Belfast, Maine

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 23 Aug 2013 16:24

44:25.7N 69:00.4W

 

Thursday 22nd August

 

A beautiful misty morning (see photos section) as we headed off early from Smith’s Cove to motor over to Belfast.

 

Our destination was Front Street Shipyard who were going to be sorting out the broken seacocks. They warned us several times about the approach up the river to the yard, stressing the shallows and poor markers, but we glided up with plenty of water under us (on a rising tide for safety…) and came alongside their brand new frontage. Everything was highly organised and incredibly welcoming and within seconds of arriving Mike appeared and explained everything that had been arranged.

 

Within minutes they ushered us into the lift and a big new travel lift hauled Serafina clear of the water and placed here carefully on a brand new concrete pad next to the lifting dock for their even newer travel lift that is being assembled as I write. This big beast will lift 450 metric tonnes and makes it the biggest boat lift north of Newport, Rhode island.

 

The staff here are very enthusiastic and welcoming and again in no time at all work had started on removing the failed seacocks. We have decided under the circumstances to replace all of these critical units regardless of their apparent condition and so what had been planned to be a quick in and out has turned into a two day job.  The yard is, as you may have guessed pretty new and it clearly caters mainly for the big racing yachts it seems. Certainly there are a few of them here and almost as soon as we had been lifted, the hoist was busy lifting a 70ft Swan that was leaking badly!

 

We took the opportunity as well to clean up our prop and stern gear and were shocked to find an incredible amount of barnacle growth on the shaft and parts of the prop – far more than we have ever seen before and we have only been in the water for a few months. But by comparison, the hull was completely clean and the antifouling paint had done a brilliant job, except for the very bottom of the keel, but that might have been rather affected by the fact that we were sat in the mud twice every 24 hours for several weeks when we were in Herrington Harbor back in June.

 

Sarah went off to explore the town which is a good deal less touristy than many around here. It has plenty of restaurants and we had dinner in the tapas type bar, Three Tides (named after a pirate’s revenge tactic of pegging out an opponent on the beach for three tides!) run by the town’s micro-brewery.  The town has a nice feel to it, with a wide main street (well actually that is about all there is) and all the usual basics plus a lot of galleries and book shops. It also has the very grandly titled Belfast City Hall and there is a big out of town mall of course with all the big names.