Pierless Adventures - April 9 - Nacho Time

Nacho runs the Travelift at the Fonatur Marina.  The Travelift is a mobile lifting machine that picks boats up out of the water and deposits them on land in a cradle or on jack stands.  Nacho was kind enough to schedule us for a haulout on short notice so we could inspect and possibly repair any damage incurred during our encounter with the rock.  

 

We had a 9:30 appointment, so headed over a little early to be ready.  Haulouts here are a little tense because you have to back into the area where the boat is lifted out.  Problem is my boat does not like to back up...  Nonetheless, we made it in and Nacho lifted us out and moved the boat over to the yard, leaving it in the slings for us to do our inspection.

We could clearly see the point of impact on the keel.  It was in the lead ballast area, which we suspected, so mostly damaged the lead and some faring material.  Fortunately, some of the boatyard folks were around and they offered to do a fast repair so we could get underway.  They ground off the damaged material, filled it with epoxy fairing material, smoothed it out, glassed it over and applied bottom paint.  All in about 2 hours.  They really did a great job on short notice.

The days are gradually warming and the sun is pretty intense.  While waiting for the work to be done, we would check on progress, then hide in the shade under Pierless or other boats in the yard:

We also had the yard take a look at the outboard engine.  It runs, but seems to be running too lean and often stalls out.  They took a look, but we will need to bring it back on Monday for some more work.  We ended the day with a late lunch out, deck washing and a movie on Scott's Kindle.  Tomorrow we'll do some more work on deck and head out for another sail if there is wind.