Despite hopeful sounding plans to the contrary, the fall of 2007 seemed to offer few opportunities for prolonged further testing of Angels Wings. We got our little lady into her marina slip and continued to clean, now that she was only a 30 minute bicycle ride away. However, between business travel and family responsibilities opportunities to sail were minimal.

Early in November, we had Wings hauled -- we had no illusions about what we'd see when she came out of the water. As soon as she was up in straps, the crew attacked the hull with spades and hoes to scrape the first layer of barnacles and other crud off the bottom. It was quite a sight and we could see immediately that our work was cut out for us.

We went over the hull from bow to stern, making note of what we saw. There was a sizable gouge just below the water line in the bow as well as numerous scrapes along the hull. We noted about a dozen small blisters, one or two more sizable ones and an area or two that sounded like delamination needed to be investigated.

Our major project for November was simply to grind out the most obvious blisters and gouges to allow them to drain and dry. Beyond that we used small grinding wheels with heavy, 60-grit emery cloth to begin to knock the worst of the fouling off -- many years without bottom paint had left the remains of many skeletons firmly attached to the fiberglass. As the weather cooled progress slowed and we contented ourselves with small projects, removing the sails and minor housekeeping chores -- vowing to return just as soon as the weather warmed enough for us to begin to mix epoxy.