Crotone: Wandering Dragon Makeover Part 1

Wanderingdragon
Stephen & Anne
Sun 19 Jun 2016 13:04

39.04.797N 17.08.281E

 

 

We had a few days to wait until we could be lifted out for our scheduled maintenance stop with Elio, the owner of the boat yard. We spent those days in the marina catching up on a few household chores. We also went up the mast to check the wind instrument. It had been giving us very peculiar readings on our trip from MdR. Anne was volunteered once again to go to the top of the mast to bring down the whirly thing. We thought we had found the problem, an incorrect re-assembly when we did a quick service of it in MdR. We re-assembled it and went back up the mast to refit it.

 

On the 1st of June we motored round to the North harbor and anchored just outside, waiting for a call from Elio to let us know we could be lifted. On our way round we checked the wind instrument, it was still faulty. While we waited we checked the electronics at ground level as much as we could. Unfortunately that all indicated a problem up the mast. Up Anne went again with the multi-meter to try to determine the problem but with no success. The whirly thing was then brought back down (again!).

 

Anne taking down the Whirly thing  while we waited to be lifted.

 

Anne with the whirly thingy!!!

 

We eventually diagnosed a faulty circuit board and worn bearings in the anemometer. We decided to buy a replacement.

 

We were then lifted on the 2nd June and fitted into a Wanda sized space over the boat yard fence.

 

Not sure what the owner of the white car thought with a boat flying over.

 

After a bit of socializing with the other boat owners we knew, Roy & Jessica – Tetamanu, Jenny & Robert – Two Lions, Brian & Linda – St Elmo, Gandolf the cat- Anduril (oh and his owners Uwe and Anna),  and meeting new people, we got down to work.

 

Every time we have been to this boat yard (three years in a row for a variety of reasons) Elio has been trying to get us to repaint our topsides. This year we decided we really should do this and it made sense to do it now. We decided on the type of paint we wanted, all we needed to do was choose the colour. Well white of course.

 

We have a choice of 16 shades of white. Help!

 

The boat yard guys will be doing the preparation and painting of the top of the hull.

 

Our coppercoat has been on 9 years and was in need of a top up. Stephen and Anne will be re-applying the coppercoat.  First of all we had to sand the hull.

 

Stephen sanding the hull with the correct type of mask – thank you Roy.

 

We lost a few days while Stephen recovered from too much copper dust. The first day of sanding he used a mask which was for vapours rather than dust – a silly mistake we made by not reading the packet and thinking a mask was a mask. He is back to normal now – well as normal as Stephen gets.

 

We wanted to get the keel back to bare metal to apply an epoxy layer to stop any rust forming. To do this we needed to get the keel sandblasted. Not a job we could easily do ourselves.

 

Antonio, the spaceman, sandblasting the underside of the keel. Not a fun job.

 

To do the keel we had to get Wanda hanging in slings so we could get under the keel. This meant a few more days delay while we waited for the crane to be free for 48 hours. Once the keel was sandblasted we quickly applied the first layer of epoxy primer. Stephen had the scary job of lying under the keel to paint while Wanda hung in the slings.

 

4/5 Layers of Epoxy primer on the keel while hanging in the slings

 

We applied 4 layers of primer on the underside of the keel and then 6 layers of coppercoat. On the side of the keel we applied 5 layers of epoxy (because we had more drying time) and 6 layers of coppercoat.

 

Once Wanda was safely back on terra firma we started painting the hull with coppercoat. We got a lot of interest from the local boat owners about what we were painting on our boat.

 

One side and the keel complete with coppercoat

 

We painted one side of the hull yesterday and had hoped to paint the other today. Unfortunately it decided to rain this morning, even though the forecast showed no rain. Hopefully the side we painted is dry enough. At the moment we have a two tone boat. Weather permitting we will paint the other side soon.

 

Two-tone Wanda

 

 

Definitely have this feeling…..