PREPARING THE BOAT IN GREECE

Each year some maintenance and preparation of any boat is needed before going sailing. Followers of our adventures and blog will know that APATAKI is a 1980 production Havcat 27 catamaran from Denmark designed by Lars Oudrup. She was moored afloat in Marina di Ragusa, Sicily, Italy during winter 2017 / 2018 before we sailed her last year to Greece.

The major work this year is renewing the copper based anti-fouling paint below the waterline. This system was applied to the boat in 2000 by the previous owner and apart from a few top-ups and some cleaning while swimming, it has been a great long term system. Regular antifouling needs to be applied each year or two years and actually the economics favour the long life of the copper system against the cheaper but annual or bi-annual coating of the “conventional” type.

My work has been to sand the old layers back with a grinder / sander I bought here in Greece to expose the copper colour to which the new paint will adhere. It is really hard work and I could only do about two hours a day for a few days. It is necessary to wear masks for nose and eyes as a lot of “dust” is flying around the face.

Once the surface is prepared it is necessary to apply 5 coats in a day and I was recommended to paint just one hull at a time. The product has a base, hardener and much heavy copper powder. I was recommended to mix half of a pack at a time as it goes hard and can’t be applied. Even halves were too much so I went to thirds but without measures it is difficult to judge the quantities.

Including final preparation and masking the line I spent almost 7 hours with minimal breaks to paint the first hull. My body needed a rest after such hard physical work at the bottom of the boat so the second hull followed a few days later.

Other painting is needed too. I prepared the deck area for Anita to paint pale grey as she did not like the pale blue which needed refreshing anyway. 

We found a paint shop which mixes colours and asked them to add the non-slip which I have. Other paints of the boat need refreshing too. The construction is fibreglass but after 25 years the gel coat was looking tired so I started painting. I use one pot paints which have shorter life than two pot (with hardener) but they are so much easier to use in hot temperatures.

The problem is that once started the fresh paint stands out from the older so we worked day after day until about 90% of outside surfaces have been refreshed.

Christopher came to help us one day as promised, cleaning up or replacing battery terminals and other points of corrosion. Unfortunately the following day Tim, the owner of the boat he was working on, arrived and they worked flat out so we did not see Chris again until last Sunday, the day of European Parliament elections, when I drove under the river tunnel, normally 3 euros each way, free of charge to get him, then his tools, and to take him back. Lucky it was the toll free day to allow people to vote.  This time he worked on leaking taps, sink drains and the autopilot which seems to be functioning again after we hand steered all of last year.

Personal issues have surfaced in his life so the important tasks of fitting and wiring the battery monitor, and some power improvements, and some finishing of fibre-glass work remain undone.  I hope we will find a live-aboard with the right skills to do the wiring we need in an anchorage somewhere for a few euros. Budget does not allow for these tasks to be done by the boatyard or their contractors.

At the start we were hampered by bad weather, but since then most days have been dry and sometimes windy so the hard work continued until late into the evening as sunset moves close to 9 pm.

We are scheduled to launch on Tuesday 4 June if the new bow roller / anchor equipment is delivered in time. It seems the Greek style is to promise work without checking whether an outside contractor has the ability to do it in the desired time scale. A few other small jobs were done by the yard who really specialise in lifting and storing yachts more than active works.

This has been a hard few weeks of physical work, but as the boat looks better day by day that encourages us to keep pushing forward. An afternoon siesta most days gave the body much needed relaxation.

A couple of times we went into Preveza town for a break

The still photos for this blog I will post separately as for some reason I can't load then having loaded the videos !!