Sunday, December 11, 2005

High and Dry

Yesterday, we trundled up the Erewash to Mills Dockyard and sat Andromeda in dry dock.

It’s that time again. It’s time for the ultra-sound part of her boat safety, and to black the hull once more. Pig and I spent most of the day wire brushing rust off her and wallowing in bitumen.

She needs a few bits doing according to the man. A bit of welding that we were pretty much expecting and Steve at Mills can sort for us. A bow plate port and starboard were it's pitted into the 6mm (Andromeda being mainly, and surprisingly, a hardcore working boat standard 8mm). Nothing drastic.

There’s a couple of things were going to get done that don’t really need doing immediately, gas locker seals etc., but if we’re sellin’ her to buy this house then I don’t want to be floggin’ 25 tonnes of Bernard Matthews finest.

She’s a hell of a slab of steel when she’s out of the water. Plenty to do. It’s funny watching the other guys in dock pussy-footing around with there fibreglass cruisers while we grind and weld.

We’ll be in dock about a week.