Does my bum look big in this?

It has to happen. Yes, the annual lift out to spoil our fun, backs, shoulders and bank balance. We were so lucky, a dry calm day for the lift. The office folks told us to take the boat to the fuel pontoon, but port side to as the yard crew wanted to pull us into the adjacent hoist bay backwards. Unusual but so be it.

We duly delivered the boat to find that we were being stalked by folks using the very good marina webcams. Here is a screenshot of the webcam from Alex, the owner of that HUGE Nordhavn 55 which, coincidentally, used to live here:

We did the hanging around thing, waiting for the hoist to return to the dock which looked very small somehow - not the widest one we've ever seen:

The very friendly yard crew then manhandled the rather heavy Nordhavn around the corner and into the dock. So glad it was a calm day:

The guys were really good at making sure the strops were in the right positions and being careful with the lift. Here is a little video of the boat appearing:

To use an old phrase "does my bum look big in this?"

We raided the cafe on site, waiting for the boat to be chocked up and ready for us to work on:

At least it was dry, sunny and warm enough so we got going with all the usual clean up jobs.The coolers (one for the main engine and one for the hydraulics) were pretty clean really, much to the delight of the crew who was fettling them. The props were attacked with the new rechargeable angle grinder (the cabled older version was a real pain as the on/off switch was stuck "on"), the rope cutter removed and given an acid bath, anodes renewed etc. This time we are trying something new - a coating for the props. We've never bothered to paint them before, having heard lots of conflicting stories about how effective some of the expensive miracles in a tin were. Finally we gave in and are trying Crystalprop which comes in a little kit like this::

The props needed sanding with quite a coarse wet and dry paper then careful cleaning before applying one coat of this stuff. It sets to an almost clear film:

and we are suitably dubious about how well it will deter barnacles etc. We will know at the lift out next year if the extra effort and cost was worthwhile. The main engine was due a coolant change and so that was drained out from the keel cooler and around 24 litres of nice fresh Fleetguard coolant very slowly poured back in. Trying to lug around the 20l drums of the stuff is no fun and pouring it in ever so slowly to help avoid airlocks and bubbles in the system is a slow tedious job. Simple enough though so you can think of other nicer things whist doing this (like finishing it!) 

We had one day of rain which slowed progress a bit but most of the important work had already been done by then. Completing things was a bit slower than planned when we discovered that the new hub anode for the folding prop on the wing engine was too big. You can see it in the picture above, looking very shiny and smug in the middle of the prop. Yes, it was too big, the blades fouled it when they tried to fold or reverse. Most annoying. In the past we've popped into the importer for Gori stuff in Poole and collected some anodes. This time we got them via the Nordhavn Europe folks for simplicity and to save a drive to sunny Poole. Well, they supplied pattern parts, not the originals. the collar anodes were fine but the hub anode needed surgery (grinding down) quite a lot before it fitted properly. The most annoying part is that the pattern parts were as expensive as the already wildly priced original stuff!

With the work completed we bumped into Neil again (the electric meter and N40 owning man) as we were taking the resulting rubbish to the bins. We offered him a coffee in the outside seating at Scotts then realised we had no money with us. Neat scam! We did feel a tad guilty, but only a tad. For our German speaking readers, the translation into "ein bisschen" is really not descriptive enough. Maybe "nicht besonders" works better! You so need some more subtle descriptive words in your language.

To add to the annoyance levels, you might recall the fun with the flybridge follow up lever. Well, guess what, when we fired up the autopilot to take the boat for the lift out, it would not boot at all. Same issue again. So, we disconnected that ******* lever and all was well once more. At least it worked OK, but we will make a few proper sea trips before saying that with certainly and trying to figure out just what is going on up there.

We had the luxury of one work free day before our lift back into the water. How to enjoy it? Well, we "launched" the bikes using the crane:

and cycled into town for provisions to avoid scurvy. We had to share this picture from a local bathroom showroom. Sorry about the reflections that we could not avoid but we loved the inspired display:

Largs hosts a Viking festival every year by the way, hence the outfit.

The morning of the relaunch was an early start for us as the yard team begin work at 8am and we fancied breakfast before getting the boat ready to splash. However, we needn't have got up quite so early as the hoist team were doing some maintenance on the nice new machine (welding of all things, not structural though!) When we get invoiced for a lift it helps to remember that this hoist cost around £360K. Then you add in regular maintenance, replacing the strops, safety inspections, training for the team etc and it doesn't seem too bad really.

Once lifted there was a further delay as we waited for a truck to get out of the way:

until the final run up to the hoist dock and that "boat meets the water again" moment:

The Largs team were busy taking videos of the launch from their office and the pontoon which they then shared on their Facebook page. Have a look at their rather good video through this link Largs Facebook page

For anyone struggling to get that working, here is a still image from their facebook post:

The observant folks will notice that we have grown into a 55. Nope, that didn't happen by magic in the yard, she is still a 47. We think the office got a bit confused as Alex and Gisele's HUGE Nordhavn 55 used to berth here with her previous owner. However, we will check the length on the invoice carefully!

It felt good to be afloat again, we popped the boat into a nearby hammerhead that was to be our home for a couple of nights and relaxed. The main engine had a coolant top up after the change performed whilst out of the water and the humans topped up with tea. Wild party time indeed.We know how to celebrate.