More jobs ticked off the list....

Since our last blog update, we've had several trips down to Maunie, staying on board for two or three nights each time but there's been precious little sailing. It is winter after all! Last week, however, Di went up to stay with her dad up in Lancashire so Graham spent the week aboard, dodging the heavy rain, to crack on with more maintenance jobs.

Re-varnishing the woodwork in the cabins is a fairly major project for us this year so we've been bringing locker doors home to do as much of it as possible in the warmth and dry. The rest of it has to be done in situ, of course, so Graham had a not-so-much-fun week of sanding and varnishing. It's a slow process but we're definitely making progress:

Lockers in the forward heads half-way through the first coat of varnish

The nav table, stripped and sanded

 While the varnish was drying - and we're trying a water-based varnish which means the cabin wasn't filled with toxic fumes - there were lots of other things to do, including cleaning
and re-greasing the winches:

Winch-maintenance is a once-a year job and takes about 50 minutes per winch. We have 7 winches!

Other jobs included: draining the engine coolant, flushing it and refilling with new antifreeze; completing an oil change on the generator; replacing the broken engine compartment extractor fan; splicing a new mooring line to replace one chafed by winter gales; re-organising the storage of spares and tools; topping up the electrolyte in the batteries; replacing the heads door-catch. Plus lots of cleaning and tidying, as usual. 

Living aboard in such rainy weather, the de-humidifier was a vital bit of kit and the amount of water it captured each night was fairly astounding.

I had one day of sunshine mid-week so was more than ready to get off the boat to stretch my legs. A walk up the steep hill above Kingswear (on the opposite side of the river to Dartmouth) delivered some great views:

Whilst maintenance work isn't the most fun bit of owning a boat, it's good to keep on top of it and to be ready for the new season. We're planning a trip in May so are beginning to start the enjoyable process of looking at charts and pilot books. Roll on summer!