Haul Out 2012

Radeen under the bow of Island Spirit

Island Spirit gets a lift out of the water at Haven Harbour Marina in Rock Hall, MD, for the first time since June 2011. She has been in the water for 15 months so it was time to clean her up and get ready for her second trip to the Bahamas! Hauling out is a big deal and it also represents a lot of work. Once "on the hard," the term for being in the parking lot, the work can begin. Imagine waxing a tractor trailer and you can begin to feel the pain your arms and shoulders will soon be put through. You need a lot of Advil and other pain killers in order to sleep after a full day of holding a buffer at arm's length and moving it up and down and side to side. There is no easy way to accomplish this; you simply must get up on that platform and get it done!

Hayden waxing the boat via a ladder scaffolding

After waxing the beast, you then get the pleasure of rolling heavy, nearly SOLID copper-laden paint with a paint roller that is on the end of a broom stick. Yes, you keep the paint roller 4+ feet away from your body, which means you contort into all kinds of angles just to hold up the copper-filled roller and press it UP under the curved hull. Sounds easy, right? Well, next year or the next time we paint, come on down and we will LET YOU have a try at painting the bottom of the boat. I am not sure which is more difficult, rolling the bottom with Trinidad Paint (the highest copper paint on the planet), or holding a buffer at full arm's length. Each of these arduous tasks is what owning a cruising sailboat is all about. Lucky for most, this ritual is performed every one or two years, so it is forgotten about soon after the boat is back in the water!

Radeen helps paint the bottom, notice the stylish
cover ups!......nice!

Team Island Spirit is a TRUE team and always has been. We work on these jobs together with each of us doing our own various tasks. Yes, it would be much easier to simply write a check for this work, but the bid on waxing was $850.00 and the bottom paint was $1,000, so we don't mind doing it ourselves to save these fees. The real beauty is that we are NOT working, we are retired, and we have the time to do this prep work. All the while, we are dreaming about and talking about all the places we will soon travel to via this wonderful boat.

Living the "cruising life" has been a dream and it is far better than expected. We have now spent one full year living our lifetime dream and we are looking forward to the next year. These challenges and jobs of being on the hard are a small price to pay for a year of cruising south. Bahamas, here we come.....

Here are some various photos of the yard work...

The Haven Harbour Marina travel lift picks up the 17,500 lbs with ease.

Job one....a marina employee power washes the bottom to remove slime and barnacles.

The travel lift is driven across the parking lot via a WIRELESS REMOTE CONTROL.
Very cool to see. It is like a large video game!

Radeen always scrapes the bottom of the keel. She hates barnacles there, or anywhere.

Service job #1, remove the helm steering system for service.
Edson Marine wanted to see this helm after 12,000 miles.

We installed this system...so we removed it.
2.5 hrs to remove the entire steering system and shifter mechanism.

Bottom paint on day one. Day two, jack stands moved forward so we can paint those patches.

Trinidad Paint by Pettit, does this look like $300 per gallon? Copper has gone up!
Our boat needs 2 gallons of paint to coat the bottom.

To service the prop, we sanded it clean and re-coated it with 2-step Speed Prop.

Next, we sanded and repainted the boot stripe using a $5.99 can of Krylon Fusion Spray Paint in Navy.

Jobs COMPLETED in 4.5 days, time to go home and rest....

Next move, reinstall the Edson CD-i helm and below-decks steering arms, reconnect the shifter and throttle cables and get this girl launched, back in the water where she belongs. After that, share the joy with some good friends and load up, because we are SOUTH BOUND very sooooooon. Year #2 will officially begin at the end of this month. BAHAMAS, HERE WE COME......