Airbourne and seeing her bottom again

Yes, the time for the ritual lift out had arrived. The yard team in Whitehaven were great. Getting the aft strops past the stabiliser fins and into the right spot was tricky but they managed it most carefully and then the boat was airbourne again:

and climbing up in the world too:

The stern gear looked grubby as usual but the hull was pretty clean - a winter in fresh water removed most of the summer fouling, then 10 days in salt again killed off most of the freshwater gunge we had accumulated:

After a quick lunch break in town the fun started. The poor boat had not been out for 19 months thanks to the Covid  lockdown and had a long period of forced inactivity. The props had much more fouling than usual as a result:

and the end anode on both had vanished. Annoyingly the one on the main engine prop had taken the bolt with it. We had a new anode ready but not a bolt and had to ping a note to the Guernsey M and G guys to ask just what thread was in the new shaft they fitted as it certainly was not metric (the only stainless bolts of that size we had on board). Here is the "after" picture:

This year we had some very welcome help in the form of John (antifouling supremo), Irene (catering supremo) and Archie the Lakeland Terrier (looking cute supremo). They arrived in their motorhome which became the mobile catering wagon and it was conveniently close at lunchtimes:

As you can see, we had the hoist left in position around us as we were the last lift out on Friday and first in on Monday. This time pressure to get everything done was entirely self imposed though.

All the usual jobs were completed and some new sikaflex was needed in the seam between the keel and the metal shoe that supports the bottom of the rudder but the little chandlery in the marina had a tube. The remainder will, naturally, be rock hard next time we need some. The crew had her usual hours of fun cleaning the hydraulic and main engine coolers:

sporting the latest in must have boat maintenance attire. As usual, the cooler anodes were pretty well wasted when we took them off:

The most annoying thing was that the replacements, supplied by Nordhavn Europe ages ago, were the wrong ones. Wrong length (too long), wrong spacing between the two bolt holes. Clearly for a bigger cooler. It was Sunday when we came to fit them, relaunch was 9am Monday morning, the anodes come from the USA anyway and everywhere is shut. Unamused we had to fit them with one bolt and live with it. 

Once the work was over, the helpers relaxed and enjoyed the sun:

and Archie looked relieved:

but a bit upset that he only got water.

With everything completed, we managed a walk to get the knots out of our backs. Archie was less keen on the walking thing in the warm weather so he was treated to a buggy trip. He has the poshest dog buggy we have ever seen:

and he stares out most regally. 

Relaunch on Monday morning was equally well handled by the yard crew. Back in the air again:

En route to the water again:

There were no dramas (bar getting down the vertical metal ladder and climbing onto the anchor platform to get back on board). A good weekend really, once the lockdown was over the one must do thing was to get the boat lifted and sort out the anodes etc. So, our only "must do" thing has been completed. Now it can feel like a proper cruising time again, just with lots of strange limitations and rules in place. 

The Whitehaven yard team were very good, very careful, very helpful. Having proper concrete hard standing for the weekend rather than the usual hardcore meant that the boat was way way cleaner too. The boatshed that they have is an amazing thing. You can see how tall it is from the earlier pictures, it has a built in travelling crane and has to be one of the best facilites we've seen anywhere.

Happily back afloat we timed our walk to the supermarket perfectly. Just as it started to rain a little. At least the weekend had been perfect weather.