RAM Marina Haulout Feb 2014

Five Islands
John & Sue
Tue 18 Feb 2014 23:03
It's amazing how the weather conspires against you when you decide to wash the car, hang the clothes on the line and especially when you want to paint the bottom of your boat. But first let me back track a bit from the last blog entry.

We hauled at RAM Marina, across the inlet from MAR Marine, which had been home for Five Islands for the past 6 months. The haul out ramp is 23ft wide. Five Islands has a beam of just over 20ft, so although it was a bit tight, we exited the water on the travel lift without incident.

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Here we go again - travel lift and haul out ramp at RAM Marina, Rio Dulce, Guatemala

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Up and out she comes.

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Pressure washing the slime off the hulls. No barnacles due to being in the fresh water for awhile but an awful lot of green slime. Our initial concern about blisters (where water penetrates into the fibre glass and is particularly prevalent in fresh water) were unfounded - no blisters thank goodness. Several boats in the yard were having 'blister treatment'.

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This is now the view of our 'backyard'. During the hurricane season this area would be filled with boats 'parked' up until the cruising season begins again.

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The next step was to sand blast several layers of anti foul paint. The yard decided to wet sand blast. Louis went to work. We were on the cement in the main hardstand area, next to other boats. Not an ideal spot to do this.

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Part the way through the owner stopped the job and told us we would be moved to the dry sand blasting area out the back, so up in the travel lift again to move 'out the back'.

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The only trouble with going 'out the back' was that the travel lift (carrying our boat in slings) had to negotiate along a dirt road going around road works, piles of dirt, trenches and potholes. The travel lift operator was very good and took great care getting 'Five Islands' to her overnight camp.

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This ferro cement yacht had been bought by 3 young guys several months ago. They had hauled her and intended to sand her bottom etc. Whilst sanding the cement at the bow cracked and fell off the boat.

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They are in the process of doing major repairs. It would be interesting to see how all their hard work turns out.

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The dry sand blasting soon took the rest of the paint off.

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I'm not sure the motley bottom look will take off or not. You can see the original waterline (blue) had been raised several inches to the current line (green). John had the analogy of a young girl with a bikini and then the more mature look for when she got a bit heavier. I didn't hit him too hard.

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After a few days of sanding the gelcoat is finally exposed, along with a few spots that had been repaired by previous owners. We had these re-enforced with fibre glass and took the opportunity to do the same to the hull joins.

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We had replaced the mast head unit of the Raymarine ST60 wind instrument at the top of the mast but decided to replace the old cable as well. Chris from 'SeaKist Services' was winched up the mast by John (I got out of that this time) where he proceeded to remove the old mount which required some hammer percussion.

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John then SQUEEZED himself into the SMALL cavity behind the anchor winch to access the base of the mast. The old cable was pulled down followed by the new cable which had been attached/spliced to it. John and I then threaded the new cable through cupboards, under stairs, behind panels to finally be attached to the instrument in the cockpit. When it was turned on it recorded 2 knots of wind, mainly due to there being no wind at the time. It does however look to be working, so when we splash we will do a few 360's to calibrate it (sort of like hooning in a boat).

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The first layer of barrier coat (grey) goes on. We are using Interprotect 2000E.

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The 2nd and 3rd layers of barrier coat, go on. These are white. The reason for the different colours is that if white starts to appear you know it may be well overdue for a bottom paint. If grey starts to appear you know you are just about to gelcoat.

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John watches with interest as the anti foul paint is mixed. It is West Marine PCA Gold with SR (slim resistance). The paint requires a fair amount of mixing so the copper (in this case 40%) is well mixed prior to application. Looking at these photos you would think that it had been nice and sunny the whole time - WRONG. Five coats of paint have been applied and it has rained after four of them. We have been waiting to apply the last coat for 3 days now due to the constant rain. Here's hoping for a break in the weather tomorrow.

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A couple of days ago the workers started lashing poles to the travel lift. It was a guessing game as to the final use. After asking in very disjointed spanish and hand signals i caught the word 'maste' which immediately translated in my brain to removing or replacing a mast on a boat. As it turned out it was to take a mast off a boat named Sand and Foam. It turns out that the English and French owners are going to put the boat on a transport truck and take to the Pacific side of Guatemala. To do this they had to take the mast off.

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The backhoe brings the pole upright to the construction.

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Hammer percussion always assists and in this case it's to attach the lifting rope to the top of the upright pole. Height safety is not high on the agenda here.

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The travel lift raises the cross beam as the backhoe pushes the base of the centre upright pole slowly standing it up. The guys are pulling on ropes to keep the wire cable carriers level.

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Lots of concentration and observing going on. Safety thongs are very popular in the yard.

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Pointing also seemed to help the process.

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Meanwhile Dani & Jens coerced the man operating the gurney to give their fenders the once over.

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The centre pole is lashed to the centre cross beam and then raised to the full upright position.

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Next step is to climb onto the bucket and undo the lashings from the base of the upright pole.

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Thens it's down to 'Sand and Foam' to take the mast off.

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At this point the forestay had been loosened but the process snagged when discussions in Spanish, English and a bit of French couldn't work out what was required. As it was getting late in the afternoon the workers went home, leaving everything set to go in the morning.

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The following day a worker was winched up to the spreaders where a lashing was fixed. The pulley rope was secured to the lashing on the mast, the stays were released and the mast was lifted free. The mast was lowered to the ground and the rig was disassembled from the travel lift. NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION.

Our social life continues to be enjoyable meeting new faces, experiencing new things and having good times with old friends. We have seen several movies at the Mar Marine Movie nights, spent pleasant happy hours by the water's edge (mozzie repellent applied), watched the Superbowl (American Grid Iron) finals and eaten at several local restaurants.

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Mojito and pizza at Sundog Restaurant. We also buy our bread from here - grains and no sugar.

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Fronteras, the town where our marinas are located.

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Bromeliad's grow wild everywhere here, especially in trees.

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We found this in the local supermarket - can you believe it, Australian and New Zealand powdered milk.

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Valentines Dinner at 'Backpackers Restaurant'.

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The meal was forgettable but the company was good.

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After dinner on Valentines we stopped in at Mar Marine for a drink, dessert and live music. The ladies were presented with a red rose. It is still alive 4 days later and sitting on the bench in our saloon.