Monday 10 November 2014: Landing Clio
****************** WARNING, NERDY CONTENTS *********************
Today Clio was made to look weightless (not a small feat for the 12 ton boat), enjoyed a thorough cleaning of her nether-regions and got put onto her spot for the winter.

After Güçlü and Yukari had left yesterday preparations had started with cleaning, deflating and storing our dinghy and scrubbing the decks. According to the marina 'officials' Clio was to be lifted in the afternoon, so there was more than enough time to get the sails down for the sail maker to pick them up to clean, repair and store them for winter. Especially storing sails in a dry environment is important to prevent mould to grow during 5 months of storage. At YachMarin its a WH&S issue and you're not allowed to take sails down once the boat is on land... in principle.

It was a quarter to nine in the morning when a dinghy rocked up informing me to get Clio to the crane to lift her out of the water NOW! Well, that got the heart pumping. Luckily Erdal (Tolga's friend and colleague from many years ago) arrived at that moment and helped getting the genoa down. He turns out to be a stroke of luck as he has 20 years of experience with repairing and managing boats, part of that time in YachtMarin. With his help, we got fairly quickly into the lifting bay for the crane (which required a bit of an odd reverse dogleg). After tying Clio in position with 4 ropes, Erdal got a freshwater hose to flush the engine's cooling system while still in the water and the engine running with the cooling water seacock closed. He also ran the outboard in a barrel with freshwater to flush it too, all done within about 10 minutes. We stored the fenders and Erdal was already on his way to negotiate with the marina safety officer to allow the sail-maker people to take down the main sail while on land; this guy knows what he was doing. After getting cleared to remove the main sail while on land, the slings were put in place under the boat and a diver checked their correct position, they don't take risks here. Clio was lifted out of the water and the sail-maker people removed the main sail. To prevent the mainsail furling spindle to hit the inside of the mast in high winds, they tied a rope to the sail hoist carriage, hoisted it halfway into the mast and secured the rope under tension. In the mean time marina staff were cleaning the underwater hull with a high-pressure hose.
After the cleansing, Clio was hoisted on a cradle and the cradle was lifted by a hydraulic trailer and towed to her place for the winter. Let the annual maintenance feast begin!