It’s hard to believe, but it’s been about a year and a half since a long stay (and her extra stay) in a boatyard in the UK. Since then, Oso visited France, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, before darting across to Madeira and then Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. A passage across the Atlantic, island-hopping through the Caribbean and then the Bahamas, and then a trip up the US east coast add up to a lot of miles.
Motoring towards the ‘small’ travelift at Front Street Shipyard In the slings of the travelift getting lifted out of the waterOso’s bottom was so filthy. We had never seen so much heavy growth on any of our boats, EVER. We had even hired professional divers to come clean the bottom of Oso before departing S. Carolina. It was definitely time for new bottom paint!Close up of the barnacle farm on Oso’s bottomAfter the yard workers scraped off the barnacles and pressure washed the bottom Oso didn’t look as unkempt and was ready to move to the stands for her stay in the boat yard
After all that sailing, Oso is ready for new bottom paint and a few other maintenance items that require her to be out of the water. Given that the past several months have been a flurry of lightning-related repairs, more boat work is at the very bottom of the list of things we’d like to do. But boats are needy creatures, so Oso noses into the slings of the travelift to be hauled out of the water for a period on the hard.
We removed the bow thruster props to clean them and prep them for painting Almost clean and ready for paint Reinstalling the bow thruster propsOld batteries out (black ones in the foreground) and new batteries on the forklift ready to be lifted onto the boat for installation Battery compartment New batteries in and ready for wiring
Front Street Shipyard is located in Belfast, Maine, at the northeast corner of Penobscot Bay. With the capability to lift boats up to almost 500 tons and a large team of carpenters, mechanics, riggers, painters, and other craftspeople, FSS handles new boat builds as well as large refits. So lifting Oso’s ~30 tons, smoothing the bottom and applying new paint, and doing a few other small jobs is not a problem for this place.
Supporting the rudder with the pallet jack while replacing the upper rudder bearing Mike hard at work removing the old rudder bearing Old and newNew rudder bearing installed and ready for use!
So after a few weeks of sailing from South Carolina up to Maine, its back to caring for Oso.
What was left of the forward grounding plate on the hull. This appears to be the exit point of Oso’s lightning strike. All that remained was a thin layer of bronze in the area of the sealant and portion of the screw that penetrates the hull to attach to the grounding wireOld grounding plate and screw removed and ready for replacement Mike accessing the ground wire and the ground plate screw deep in Oso’s bilge New ground plate screw with attached ground wire The new ground plate finally installed. This was the last project that needed to be completed before re-launching Oso. Since Oso is a European built boat, this is a European type grounding plate and unfortunately can only be bought in Europe. The day Oso was hauled out and we discovered the grounding plate needed to be replaced, we ordered one the same day. The grounding plate got held up in US customs and finally arrived 2 weeks later. We were so happy when it finally showed up!Back into the slings and travelift for the last coats of paint where Oso was resting on the stands in the yardMike applying the last of the bottom paint Oso on the move in the little travelift heading around the big travelift and over to the launching areaBack in the water and back in business!
