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.