Marmaris - On the hard

Early in the morning on the day of the lift-out, Nicky chatted to the crane driver and he asked us to move into position as the second yacht to be hauled out. We duly moved BV onto the waiting berth and pumped out the holding tanks whilst we waited for our turn. This took a little longer than expected because the yacht ahead of us was lifted into position but the marina staff then discovered that its wind generator was in the way and the crane couldn’t be moved. This caused an hour delay for us whilst stainless steel guys who could cut off the wind generator were found. Once the offending wind generator had been cut off (we’re still not sure why they didn’t just relaunch the yacht and use the much larger hoist to get her out of the water), the crane was released and repositioned to lift out BV. With the slings in position we climbed off and watched as BV was lifted clear of the water and the hull jet-washed clean.

BV was then transferred into a steel cradle which was lifted by a hydraulic trailer so that a tractor could tow BV into position.

The yachts are crammed in tightly so it required very careful positioning with very little space left on either side.

As soon as the extra securing chocks were in position craftsmen were crawling over BV. As well as the work on waterline and on the teak in the cockpit, we had asked for the seam below the toerail to be raked out and resealed. The work started immediately and whilst the anti-fouling along the waterline was being scraped off, four guys removed the old sealant, cleaned and then primed the seam. It was taped up and new sikaflex sealant was applied with a high pressure pump. We were very impressed; by the end of the day the toerail seam was completely finished and looked very smart and watertight.

We were also kept busy fitting the new T-piece on the galley drain before turning our attention to the engine cooling system.

I had already had one stainless steel T-piece made to replace a suspect looking pipe in the engine cooling system but I still had one other area of concern. On one of the welds on a different stainless steel pipe there were indications of a tiny pin hole leak. We took off the pipe and asked the stainless steel fabricators to cut off the end above the pin hole leak and then to weld on a new piece to which we would attach the rubber hosing. Just 3 hours after we dropped it off at the workshop, the pipe was ready to be picked up and refitted. Marmaris certainly is a great place to get work done on your yacht.

Work continued for the next few days on preparing the waterline whilst we worked onboard cleaning and getting BV ready for winter.

It wasn’t all work though. In the evenings we enjoyed an end of season Cruising Association dinner, several drinks parties and even managed to escape to Marmaris for a day to check out the supermarkets and chandleries.

So much had happened in such a short space of time that we were almost in a daze as we unloaded several heavy bags of kit from BV and got a taxi to the airport. We’d be spending a little time at home whilst BV was being loked after for us in Turkey. When we left, the hull was almost ready to be primed and the carpenters had visited to check out the work that needed doing in the cockpit. It would be messy and dusty work and so they had been left it until we had moved off BV. However, they started in earnest as soon as we had gone so that the teak would be re-sealed and water-tight before the winter rain set in.

Marmaris, Turkey