High and dry (with heart in mouth)

Every year the fun of annual out of the water maintenance looms. We try to pretend that we enjoy it. That gets harder to fake each year.

The lift was booked at Hamble Point marina together with a berth for a couple of nights in advance of the haul out. Although we detest MDL's (the marina operator's) approach and wild pricing, the Nordhavn Europe guys are based there and we wanted them to pull the main driveshaft and replace the cutless bearing this year. We also wanted a new rope for the crane that launches our RIB. For the non boaters, we will explain what that lot means later on. Stay excited and inquisitive....

We planned to arrive there at low water as the stream really runs hard through the marina and can make berthing tricky. Andrew and Linda did the photographer thing as we left Lymington going backwards:

 The plan worked until we radioed the marina at Hamble Point......

"Yes, please berth on the events pontoon ahead of the other Nordhavn"

The other Nordhavn was a brand new 76 that was being commissioned. The berth ahead of it was long enough but at low water there was no way that you would get anything past there bar a dinghy. No water left. So, we called them again.

"We can't get in there, no water! Do you have another berth we can use even if temporarily please?"

After a long think, the answer was "No other berths free here that are big enough, try Port Hamble" (another MDL marina a little further upstream).

This had been booked months in advance and Sandie the wonderfully organised Nordhavn Europe Office lady had checked many times that all was well. Hopeless marina lot. Port Hamble was busy too so we ended up sitting on a mid-river pontoon and paying the Hamble harbour folks for a short stay. Finally, nearly 4 hours later, we backed past the big Nordhavn, went briefly aground and then got onto the useless bit of pontoon. Yet again, MDL impress us. All of our arrangements and timings for car collection etc had gone wrong too. Grrr

Luckily the lift out went well, although the lift dock there is very very tight for our boat - around 1.5 metres wider than we are. The gods were with us and there was little wind so we could drive straight in with a very nervous crew keeping an eye on the port side and no need for the thrusters. If the man from Weymouth who was scoring our berthing technique had seen this, it would have been a clear 10. This picture gives you a feel for how cosy it was:

She was not too weedy underneath after sitting in fresh(ish) water all winter:

Then the fun started. The crew was responsible for keel cooler cleaning. She is most keen that you see how diligent she is so before:

And after:

The captain isn't seeking the same recognition or reward..... However the hull looked good for a 10 year old boat:

What was done - the normal anode swaps, wing engine prop and shaft and bracket clean up, greasing of the folding prop, putting a little antifouling paint onto the areas that are not coppercoated, cleaning up the thrusters and speed sensor, gentle wet and dry sanding of the coppercoat to liven it up again etc etc etc.

Non-normal things were taking off the main engine propeller and getting the war wounds it had picked up removed (various dings and dents from debris in the water) then pulling out the driveshaft to allow the cutless bearing to be replaced. It had started to be a bit noisy (they rumble when worn) and so was due for renewal. We had a 2 1/4 inch diameter hole in our boat:

This revealed some less good news - the main shaft was worn and will need replacement at some stage. Less good as they are eye-wateringly expensive to have made. Why is it worn? Well, a few years crawling around the Solent in silty water does not help but we know from the Nordhavn 47 owners group that there seems to be a batch of boats with driveshafts that wear quickly.

For the tekkies: we will have an Aquamet 22 shaft machined up for the boat. Aquamet has various flavours with similar names used but the 22 is the important bit. What is the stuff? Well, have a look at shaft materials comparison . Basically the 22 is the most corrosion resistant variety and should resist wear too. (Shafts can suffer from crevice corrosion if the boat is not used frequently. The area where the shaft is sitting on the cutless bearing gets deprived of oxygen and the metal in that area corrodes away despite being a stainless steel mix.) 

We think that the original shaft was Aquamet 17 which is a little closer to chocolate than we like. Of course, we didn't help the wear issue by using the boat in the silty and hence very abrasive waters of the Solent area for the first 4 years of our ownership.

For the non-tekkies: next year we will have a big bill.

So, the current shaft went to Hamble propellers for measuring so we can have one machined up ready for next year's lift out:

As you can see, Neil and Phil the Nordhavn Europe directors can multi-task when needed. 

Roland, the marmalade making engineer (this year's batch is excellent by the way) fitted a new cutless bearing after a little machining to size:

We think that the girls will like this new addition to the male eye candy in our blog. John's knees are under threat as the number one attraction.

One job that always seems pointless is checking the anodes on the stabiliser fins. They appear to last for ever as they don't have much metal to protect. Of course you have to remove the winglets on the bottom of the fins to check this and then loctite the bolts back in:

So, all in all the work went well, including having a new rope fitted to our crane as it was starting to fray after 8 years of service. Luckily marmalade man Roland is the UK engineer for Steelhead who make the cranes. All in all he is a fountain of Nordhavn knowledge. Wonder if we can kidnap him and carry him around with us? We would need to buy many more Nespresso capsules to feed his caffeine addiction but that would be a small price to pay.