The clean up moves on with a vengeance

Sanding the boot top line and antifoul paint

Ravensdale’s spring beauty treatment is now well underway, thanks to some lovely dry and sunny weather.

I am now fully recovered from the dreaded lurgy that stopped me in my tracks last week and, thankfully, Phil didn’t catch it so it’s full steam ahead with work on our boat.

Painting Chine Shine onto the stern

We have continued cleaning the whole of the hull and the superstructure with an amazing product called Chine Shine, which is painted on, then left for around 15 minutes before it is washed off.

The dirtiest job I have had so far was sanding the boot top line – a line of hard antifoul paint along the water line – and the blue antifoul paint on the hull below it.

Removing the old paint ready for repainting

I was wearing a mask to stop me breathing in the blue dust and goggles to protect my eyes, but ended up covered in thick dust, leaving me looking a bit like an overgrown Smurf J

Phil applies a fibreglass repair to the broken exhaust manifold

Phil has been carrying out fibreglass repairs to the starboard exhaust manifold that was damaged during the lift-out operation.

And the one on the port side needed some minor repair where it caught on a pontoon the first time we moved the boat to pump out the holding tank.

Sanding a gelcoat repair

Phil has also been carrying out repairs to Ravensdale’s gelcoat, which is the outermost structural layer on a fibreglass boat hull, designed to protect the underlying fibreglass layer.

When it was dry, it was my job to sand it with wet and dry sandpaper starting with 400 grit, then 600, 800, 1,200 and 2,000 grit to get a smooth finish.

Phil has been carrying out a similar operation on the whole of the hull, sanding the gelcoat all over the hull sanding with 1,000 grit, then 1,500, 2,000 and finally 3,000 grit – a laborious, time-consuming job, which will hopefully provide a lovely smooth finish for polishing.

Other jobs have included running a sharp chisel over the rubber strips between the timbers on the aft deck. This was necessary because the wood had worn away creating rubber ridges, which made brushing water off the deck very difficult.

I volunteered for this job, which involved spending long periods on my knees. Initially, I was kneeling on an old seat cushion that was donated by a friend, but my task became a lot easier when we bought a pair of strap-on knee pads from Lidl.

Chiselling the black rubber strips between the aft deck timbers

Neptunus logo

We are also in the process of stripping black enamel paint off the windscreen wipers, which we had intended to repaint until we discovered they were stainless steel so we’re planning to leave them unpainted now.

We also measured up the damaged Neptunus trident graphic on Ravensdale’s bow and have asked a local firm to make a replacement, which we are told will be ready in a few days.

The weather forecast is reasonable for tomorrow so we will be back out there doing more of the same. Really hope we get a good run of fine weather now so we can get finished and back in the water asap.

We initially planned to be out for a fortnight, but it is looking as though three weeks will be needed to complete the work.