed it hard against our bow. Stupidly, it actually caused us more damage than them- it took all our expensive teak rubbing strake off, and all the front starboard gunwale was destroyed- we were not impressed! The boat driver's face was a picture "I thought you were joking about the concrete!"

You can see from the pictures how much she is pulling on the mooring and we had to leave her like that-  we were really worried!!

After this, the world and his dog conspired against us. Jay had to work away and Kat had never ending exams for work. We would both much rather have been scrubbing the bottom of the boat- yes, really.
Finally Jay managed to find a date he could get down there and oversee the lift out. Here was the moment of truth. Exactly how bad was the bottom going to be? Had our cunning plan of garage floor sealant worked, or was there just going to be a tiny bit of concrete left? We had no idea what to expect- it had been a long time since Clovelly, when we last saw the bottom.

 

This was our main bit of construction work- we got rid of the chart table- which had become somewhere just to put junk, and turned it into a lovely 2 seater bench- high enough to sit inside on bad weather days and lok outside without having to go out there! We like motorsailers!
Poor girl- you can see where the letters of her name came off and also where we lost the wood in the storm. But no massive holes! The only damage to the rudder are a few chips out of the fibreglass casing- thank goodness the entire boat wasn't fibreglass!This was the damage caused by the rocks in Bridport
We don't seem to have many photos of this refit- which is strange for us. We painted a lot- thank you so much to our friends who helped paint, clean, sort out the dinghy and fix the hatch! This is also when Jay went up the mast and discovered the main halyard (which was holding him up) had chafed badly and was holding on by a couple of strands. Good job he's only light! We also fitted radar, new wind generator, new canopy and sail covers and sorted out the engine properly.
We were only supposed to be out on the hard for 2 weeks. We still have the letter from the yard explaining that they could only offer us a space for a couple of weeks as they were fully booked.  6 months later we finally went back in! We had both had to work, and everything just got away from us a bit. We lost nearly the entire summer- from April to September. But in September she was finally back in the water and we sailed her to Southampton.
Thanks Vik- you are the hand- painting guru!