A couple of weeks back, Jess was lifted out onto a cradle for annual cleaning, polishing and anti-fouling. She was in a pretty sorry state. Alan and I returned to Largs on Thursday to get her back in the water and ready for our trip to Northern Ireland. It was a glorious day and we thought we would be able to crack on with the small list of jobs which needed to be done.

Dave from DAC Marine did a decent job, considering that the hull really needs to be scraped right back to the gelcoat and all the old paint and anti-fouling removed. It will do for another season.

I had the shaft and hull anodes to fit and then it was off to speak to the yard workers. Fortunately, a hoist was just about to makes its way past us. The yard workers are really helpful and they said that they were heading further up to lift another boat, but the owner wasn’t around, so they would launch Jess first.

We got Jess safely back to her berth and got her secure. Unfortunately, the wind had picked up and whilst we could have struggled with it, we decided to leave it until later when the wind would die down a bit.

Doing even the simplest of jobs on the boat always seems to take at least twice as long as expected, so it was with the deck-cleaning. We hauled the washer on board, found the water hose and connected it all up, only to find that one connector was missing. I’ll have to order one, and the deck will be done next time I’m through. We are setting off in a fortnight, and I’ll head through on Wednesday to finish the jobs off.  Thankfully, I managed to service the engine without a hitch and after a bit of fuel bleeding, she started right away, and I left the engine running smoothly for twenty minutes.

We got the headsail up, tidied the cockpit locker and made up a shopping list.