Survey and bottom job

I had bought the boat without a full survey - a cardinal sin I hear you say. Perhaps, but it was a Westsail, I had spoken to Bud Taplin a World Cruiser Yacht Company (who had supplied me with a survey checklist), I had inspected the boat thoroughly on the water and the price was right. Now it was time to take it out of the water and have it fully surveyed. I did this for four reasons: (a) I could see the bottom was in need of a clean and reapplication of antifoul, (b) I needed the survey to get insurance, (c) I needed assurance that I had bought a structurally sound boat, and finally (d) it would provide me a list of repairs/maintenance that needed attention if I was to live aboard (see Survey page).

The boat was at Mooloolaba about 110 nautical miles from Brisbane where I will berth her until I am ready to go cruising.  I did not know where to haul her out or who to trust to prepare her for the trip home so I visited the pub (bar) next to the yacht club and asked the locals - the overwhelming response was Lawries Boat Services to haul her out and clean the bottom and Wright Yacht and Boat Services to complete any work required. Both were willing to let me help and learn and as a bonus Lawries allowed owners to stay on board on the hard and use their amenities.

The afternoon before I tied up to the work dock and settled down to wait for the haulout the next morning. It rained all night and although it had started to clear by morning the forecast was for more rain. I was the second boat to come out and with the tide and the wind working against me the yard decided to rope her in. With me on the boat fending off it took them less time to get her in the sling than it would have to started and warmed up the engine - very compentent yard crew.

The bottom was covered in slime but I thought the barnicles weren't too bad. True to their word they gave me a scraper and after a ten second lesson 'start at the top, work down from bow to stern' I was off. I had thought I would use the pressure cleaner but that was for the yard crew.    What it did do was let me have a good look at the hull and start to think about the work required. After the bottom was predominately scraped clean the high pressure spray finished the job.

The boat was than moved to the hardstand and acid washed above and below the waterline to remove the last of the slime and barnicles from the stainless rudder fittings.  Immediately noticable was cracking to both boomkin tangs and that the staysail tang was completely cracked through (the repair of these will be detailed in a future post). The hull was carefully inspected and two blisters were found on the starboard side of the rudder. These were drilled and diagnosed as osmosis.  The affected areas were ground out with epoxy repairs applied and faired. There were no blisters on the hull. 

The next step was to mask above the waterline and then apply a coat of primer to bond the previous layers of antifoul to the new coats. After this tac dried the new antifoul was applied. After drying new anodes were fitted, the masking removed and she was ready to go back in the water.