Days 2, 3, 4 and 5 of painter's work

We really like our painter.  He has an excellent work ethic.  Also has good muscles.  Like the old Energizer bunny......he just keeps going.....and going.....and going,  

By late afternoon on the second day he and his partner had finished scraping all the old paint off the bottom of the hull.  This really is a major job.  In the US the painters wear protective suits when doing work like this, but here the men just let that toxic paint dust and flakes fall all over them.  Their only concession to health safety is to wear a face mask.  Of course, these are only the cheap paper painters masks sold in paint stores.  Those do not do much to keep someone from breathing that toxic powdered paint.  Better than nothing, I guess.....maybe.


Days three and four were spent sanding off the last little bits of the old yellow barrier coat.  That is also a major job.  The partner didn't show up on our job after he finished the scraping.  The painter did the rest of the work all by himself.  His arms must have been aching after holding up that sander all darn day for two whole days.  By the end of the second day of sanding, the hull was completely down to the white gel coat.  


The final thing he did on day four was apply epoxy over each tiny scratch on the bottom gel coat.  Bill watched him repair the one very tiny blister that they had discovered.  The blister was only in the gel coat; the fiberglass was completely dry.  The entire repair area after it was ground out was less than the size of a quarter.  Easy repair.  Glad we got to it early and it had not been allowed to enlarge over time.

1st barrier coat

The first thing on day five the first coat of Gel Shield 200 was applied overall.  It surprised me how quickly he rolled on all that paint.  The first barrier coat applied was a light gray color.  Then the painter took a long lunch while it dried.

2nd barrier coat

That afternoon he applied the second barrier coat.  This time in a green color.  BeBe looks odd with a bright green bottom.  Rather a bright festive color, but not a color we would want visible.  The anti-foul paint will be black, as usual.  


The painter did not work on Sunday.  Nor did we expect him to.  Tomorrow, Monday, he should begin applying the anti-foul paint.  Hope the weather is as clear and pretty tomorrow as it was today.  Please let there be no afternoon rain for a few days.

Reinstalling line cutter

While the painter was busy doing his job, Bill cleaned the line cutter with acid and reinstalled it.   Cleaned up pretty good.  The zinc was completely gone when we removed it.  Now it has a hefty new zinc in place.  And those cutting blades are just as sharp as ever!





 As I mentioned several days ago, we had sent the auto-prop out to a shop to have the bearings replaced.  We have since learned that it is not possible to purchase any parts for an auto-prop anywhere in Turkey.   There are shops capable of working on auto-props; they just cannot get any parts.  So if you have an auto-prop, be sure and bring the parts with you when you arrive in Turkey.  We did.  The shop told us that they cannot even order parts to be shipped into Turkey for an auto-prop.  This seems extremely odd to us.  The vast, vast majority of tourists in Turkey are British.  Brunton's, the manufacturer of auto-prop, is a British company.  Seems like it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to get parts shipped from a British company to here.  The tourists fly here daily; why can't small parts fly on the same planes as freight?

The shop also cleaned the prop, as one would expect.  Above is the "before" image.  And here is an "after" image.  Notice that as Bill is installing the prop, the blades are in the normal rotating position in this first photo -- flat side to the moving water when motoring forward or in reverse.


In this second photo notice that the blades are positioned with the leading edges straight to the water, thus presenting the least drag when transmission is in neutral or engine is turned off during sailing.  The auto-prop works very well and has no drag.  But these props are very sensitive to any growth whatsoever.  One tiny barnacle on one blade is enough to cause vibration.  After sitting in the nasty marina in India for over a month and then sitting in the Male anchorage for a whole month, the prop had quite a bit of growth on it.  We noticed a lot of vibration when we motored from the anchorage to the transport ship in Male.  Bill had quickly scraped the prop while BeBe was still on the ship here in Marmaris, but it needed a good cleaning.  There should be no vibration when we sail away in a couple of weeks.


Bill also accomplished another minor project inside the boat.  The nut that tightens the packing for the rudder post needed to be adjusted.  Back in January when we were caught in that awful storm in the Bay of Bengal, a tiny bit of water had leaked in at this area.  By "a tiny bit of water" I mean maybe 3 tablespoons.  Nothing at all to be concerned about.  But enough that we wanted to stop any further leakage.  We just didn't want to take apart the cabin bed until now.  The nut that needed to be tightened is located beneath the settee in the aft cabin.  The area beneath our bed is where we store our luggage and various other things.  We needed to get into there to stow away the luggage we used for the trip from Male (we have been living out of duffel bags since April 11), so this was the perfect time to finally tighten that nut.  Besides, Bill did not have the correct tool for this job.  Found it at the new West Marine here in Marmaris.  No more excuses for not having that nut properly adjusted.  He was able to turn the nut 2 face-sides.  So it really did need adjusting!

Our month at the apartment was up this morning.  They are fully booked, so we had to leave.  We decided that the weather is so nice here that staying on the boat in the boatyard would be okay.  So this morning we lugged all our stuff to the boat.  And tonight we are thoroughly enjoying being back in our home -- even though we are perched 15 feet up in the air in a dusty boatyard.  Feels good to be back home.


Yesterday we left the boatyard early and stopped at a butcher shop we had discovered a few weeks ago.  I want to stock the boat freezer while we are here in Marmaris.  We will have lots of visitors this summer and I don't want to have to search out places to buy food while they are with us.  I had already purchased lots of chicken breasts, froze them in the apartment freezer and then brought them to the boat freezer.  And we had purchased a large beef tenderloin and had it cut into great looking steaks.  Also froze them in the apartment freezer and then brought to the boat freezer.  Yesterday we bought 12 kilos of ground beef (mince to people outside the USA).  We like this butcher shop because we get to watch him grind the meat so we know what is going into it, and we know it is fresh.  Somehow the butcher messed up and gave us 14 kilos instead of the 12 kilos that I requested.  The butcher vacuum-sealed in designated quantities for me; and we also took that to the apartment freezer.  I wanted to utilize our final night in the apartment to freeze all this meat before bringing it to the boat freezer.  Worked perfectly, but that sure was heavy!!  

This image is a close-up of the B&G Sonic Speed Sensor on the bottom of BeBe's hull.  This photo was taken while the painter was scraping the hull last week.  Way back in Malaysia last summer Bill had been in the water cleaning the propeller and checking the bottom of the boat when he noticed a barnacle growing on the end of the sensor.  He removed the barnacle..........and also removed the rubber cover for the sensor.  Luckily, he came up with the barnacle to show me -- it was the ONLY barnacle on the bottom of the boat -- and I could see that the barnacle was attached to that piece of black rubber.  Bill cleaned off the rubber cover and attempted to re-install it on the sensor when we were in Singapore.  Unfortunately, he dropped the tiny plug of rubber in the water.  So our speed gauge does not work.  This is no real inconvenience because Maxsea shows our speed as calculated by GPS.  The nice thing about having the B&G is that it shows the boat speed through the water; whereas, Maxsea shows speed over ground.  Compare the 2 readings and you know how much current you are experiencing.  Doesn't change anything.  Just lets you know if you are being affected by current or not, and how badly.   Water rushing past without the cover in place causes the sensor to report crazy readings.  We have tried every source imaginable to purchase a replacement cover for this sensor.  B&G does not sell these covers.  They insist we would need to purchase a new complete pair of sensors -- about $1500, plus serious labor to remove the old sensors and install the 2 new sensors.  These things are glassed into the hull.


Lo and behold!  Walking through the boatyard one morning Bill looked down and at his feet was a black rubber plug exactly like the one he had lost in the water in Singapore.  He installed this plug over the B&G sensor.  It fit perfectly.  We will not know until we are out sailing again if having the plug back in place will make the sensor work correctly again or not.