Plymouth Progress 8 - Out of the Water

Current Location: Queen Anne's Battery - On the Hard

We had an excellent trip up the Norweigan coast on the Hurtigruten post boat with Hugh and Linda (thanks for organising guys and also use of your super cabin). It was not uneventful and included me fainting on the plane, testing the Norwegian health care system and spotting the Northern Lights just once.

Arctic blizzard

This boat is bigger than Mehalah. Gilly at Bergen.

Snug in our cabin

Amazing vistas in all directions

Cold!

Yeah! At last The Northern Lights!

Well, what a week back on Mehalah. Three thirteen hour days followed by a twelve hour day and that was after driving down to Plymouth, picking up and installing the second new water tank and preparing to move marina.

It fits.

Cabinetry reconstructed.

And so Mehalah is out of the water, hull  completely sanded down and the new coppercoated antifoul applied. What a team.

We woke up on Monday to fine rain that quickly cleared. We were due through the lock at the entrance to the marina at 9.30 but the tide was so high we were locked into the marina for an extra hour. We left with Gilly at the wheel and new friends on board from the boat across the way. It turned out that as well as being bodyguard to several prime ministers Trevor used to run a boatyard called Bluewater Algarve in Portugal. Yes, you guessed it - his company had done work on Petronella in 2009! Anyway, other than a slight wobble leaving the berth all went fine and soon we were tied up ready to be lifted out just round the corner in Queen Anne's Battery marina. Mehalah is SO much easier to manoeuvre than P was.

Then the marineros took over. The lift trundled down into the water, the slings were attached and out we went. The hull was pretty clean except for growth areas along the bottom of the keel but they washed her down and put us in their biggest cradle.

Lifting out - always an element of stress.

Plymouth in the background.

Guess which bit was not copper coated.

Then the sanders came out and we started work all kitted out in our PPE gear. The aim was to rough up the entire hull, sanding off the green copper oxide to expose a brown copper keying surface on which to apply the new coppercoat. Mike arrived and off we went. Hard, hard work preparing the surface much of the work above our heads with heavy sanders. At the end of a long day we unloaded all the stuff we needed and set off across Plymouth to Dick and Mary's house that they have kindly lent us for the time we are out of the water. It's beautiful overlooking the River Tamar.

Turning the green to brown - plenty still to do!

Two more similar days followed. Mike was there working hard and also Chris, a lifeboatman from the Plymouth lifeboat. Then on Wednesday our friends Simon and Jojo (the circus troupe) arrived with extra enthusiasm. Nothing much to report except hard work and great provisioning from Gilly. Home made fruit cake - yum yum.

Ready for action.

Nearly finished.

By the end of Wednesday she was ready and washed down. The weather, amazingly, was kind, and off we went. The copper, mix, buckets, tape, sticks, trays, brushes and everything else was lowered off the boat and we were away. Would we have enough product? Yes - phew! First an adhesion coat without copper and then four coats all over with the copper mixed in. More painting, more food, more hard work, more fun. Everyone worked SO hard. An absolutely fantastic effort. At the end we were SO, SO tired. But what a result. She looks beautiful and hopefully we'll never have to do this again. M is plonked in the middle of the yard and many people came to tell us a great team we had and how hard they all worked.

Rolling, rolling, rolling. Rolling Gilly takes photo!

The witches mix their potion.

That night we took Mike, Simon and JoJo to the local pub as a thank you. A tired but very satisfied team left the pub and fell into a deep sleep. We had done it. One of the biggest and most weather dependent jobs completed.

Since then we've started to service the seacocks - going well so far - and continued work on the new windlass.

Cleaning up the unusual but very effective seacocks.

It's now been three days since we applied the copper coat so it can rain if it must. That looks unlikely at present but the cold easterly wind is rocking Mehalah in her cradle.

A tired but VERY satisfied team. Key team member Gilly takes the photo again!