December 2, 2011
What an awesome team we have! In a short one and a half work days Nick, Sheila, Andrew and I have managed to strip all of the gear off of the deck. Now we’re ready to roll…..literally! The plan is on Monday afternoon or early Tuesday morning, with the help of Bristol Marine we’ll pull the keel off and then roll her over to fair the bottom. We need to make her bottom “go fast” smooth for France.
We’ve also assessed a small deflection in the hull to determine if the deflection is a result of a bulkhead or floor shifting or just the usual changes of a hull after dropping off of waves and spending thousands of miles in the ocean. We exposed the floor grid and the bulkhead by cutting in to the quarter berth and diggging out the flotation foam, and had a good hard look. The good news is that everything is in tact. This is great news! Now we can just fair the jull once she’s rolled over! Phew 🙂 I would have taken a picture of the deflection, but the camera batteries ran out! I’ll try for Monday. In the meantime, here’s the stripped deck and a candid shot of the blonde chick banging away at pulling the pulpit, taken by our own photographer….Nick 🙂
