Shrimper update

Months have passed since news was posted here about our Cornish Shrimper so it must be time for another instalment.

This picture is merely a taster, of course.

After waiting and waiting we finally got some good news. The boatyard which had agreed to carry out the repairs to our little sailing boat now had the capacity to begin the work. So we hitched up the trailer outside our house on which Eun na Mara had been resting for so long and we trundled her off to Ardfern so they could make a start. We always knew that the work needed was going to be a messy job, grinding out the tiny pieces of iron ballast from the bottom of the bilge inside (technically called the 'cabin sole'), and the short visit we made to the yard two weeks later confirmed this. Inside the cabin everything was covered with small pieces of iron shot, like large dust, and some had even bounced out from inside the cabin as they were being ground away so the cockpit was also covered with them. We couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor guy doing this job... but to us it was good news. Work had started. Looking inside the boat it was clear that what had been ground away had taken pressure off the keel box and the distortion had already straightened out a little. Progress!
 
So what happened next. For step two the boat was lifted up onto stands so that the keel plate could be removed from below. This heavy lump of iron does the job of keeping the boat upright and also prevents her from sliding sideways when sailing into the wind. It is designed to pivot downwards through the bottom of the hull, lowered from inside the boat on a rope, and this is something that the distortion had prevented from happening. Once the keel plate was extracted from below the internal distortion to the fibreglass keel box could be corrected and then layers of epoxy and fibreglass fixed internally to prevent the distortion from occurring again. Sounds easy eh?

News eventually came saying that the work was complete, good news at last, which gave us a target to prepare for and a date when we might finally be able to cast off and sail away.

We turn up at the boatyard one morning to see our boat propped up high on stands so naturally the first thing we do is to lower the keel plate using the rope coiled up in the cockpit. To our great delight it descends smoothly until the whole thing is exposed underneath, just as it should be, a large triangular lump of iron. In all the years we have owned the boat this has never happened!

Next we open a large tin of antifouling paint and slop it on the hull below the waterline (it stops the barnacles growing on the bottom). The boatyard had tried to clean up the mess inside the cabin, black dust and grit, but there is still much to do so we stay over on a nearby campsite to continue working the next day. The mast goes up (it is designed so that two people can do this easily), the outboard engine is lifted onboard and we work our way through the long list of jobs we need to get done so she can be lifted into the water as soon as possible...

which turns out to be the next day! 

Getting ready for sailing after a long lay-up is all about lists, things we need to place on board so that when the need arises they are ready to hand. We need water, food, bedding for when we stay overnight, warm and waterproof clothes, the VHF radio, fuel for the engine, the list goes on. We are replicating a set of everything we rely upon for everyday life at home, plus a few extras.

The sails need to be 'bent' on (a technical term for attaching them to the mast and boom)
but we don't get the chance to raise them fully as Eun na Mara now lies tied up beside a pontoon and this is where she will rest until the right weather comes along. Forecasts of rain and thunderstorms are not what we need for the journey home.