New Title, New Start

I hope I won't lose too many followers, all of whom I am grateful to for, er following. Boat building may have ceased but life, and sailing (and gliding - more of that later) goes on.

With more (too much) time now on my hands, attention turned at last to long suffering Sally, my 82-year-old Vertue which has been putting up with my neglect for a few years now. Finally the other day, after a couple of weeks away over Christmas, she decided she had had enough, and when I fired up the little Yanmar, decided to seize her propeller shaft.

She was clearly telling me something, viz: "I want to go ashore and get some proper TLC."

Which is why as I write she is sitting on the hard at Johnson & Loftus yard in Ullapool, with 20 years of antifouling in dust around her, and another 10 years scraping to go.

The bearing has also been removed (white metal) and as luck would have it,  a standard Westerly cutlass bearing should fit the housing.

The mast is out too, and I have to say it has done well despite being exposed to Highland weather for nearly ten years since it was last out. But then I did lay on about 30 coats of varnish, having primed it with a two part International clear finish.

I am in two minds whether to take the rest of the antifouling off, or just consolidate. Either way I have bought 5 litres of Strippit; a Bosch scraper and some chemical called trisodium phosphate, one of which should do the trick. It would certainly be nice to see all that pitch pine again, before covering it in underwater primer.

With so much of Sally under the water, it really does pay to have the smoothest possible hull.