Life on the Hard


Dear family & friends,

We thought it was going to be so easy; Linda & I would take B’Sheret out of the water & place her on the huge hardstand at Yacht Marin where we could just paint the bottom, change our zincs and clean our prop. I can do this myself as I did in New Zealand 2 years ago and the 5 day ordeal of antifouling it normally takes us was going to test both our nerves & patience. We soon learned that we had several not uncommon maintenance issues going on all at once and we would be here longer than expected. It’s easier to just list the projects & show how we are tackling them.

1) Antifouling - We have been carrying 1 ½ gallons of the best paint on the market, left over from our last bottom paint job, Pettit Trinidad SR, but we need at least 2 gallons for coverage. It was not to be found anywhere. Oh there was a dealer in Abu Dhabi and another in Malta but we are here in Turkey. After days of searching we found Sea Hawk paint made in the good ‘ol USA and quite good. We made sure that it was compatible with our paint so we could use what we had aboard & it was.

2) Gel coat blisters- We noticed some blisters on our hull. These blisters are caused by 5 years of sailing in warm tropical waters. Now we decided to strip all the antifouling off the hull & place an epoxy barrier coat down & 2 coats of antifouling paint. The blisters are cut out and new epoxy is faired back in the valleys.

3) Paint the topsides- we were forced to raise our waterline especially at the stern as gel coat blisters located there were just slightly at the waterline. We are going to apply Awl Grip paint, the best 2 part polyurethane paint on the market, to repaint our 2 carmine red boot stripes on the sides. Boy is it expensive!

4) Rebuild the base to our anchor windlass – After days of thinking what to do and almost throwing the damn thing overboard & buying a new one, I found a shop that could weld aluminum and he did a great job. It’s a puzzle now to get it back together on the deck but it will happen.

5) Change the cutlass bearing- Well it didn’t look good in New Zealand & it looked worse now. We had the local mechanic change it but we are good for a long long time.

6) Dripless shaft seal- it was dripping so we changed that too.

7) Tighten the rudder packing gland- we haven’t started yet but it will turn into a major operation.

Life would be so easy if we could do the work ourselves but someone has to supervise all this work & make sure it all gets done professionally and in a timely fashion. Linda & I look after parts that we need, talk to the workers and try to push the work along. And let’s mention some of the other projects. We are replacing 2 sails on our boat at great expense and the mother board on our main computer just died. Last, but not least, our lives are spent at the ATM machines as we buy Turkish lira & Euro dollars to pay for all the bills that are coming soon.

We expect to be 20-25 days on the hard. We have wooden steps leading up the back end so we don’t have to climb a ladder. Showers are a short walk. Waking up in the middle of the night to use the toilets in the cool morning air is very awakening. I take it all in stride & Linda is a trouper as she just deals with it all. It will all slowly come together soon, and the Greek Islands are just a day away . . . when we get there.

Michael & Linda
S/Y B’Sheret