Amekaya's Blog: Oxford part deux

Having already spent over a month at Oxford with our boat on the hard for two weeks of that time we returned back to Oxford after our week of medical visits. But, this time we have some very limited and clearly defined goals. Some of the work I'm doing and some the yard will be doing.

Our home for work.

There are really only 2 tasks for the yard this time around. The first is to replace the vinyl coated lifelines with stainless steel lifelines to avoid potential failure in the covered areas. The second task is very simple to cover up the hole in the cockpit where the sonar was that we removed. In preparation for this work when we got back into the marina on Sunday I removed the old lifelines and emptied the lazarette under the hole to be patched. To empty the port lazarette required removing our spare dinghy engine so we got that on the dink to use over the summer to keep it exercised.

So along with the work the yard is doing I'm taking the opportunity to work in those areas. With the lifeline down and everything off the rails it is time to really clean the tarnish off all the stainless since I had to do it with the lifeline hardware in prep for the new lines. Although I usually keep after the stainless this is the first chance I've had to get at it all without anything in the way. The chainplates, turnbuckles and shrouds came out beautifully. To clean it I did several coatings with Spotless Stainless and then polished them with Brasso.

Stainless so shiny you can see a reflection.

With the lazarettes empty I was able to paint them with Bilgekote to help protect the from water and help make them lighter inside. As part of that task I'm also removing the wiring from the sonar we removed.

A 2-pronged task completed was to remove the canvas from the cockpit and clean it. While the canvas is off the cockpit stainless can be done. There are several other tasks to be completed in around the larger tasks. On Friday we got our sails back and were able to join in a cruise with some other friends. While the wind didn't really afford much of an opportunity to sail it was good to have a completed boat and we did sail for a little while.

Sailing again.

Boby Owl Cove where we anchored out Saturday night.

Happy HHSA Cruisers on Saturday night.

On our return Sunday I took advantage of the lack of wind to go up the mast with my Top Climber and replace the starboard flag halyard and the rigging tape on the spreaders that was peeling off. So everything is now back in the boat and we're ready to head out to do some follow-up medical appointments this week and then on to our final round of scheduled improvements.