Today we had Driftwood lifted out of the water to do a few jobs on her bottom. Now the first thing is that boats do not like being out of the water any more than fish do. I get real nervous when I see her balancing on some boat stand where she is putting all her weight on just a few Sq. inches instead of her weight being spread throughout all of her hull as happens when she is in the soup.
Any I’m digressing so back to the topic in hand. Being a steel boat owner you are always worried about rust. And especially about rust that may be happening below the water line where you cannot see it. No one likes a rusty bottom after all. So I have to say that I breathed a sigh of relief when she came out and the mettle work was in great condition. Now I did treat some very small spots of rust using stuff called Vactan (Oh it’s great stuff) then I painted over the Vactan once it dried with a special underwater primer.
But most importantly I put on six new anodes. Now if you’re unaware an anode is a soft metal that will corrode in the water, and by doing so it stops the harder steel from rusting. They’re not cheap and I bought about €150 worth of them. Still that’s a lot cheaper than letting the hull rust. So now all that remains is to put a coat of antifoul (the stuff that stops too much weed from growing on the hull and probably kills everything all around it too {doesn’t really kill anything!} but it does end up in your hair and your ears, somehow.) Then she’s ready to go back in the water. Keep your fingers crossed that it all goes well.
Fair winds
Harry