I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with the blog for the past several months, so this is a start at getting caught up. I originally wrote this in February and a lot has transpires since then.
I removed the battery box to gain access to the gate valve that serves as the seacock for the seawater cooling circuit intake. One of the projects on the haul out list was to replace the gate valve with a ball valve. After removing the batteries and the battery box I was able to put a wrench on the valve, unfortunately the handle encountered a bulkhead when I tried to unscrew it. After cutting the handle off of the valve I was able to finally remove the valve body from the through hull. Because of the clearance I chose to replace with a Forespar Marelon piece, which wasn't in stock at the local West Marine but they were able to order it and have it for me on Monday.
I also took the opportunity to sound a couple of sections of the hull uncovering four additional blisters that the yard had so far missed. There are just under 60 blisters that have been identified so far and all but the new ones have been ground out. The sanding of the hull appears to be about 30% complete. The rudder has been dropped and all the blistering on it sanded out, the damage on the tip has been opened up but the core is still draining a little. With the rudder dropped it was reassuring to see that the rudder shaft was in excellent condition.
While on the hard we also did maintenance on the winches, bringing them home to soak in kerosene for cleaning off the old grease freeing several pawls that had stuck tight.
There was some play in the propeller strut and while the yard was cleaning up the bottom I took on the task of tightening up the strut. First I had to remove both quarter berth bunks and the holding tanks, then I ground off the top of the strut housing. I poured in crack filling epoxy, completing several applications which finally tightened up the strut. Finally I closed up the strut housing with many layers of glass cloth and epoxy, and faired the exterior of the hull around the strut.
After long consideration, I decided it just isn't right to have a boat named for another man's wife, so we removed the name and hailing port from the stern and aft quarters. We actually launched without a name to get back in the water ahead of Charleston Race Week.
We also cleaned off the stripe above the boot stripe and touched up several spots where the boot stripe had been rubbed away. I removed and rebuilt two of the three heads which made a huge difference once we were back in the water.
The last thing I finished up was to finish purging air from the fuel lines. I was concerned that we would need to hand line the boat from the hoist to the dock but after a few cranks, the engine fired and we were able to move to the dock under our own power. After several months on the hard, we finally were back in the water and motored to our new home at the Charleston Harbor Marina on April 12, 2013.
