Ready to launch

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 20 May 2013 14:59

Thurs, Fri, Sat & Sunday 16th, 17th 18th & 19th May

 

Four long days beavering away getting Serafina ready for her ‘splash’ on Tuesday morning have gone pretty well and it looks like we will be ready on time.

 

Sadly not everything was quite as good as we had initially thought and there have been a number of casualties due to the sub-zero temperatures during the depths of the winter.

 

The rudder had got some moisture inside and so when this froze, it split the laminates and produced a big blister. Potentially this can be pretty disastrous and so first thing on Thursday morning I went to see Osprey who are the big experts around here. Gary who owns the company kindly came straight out to view the problem and immediately identified the issue and suggested that if they were to do the job it might take a week to resolve as they would need to cut out the damaged area and allow the core to dry out fully before rebuilding the damaged section layer by layer. This would mean delaying the launch and us having to live at the top of a ladder for another week! However, he seemed keen to help us out and within an hour he sent out Mike to cut out the blister so they could survey the situation properly. Thankfully, Serafina is a very well built boat and they were amazed to see how well constructed the rudder was and furthermore the core was dry and in good condition, so Mike spent the rest of the day working on the repair and by early on Friday it was all completed.

 

Internally we found that the shower mixer tap in the aft heads had literally ruptured its cast iron core and of course being metric, this was going to be a pain to fix as well. But Carlos, who was working on his boat nearby popped across to say hello and as soon as he saw me holding the damaged fitting, insisted that he take it home that night and weld it back together. He brought it back the next day all sorted, but it then turned out that the ceramic valve inside had also suffered from the frost. This is going to be a lot harder to resolve and we are currently emailing Magnus, ex-Najad, in Sweden about this!

 

There were a few other casualties but overall things were good and we have made good progress in getting everything ready for the next stage of our travels. Sarah has again polished the entire hull which is gleaming like new and you will all be pleased to hear that we took great care with securing ladders and scaffolding to ensure that there was no accident this time!  The weather looked a bit dodgy for a while but the forecast thunderstorms and heavy rain never materialised thankfully.

 

David Masters has been a real hero as well, running us here and there in his van and we have not been short of offers of help from all and sundry passers-by, so we have been very lucky all round and would have no hesitation in recommending this boatyard to anyone looking for a place to leave their boat for the winter.