Winter refit
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Sat 4 Apr 2009 19:55
Marmaris Yacht
Marina
Saturday 4th April
2009
Well, spring is here
and the sun is shining. The winter refit is almost done and our thoughts
are now turning to setting off again. So an update is in order before we
re-start the blog when we begin our travels.
The mast was
unstepped and the boat was hauled on 2nd January as planned and we moved into an
apartment in Marmaris the same day. We had to de-store the boat as much as
possible, so a lot of stuff came with us to the apartment. It was a good
job we had decided on the one-bedroom apartment rather than the
studio!
The
kitchen/living
area
Bedroom - in the midst of packing for trip to UK
Half a bath is
better than
none!
From the kitchen end and looking not too untidy - yet!
We looked out
over the
canal.
The pool - which we did not use as it was empty for the
winter.
It was strange at
first but we soon got used to it, and got into a routine of spending the days
working on the boat, the evenings relaxing in the flat with the DVD player and
gave ourselves Sundays off when we would go for a walk along the bay and sit
outside with a beer taking it all in. We found out how to order pizza for
delivery (when we'd had a hard day and were too tired to walk the few minutes to
the shops/restaurants). We found the Piliç Evi (Chicken House) where they
sell spit roasted chickens for 6TL (eat in or take away). We found a
little Turkish restaurant tucked away behind the bank where they did a mean
chicken wrap for 2TL. We enjoyed being close to the town and all the
choices it offered.
We joined a car
share which meant that we often drove to and from town, but if not the bus route ran just a 3-minute walk away from the
apartment and took us straight to the marina. The view across the bay on
the drive to/from town never ceased to be breathtaking, whatever the weather, so
it never turned into a slog.
Back at the boat, work was forging ahead on the
decks. She had been enclosed in a plastic tent to keep out the rain so
that they could work on her whatever the weather.
Scott-Free under plastic tent (after bottom
scrape!) Off
with the old...
Our new teak deck waiting to be
laid.
...and on with the first two pieces of the new.
Side decks in
place.
Nearly done.
The new deck. Smart,
eh?
And aft - note the plastic sheet with shoes
on!
While this was going on we serviced the windlass and
all the winches. There are 10 of them altogether, and we're not sure when
they were last serviced, but it took a 100-ton press to get one of them
apart. Fortunately, the company who did the deck, Demir Marine, had kindly
offered us the use of a workbench in their workshop, which meant we also had
access to a range of equipment and the expertise of their workers when we had
problems. This proved invaluable, and we were able to strip down and clean
all but one of them and restore them to good working order. We decided to
replace the electric winch which had suffered badly in its 17-year life and
needed too much repair to give us confidence in it. We got a good deal on
a Lewmar replacement at the Istanbul Boat Show and await its arrival from
England.
Cleaning up a winch in the
workshop.
Just one of the many cogs to be cleaned.
The next job to tackle was the antifoul, and we decided
to scrape back to the epoxy layer before applying new antifoul. However,
after a short while it became apparent that the epoxy layer was detaching itself
from the gelcoat and we needed to re-think. What was needed was a scrape
right back to the gelcoat and new epoxy. We felt this was a bigger job
than we wanted to tackle on our own, so asked the yard to do it. They put
six guys onto it and it took them over a day to
complete.
Our bit - the black layer is the epoxy that was
detaching. The
guys from Demir Marine - always polite, helpful and
cheerful.
A bare
bottom!
The keel, taken back to shiny metal and primed.
Primer over the new epoxy
layer. Ta-da!
A lovely new blue bottom.
Scott-Free was relaunched on 16th March and returned to
Juliet pontoon. Once back in the water, the work on the engine which had
been started before Christmas, could be finished.
We now await the re-stepping of the mast and then she
will be ready for the season's sailing.