Tom
May 6, 2007, Port Ginesta

The past two days I started the refurbishment of Iris's companionway, the varnish of which had suffered a lot under the mediterranean sun of the past three years. In the leftmost photograph one can observe this deterioration.
I started removing all the previous coats of old varnish from the teak handles, using a paint remover for wood. At the outside, where the varnish had almost vanished this was very easy (see the second photograph on the left). Inside the cabin removing the varnish was a bit more tedious. The key is to do small parts at a time. Instead of the paint remover I tried with a heat gun but soon realized this wasn't much easier. Finally a combination of both techniques resulted the most efficient: using the heat gun to soften the old varnish and let it bubble slightly, followed by a generous coat of paint remover, made the varnish come of cleanly.
After all the varnish had been removed, I sanded the whole with 120 grit paper and repaired small holes with a teak-coloured wood repair putty. The teak wood looked like new (third photograph).
Finally, I put on a first sealer coat of varnish (Titan Yate - Barniz Marino), thinned 50%. Subsequent coats will come on in the coming days. The result after this first coat can be observed in the rightmost photograph.

Updates:
May 7: I gave the companionway its second coat of varnish, thinned 20%.
May 8: third varnish coat, 10% thinned.
May 11: sanded with 220-grit + fourth coat, full-strength varnish
May 27: sanded with 280-grit + fifth coat, full-strength varnish

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Tom
April 23, 2007, Port Ginesta

It seems as if summer has begun. Saturday I wanted to give Moona her first sailing lesson on Iris, but in view of the strong winds I decided to postpone the experience another day. So we spent the day preparing Iris for sea and sunbathing in the cockpit.
On Sunday the wind had dropped but...totally! Anyway, we took Iris out and spent a few hours floating around on the mirror-flat sea in front of the marina. As a first lesson, this probably wasn't very representative.
Today, Saint-Georges day I had the day off, and I dedicated to cleaning all the exterior teak wood and giving it a new coat of oil, something very necessary.

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Tom
March 11, 2007, Port Ginesta

Yesterday I did the annual maintenance of Iris's Volvo Penta 2002 diesel engine. I changed the engine as well as the reverse gear oil, and replaced all the filters: oil filter, and primary and secondary fuel filters. It took me some time to bleed the air from the fuel lines, but eventually I got engine up and running again.
Today I dedicated to scrubbing the deck and cleaning the teak parts. With Port Ginesta being next to a quarry, any bad wind throws a lot of fine dust on the boats in the marina. After only a couple of months the teak wood was extremely dirty. I had hoped to oil the teak today but cleaning it already took me all of my time.

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Tom
February 25, 2007, Port Ginesta Shipyard

I had scheduled hauling out Iris this weekend. She had been in the water for almost two years now and it was becoming quite necessary to get her out of the water to clean her hull and give her a new coat of antifouling. The weather was excellent for the job, dry, windy and almost 20 C. Incredible, but this is end of February!
The guys in charge of the Port Ginesta shipyard had me remove backstay and topping lift and on friday afternoon I manoeuvered Iris into the travelift slip. She was hauled out without problems and driven to an empty spot on the already quite busy shipyard.
First thing I did was giving her a thorough wash with the pressure washer. All algae and some of the previous bottom paint came off easily. Only the sticky barnacles didnīt get off with the pressure washer.
After having her dry overnight, on Saturday morning I manually scraped off all the remaining sealife. Then came the dirtiest part of the job. Using an orbital sander and 80-grit paper we sanded the entire hull bottom once for the fresh bottom paint to stick easily. My colleague Enric came to help me on this dirty job. Even with protective clothing and breathing masks, after a while we both had blue faces. Overall Iris's 31-year-old hull is in perfect shape. Not a sign of osmosis.
On Saturday afternoon Iris was ready for a first coat of bottom paint. I used EU-45 dark blue antifouling. Not expensive, an excellent product and excellent service (thanks! Bill>. On Sunday morning a second coat came on and in the afternoon, just before the first raindrops started to fall, I applied a third coat to the waterline, the keel and the rudder areas.
More pictures of the haulout can be found here.

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Tom
February 4, 2007, Port Ginesta

This weekend I dedicated to cleaning out the bilge, which was quite dirty since brown engine coolant flew in last summer. I also cleaned sails and repaired the spray hood.
I reserved a space on the shipyard for taking Iris out of the water and antifoul her later this month; keep posted.
Then I took a walk in the nearby marina of Garraf, 1.5 Nm South, where I discovered Iris's closest-by sister, Centurion 32 "Micha" (see photo).

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