MAINTENANCE AND GETTING THE BOAT READY TO HAUL AND RELAUNCH

The saying is that the two best days of a sailor’s life is the day he buys a boat and the day he sells the boat.  Conversely the two worst days of a sailor’s life is the hauling and launching of the boat.  This blog is dedicated to some things we have learned to help make these processes less stressful.

Carl in the engine room

 

carl's engine room shoes

One important thing is that we do weekly maintenance of the engines and systems.  We plan on a day of the week, if we are making passage on that day we do it at first anchorage.  Our day is Sunday.  Our weekly maintenance includes checking the belts on the engines and alternators, check the oil, check transmission fluid, check the Racor filters, check bilges for water, spray WD-40 bolts and valves and manipulate the raw water thru hulls on the sail drives.  Carl wears throw away surgical booties in the engine room, no dirty footprints on deck! 

carl lubricartes all the locks

 

The next item is the dingy locks, we have 4 with matching keys as one need’s to lock gas tank and engine to the dingy and we have two locking cables, a 30 ft. and a 6ft. for locking to docks or trees, these are given a spray of WD-40.  This lesson was learned as in Antigua we needed to have the outboard repaired and the lock was frozen and bolt cutters had to be found.  We also now carry bolt cutters!  The main saloon lock we also WD-40.  The outside decks are cleaned with Greased Lightning, Bar Keepers Friend, and Mr. Clean Erasers.  Bar Keepers Friend comes in a cardboard can, not good on a boat if it gets wet it disintegrates so we put it in a cleaned plastic Parmesan Cheese container which we can sprinkle it from.  The rest of the week the deck gets a good rinse with water.  Once every six months the stainless is polished with Prism Polish and the fiberglass table and vertical surfaces are cleaned and Star Bright polished.  Maintenance on the interior includes washing down all the walls and overhead with vinegar, this helps against mold.  The heads get vinegar put in which cuts crystals and leaves the toilet bowl clean and white.  Once in a while we add veg. oil to head to lubricate the valves. The floors are vacuumed and swiffered to rid of sand and dust.  All thru-hulls are manipulated and returned to either open or closed position depending on their purpose.   Another metal cleaner we have on board is Never Dull which comes in a metal can which will rust so we remove and put into a plastic jar. 

maintenance supplies

Haul Out:

The boat is power washed when hauled

 

The day before the boat is hauled we change the oil and oil filters, we change the racor filters, the jib is taken off the roller furling.  We wash the boat with fresh water, fill and drain the holding tanks with fresh water.  The boat is power washed and chocked by the yard then strapped down with large ratchet straps attached to 6ft drilled in screws to the ground.  We put corks (think of all the wine you drink) in all the thru-hulls on the exterior of the boat as well as shutting all the thru-hulls from the inside.

Leslie with wine and corks in thru hulls while sanding

   The Bimini is removed and stored inside, the mainsail we leave tied in her sail cover.  During storage, the impellers in the raw water pumps are removed and the raw thru hulls are removed and soaked in vinegar to remove the scale inside them. We also change the sail drive oil and the outboard lower unit oil.  The engines are back flushed with a vinegar solution with a little Rule 50 pump into a 5 gal spackle bucket and the solution goes round and round for about an hour. The fuel polishing system is run for a hour or so.  We remove all the lines we can and soak them in fabric softener and fresh water then store inside.  We do the same to all the lines we can pull and reach that stay on the mast by putting as much as we can in the 5 gal. bucket with solution to soak.  We wrap tools in lightly oil soaked rags to reduce rust and keep parts moving. We pickle the water making system. 

all hatches have sun shades

 

We bought car sunshades and cut them to fit each hatch.  This helps to reduce sun damage to cushions and mattresses and actually keeps the cabins cooler when closed up.    By doing all this, and there are probably things I missed we are so used to doing this now, we save ourselves a lot of work and possible problems when we launch.  Our boat is usually left on the hard for 3to 4 months.  The last thing we do is hang Sun Pac, a mildewcide; we hang one in each pontoon, and one in the main saloon.  We also put Roach Puff in the corner of cabinets and under the sink.  All this discourages critters from taking up residence in our absence.

Frolic heads for the water

Launch: Basically we put all the pieces we have removed back in the engines, do a normal weekly maintenance and the engines are good to go.  We run the sheets     thru the cam cleats and replace any that look iffy.  Put on Bimini and sails etc.  The major part of launching is painting the bottom. This year we added two pounds of cayenne pepper to the bottom paint.  We will see how that works, as of two months we have no growth on the bottom.

New screens on foward hatch

Misc:  Most charter boats come with no screens.  We refitted all the hatches with Bomar screens that fit around the hatch.  They come with screens and sunshades.  Our Lagoon has two hatches in the main saloon that are vertical and off size so I made screens for them with toggle holders, makes them easy to undo to pass thru the windless remote.  The refrigeration on our boat is front opening, inefficient for 12 volt so I attached thick clear plastic to each shelf to close over the space between shelves, now when I open the door the cool stays in and I only open the cover on the shelf I need.  It keeps the power usage low and the food from spoiling.  We run all our systems on two solar panels. 

Just wanted to share some of the chore side of living on a boat, we still have the sun and fantastic water to jump into when things get hot.  Wish you were here!

Enjoying Sailing