A friend of mine commented she hadn't come across the term "on the hard" before, and it got me thinking about DavidEllis' episodes of living on the hard (pulled out of the water). This is not to be confused with Kwakatu DD462-04 on the reef in Pohnpei (Federated States Micronesia) for 3 weeks -- said he zigged when he shoulda zagged).

Boats require maintenance; steel (and wood) boats require a lot of maintenance and some of this must be done, or at least is easier done, out of the water. Bottom paint (anti-fouling), zinc sacrificial anodes, rear drive shaft bearing (cutlass bearing), thru hull fittings -- it's amazing the number of holes in the boat hull; amazing we didn't sink years ago -- and much more are routine maintenance projects which require haul-out.

DE weighs about 73,000 pounds more or less, depending on fuel, water, books, tools, spares and the stuff of living aboard for multiple years. So the first thing is to find a yard that can handle the weight and size of the boat. It's been a learning curve -- this is our 6th haul-out. The first time, in Hong Kong, finding that the furled jib, riding on the forestay, came up against the crossbar at the top of the travel lift, I tied off the mast forward, then detached the lower end of the forestay -- majorly stressful, both physically and on the nerves. It turns out all we would need to have done -- as we did the next several haul outs -- was back into the straps of the travel lift after removing the top end of the SSB / HF radio antenna.

The boat is lifted out on straps / slings and we now know to tie off the forward set of straps to the boat cleats so they cannot slide forward under the boat, causing the boat to fall. Attempting to put DE back into the water at Subic Bay PI, without said tie-off, nearly resulted in disaster, and did result in 5 days sitting in the straps trying to repair damage to the bottom coatings caused when the straps slid across boat chines.

One can plan what work is to be done on haul out, but you never really know what you'll find when the boat comes out of the water, despite frequent dives to clean the zincs, running gear and sea-chest (mud box) intake. The morning after our first haul out, we awoke to find the bottom paint hanging in tatters, as though someone had sprayed paint remover on the day before. And every haul out prior to this one revealed blisters forming from the steel up through the coatings. Which is why we are so happy to see that since having our bottom sand-blasted and recoated in early 2011, there are now no blisters. In fact the bottom looks beautiful! Thank you Don Sorrick at Superior Marine Services, Wrangell AK.

Continuing to live on the boat during a haul out is it's own special wonderful, and I mean that both literally and facetiously. Toilet is one of the most obvious issues. Obviously the valves are closed on the black water (sewage) tanks, but they have a limited capacity and I've yet to see a mobile pump out in a boatyard. On our first haul out the closest toilet was a quarter mile away; we thought we'd only be out of the water a couple days, no problem... but then the bottom paint fell off, and the weather wouldn't allow a reapplication, so there we were waiting... and using the toilets... things got rather full. In other cases a toilet has been closer, but more primitive.

Sometimes the boatyard has been isolated, a long way from groceries or public transit. On another occasion, we ended up with infestations of several kinds of crawling insects -- small roaches, stinky round black bugs and fire ants. The fire ants were the most fun, they would pack themselves into electrical outlets (because of the heat) to the point where their massed bodies would short out and blow the circuit. At night we would vacuum all around the bed, floor, bed pedestal, walls -- they blend in well being the same color as teak -- shakeout all the bedding and still within an hour or so, they'd be in bed with us, crawling right to where the sun don't shine and taking a big bite. If you've never been bitten by a fire ant, don't go looking for the experience. There is an amazing amount of pain for such a little creature, especially in sensitive areas. It took half a year to fully eliminate those 3 populations

One boatyard was run by... pirates?... banished from the yard, the surveyor we were working with and charged us per head for anyone working on our boat who wasn't their employee. We barely got out of there before a typhoon hit, knocking over several boats on stands, causing significant damage.

In another case, there was a gravel plant nearby to which barges tied up and delivered gravel by conveyor belt. The prevailing wind would pick up clouds of grit from the conveyor and literally rain dirt onto DE all day and night.

We've worked on the boat in excess of 100 degree weather where it was impossible to keep up with hydration (no pee at all during daylight hours, just sweated it all out) and in 8 degree F weather.

Since Rusty & Rascal joined the crew, we use a dog crate and blocks (pulleys) to rig an elevator for getting them up and down at pp time. It's a long ways from the ground to the rail of the back deck, maybe 20'. The boat is like an iceberg, quite a bit below the water line, out of sight. Out of water, you realize there's much more to the boat than you pictured in your mind.

As is the case even when we're not hauled out, living on and working on the boat at the same time requires serious juggling of spaces; moving things about to make room to work and then there's finding the tools, spares and supplies you know are on board somewhere.

We try to stay mindful of DE's motto -- semper gumbi = always flexible -- and just go with the flow. It's nice to see progress on projects that've been hanging or on our minds for a long time, and we know from experience that this too shall pass.