Life on the hard is always interesting. This is a huge marina with hundreds of boats but there are very few owners here and those who are keep busy all day, as we do, and are largely out of sight. Consequently we sometimes feel like we’re camping in the wilderness and only run into other boat owners at the showers and laundry room early in the morning or in passing on the way to and from the various marine businesses.
Escape Velocity is parked between a rack of runabouts and a covered row of small powerboats owned by locals. On the weekend the owners spend time cleaning and detailing their babies, load up the beer and snacks and friends, then launch at the ramp for a day of fun on the water. When they return they once again clean and detail and put the babies to bed.
We’re doing the same with our baby, but on a bigger and more daunting scale. We are by no means a big boat, relatively speaking, but it sure seems so when you’re stripping old wax by hand on two 40-foot hulls.
The stripper I’m using is working well but it became clear early on that I don’t have enough to take care of the real estate I have to cover. I’ve tried every product I can get my hands on locally but nothing touches it. That means I have to prioritize what we can do now and wait on the rest for another haul out. Still, EV will look so much better when we finish.
Meanwhile Jack took the port trampoline off in preparation for doing a messy fiberglass repair. There is a bit of separation in the joint between the hull and deck in this area. We checked inside and the boat is secure and tightly put together but the slight gapping on the outside could allow moisture to get into the core of the boat. Again, not the end of the world because the core is a material that will not rot, but this is a good time to seal it up well.
Walking around on the foredeck is a little scary without the trampoline and I have that height thing, you know. As sure-footed as we feel on EV in the water, maneuvering on a boat on the hard is a lesson is careful deliberation. Just climbing on and off is a thoughtful step-by-step process involving a foot bath to keep the boatyard grit off our decks.
