39.12.194N 9.07.645E

This week we’ve been living on land. We needed to maintain Wanda’s bottom, so to speak.

On Friday we spent the day trying to find an efficient method of removing barnacles from the hull, in the end it came down to manual effort of using a scrapper. To celebrate the removal of the barnacles we went out for a meal to our favorite restaurant (no barnacles in the meal as we were sick of them by this time!).

On Saturday we cleaned the propeller, removed the old anodes and cleaned the white part of the hull (it’s easier to do out of the water). Saturday evening Cape thoughtfully invited us over for dinner. We really appreciated not having to cook after a long days work, however we were not very good guests as we were so tired. We felt we did very well not falling asleep and letting our heads fall into the dinner! Sunday the work continued, putting on the new anodes, t-cutting, polishing and waxing one side of the hull and greasing the propeller

Luckily on Monday it rained, so we couldn’t work outside (we desperately needed a rest from working on the hull). We used the time to go to the DIY store to pick up some items we needed for getting Wanda ready to go back in the water, and stocked up on some food.

This week we serviced the seacock’s (took them apart and re-greased them), t-cut, polished and waxed the other side of the hull and the stern, polished the propeller (the idea is that the polish stops any sea creatures growing on the propeller) and replaced the sealant in the bathroom (as we can’t use the shower onboard while we are on land it was the best time to do this job).

 Wanda out of water                                                                                              The shiny propeller and new anodes

Yoyo and Koshka took a while to adjust to life on land again as they are so use to being on the water. Friday was Yoyo’s birthday; Bethany and Bryn gave Yoyo a card. Bethany had drawn the card of a picture of Yoyo fishing for tuna while sat on tins of tuna.

Yoyo appreciated the card and is now looking for a fishing rod to catch tuna

Technical section for the boys:

The propeller folds flat when sailing to lower resistance, and reverses the pitch of the blades when we are motoring forward or reverse to increase control of the boat. Hence the complex gears inside the propeller need to be kept greased. We used our new grease gun that squirts grease in at up to 9,000 psi (the instructions say to keep filling the propeller with grease until it oozes out of all the joints in the propeller).