Last spring, the boat had been in the water for 2 years before we took it ashore to clean and lubricate the bottom, polish the freeboard and change zinc anodes.
The bottom was then so overgrown that it was clear that in future we would have to do that work every year.
Monday noon, Heron was pulled ashore. The bottom was cleaned with a high pressure washer. Late in the afternoon, Heron was taken off the special wagon and chopped up with 3 steel bucks on each side.
For the rest of the day, I washed the freeboard with fresh water, gently scraped loose bottom paint with a putty, unscrewed the bow thruster and cleaned it for a heavy fumigation of windows.
On Tuesday I bought oxalic acid in Matas, mixed it with 4 parts fresh water, smeared the mixture on the freeboard with a sponge, let it sit for 15 minutes and washed it off with fresh water. The brown and yellow stains disappeared and the freeboard now appeared shining white.
Next, I put cover tape on the waterline and smeared the bottom with primer with a dog animal paint roller ($ 125) with very short hair. The paint roller was worth all the money because it failed to pull flakes of old paint off when the bottom was lubricated. Finally, I also lubricated the bow thruster with bottom paint.
On Wednesday I lubricated the bottom in exposed places, lubricated the bow thruster once more, removed the deck tape, wiped starboard freeboard with a cloth twisted in a mixture of fresh water and citric acid (9: 1), polished the entire starboard freeboard with Dulon 14 and finally polished 1 / 3 of starboard freeboard with Dulon I and II.
On Thursday I finished the polishing with Dulon I and II, gave the entire port freeboard the same treatment as the starboard side had received and ended up in the evening by replacing the zinc anodes and reassembling the bow thruster.
On Friday, I polished the screw with a steel brush on a drill before putting the boat in the water over dinner.
When Heron was in the water, the first thing I did was activate the bow thruster - now the bow moved. Then I sailed out of the harbor and measured that the speed had increased by over 15%.
When you, like us, are touring sailors, it really doesn't matter how fast we sail.
… But how cool is it to be the one who catches up rather than to be the one who gets caught up.
