Boats need care just like cars and houses, and in some cases even more so because the salt water environment is really hard on just about everything. Marine life attaches to the hull and in some cases grows like crazy, and the salt water makes even stainless steel rust a bit. Stainless isn’t free from rust, just much slower / rust-resistant. As an example, growth can interfere and cause blockages such as in the inlets for cooling water for the motor or to the flushing water for the toilet. Or through-hulls can rust and stop working, and the boat can fill with water. Things like that.
Therefore, most boat owners are recommended to haul out at least annually and look at their hulls – are all the through-hulls in good shape, are the propeller and rudder well seated, how does the anti-fouling hold up under all the growth, any other items that require attention. Some boats have anti-fouling paint that doesn’t need to be refreshed every year, but Lulu has needed it. We considered going for CopperCoat, which is very expensive but which can last for a really long time. However, we were recommended against it because Lulu is older and has been in the water for a long time, so she would need a really long drying time to make it possible (at least 6 weeks “on the hard” as they say).
Since we don’t have anywhere else to live at the moment nor a budget to spend nights off the boat, we went with the regular anti-fouling option, although this year we tried a new paint which we hope will last a bit longer. Lulu will still be hauled out after a year and washed off and checked, but if the paint works like we hope (fingers crossed!) we won’t need to re-paint her for two years. To save money, we do as much of the work as possible ourselves, but we decided that our budget could include having the boat sanded and chemically washed by professionals.
Curacao Marine Zone did our haul-out, and they did a great job. You could tell by their tractors and equipment that they took good care of things, and they treated Lulu very gently. She was looking better already after they power-washed her with high pressure fresh water; and after they chemically washed her to get rid of all the calcium deposits, Jodi almost cried happy tears of joy seeing how well everything had come off her hull. There our part of the job started!
Jodi got to wear the Michelin-man paper and plastic overall and do all the painting, and Magnus got to use the polishing machine and polish and then wax the boat. Lulu got three whole coats (almost!) on her hull plus and extra half coat on the highly exposed areas of the waterline and rudder. Being out of the water means that we don’t have the cooling effect of the water on the hull. Lulu became a little oven on land, and even with all our fans running 24 hours a day, it was never less than 35 degrees Celsius or 95 Fahrenheit inside. To make matters slightly worse, we were inundated with flies and mosquitos, so we actually closed the windows in the evening and burned citronella candles inside and incense sticks in the cockpit. We still got some bites with the citronella, but many fewer than the first night without.
Another challenge of being on land is that you can’t use your through-hulls. So no water in, and if you don’t want to mess up your new paint job – no water out either. It’s essentially like living without running water, with the added challenge of not having any drains either if you have jugs of water to use. We put our dishes into a plastic bucket and Magnus carried them into the men’s room to wash them after every meal. (There was a sign in the women’s room saying dish washing was forbidden, but not in the men’s room. Bless them.) We could at least fill our water bottles with water and pop them in the fridge, which also struggled to keep cool. Normally if we keep the fridge on “freeze” all the time we can keep a maximum temperature of 11 C or 50 F; but on land we were up to 14 C / 57 F.
They did have a washing machine that we could purchase tokens to use, and before we left we washed all our bedding as we had sweated all night for five long nights. We used single use cleaning wipes for our hands and surfaces as we cooked and lived; and climbed down the ladder from over 3 meters / 10 feet to the ground to walk to the bathrooms. On the plus side, they had showers with as much running water as you needed, a real bonus for us and our first running water showers since April on Puerto Rico. Being without makes you appreciate the small things very much!
Paint work was completed early Saturday morning, but the yard wouldn’t be able to put Lulu back in the water until Monday morning, so we tried to get as much work done as possible of things that are hard to do in the water. Magnus removed the bow thruster, took it apart and fully cleaned it and sprayed it with Armor-All for protection; then he polished the propeller and greased the propeller shaft, the rudder shaft, and all of our through-hulls. Some of these were 2-person jobs, but Jodi also thoroughly cleaned the cockpit, and Magnus polished stainless that was hard to get to while in the water (primarily the bathing platform). Our sun shade needed repair so Magnus also had out his sewing machine.
Finally, we were done with the work we had the energy to do – we spent the last evening just basking in the glow of Lulu’s newly polished and waxed hull – and on Monday morning we were splashed back in to the ocean. We motored back to Spanish Waters and immediately felt the cooling breezes and enjoyed sitting out in the cockpit without pesky flies or mosquitos.
Thoughts on the haul-out from Spanish Waters, Curacao 2024-08-13
Seem to be both good and bad things to have to live on a boat on land. But I think that the 3 m ladder seems to be the worst. Take care!!
Det var lite svårt att klättra upp och ner, men det håller oss i god form! Bäst var att få duscha med rinnande vatten så mycket man ville.