Back On Board

We left home on 23 March, flew to Gatwick and then spent the night in a Travelodge hotel so that we were close to Gatwick for an early start the next day. We landed on time at Dalaman airport in Turkey at 1435hrs. We had travelled with 53 kg of hold luggage, primarily spare parts for BV, including the repaired watermaker. The large box that was in caused some interest with customs at Dalaman so we had to open it up. They quickly realised that it was filled with bits for our boat (the fact that I had, totally coincidentally, put the ensign on the very top, may have helped to shape their opinion) and they let us on our way. The taxi we had arranged online to transfer us to Marmaris was waiting for us at the stand, so all of our travel plans had worked seamlessly.

Refurbished cockpit

Clambering up the ladder at the back of BV we saw the wonderful work that had been done refurbishing the cockpit for us. It looks fabulous and BV looked in good condition and very clean as the guys had been washing her down for us to prevent a build up of sand and dust from North Africa.

Water where it should not be!

Once inside, however, we quickly realised there was water where it should not have been! The bilge was filled with fresh water. Clearly there was a leak somewhere, probably with one of the deck drains, and some of the rain and washing down water had got inside. A real surprise for us and certainly not one of the potential problems associated with leaving a boat that we had expected with BV.

Clean-up

Fortunately the damage was primarily cosmetic. There are some marks on the wood which will need to be addressed when it is all properly dried out and similarly we’ll have to replace some of the cabin sole where the verneer is discoloured. There were also some electric pumps which didn’t their immersed time and so we had to replace them and, of course, we also had a big clean up job. Having pumped out most of the water we lifted all of the floorboards, sponged out any remaining the water and then cleaned up the dust and debris left behind. Fortunately BV has a very clean bildge so there are no nasty smells and we don’t have any of the issues associated with old diesel or oil deposits.

The cause of the leak

We had no leaks when we left BV in Gibraltar last winter, or indeed in previous years, so we needed to wok out what had gone wrong. After pouring water down all the drains, with and without the stopcocks closed, we found that they all worked perfectly except for one in the recess around the edge of the starboard lazarette lid. This had become blocked with sawdust and chippings from the work we had had done in the cockpit. That should have been fine, as the seals on the lazarettes should be watertight and any water in the recess should have overflowed onto the deck, and run along it to another drain. However, sitting inside the lazarette with a torch I found that there was a small 3 mm wide gap in the sealing strip at the drain corner of the lazarette lid. The enthusiastic cleaning down of the decks and some heavy rain over the winter had let water through this gap which then ran into the bilge. Lesson learned; next time we’ll be more trusting and leave keys and specifc instructions to check the bilge regularly.

New anchor windlass solenoid

With the clean up job completed we turned our hands to the work we had expected to be doing prior to our lift-in on 30 March. The deadline was approaching fast!

The 6 Blakes seacocks were taken apart, cleaned, greased and rebuilt. The engine got some love with a thorough check-over as well as a new impeller, anode and fan belt. To complete the work on the drive-train the sterngland was filled with fresh grease and the propeller polished up. The watermaker membrane tubes had survived their flight out and were refitted but we wouldn’t be able to test them until we were afloat again. Our fridge is seawater cooled so we changed the 2 anodes and flushed out all of the pipework and filters; musn’t take any chances when it come to the mechanism for cooling the beer! We replaced the electric bilge pump, added a separate float switch and then started a complete check on all of the other systems and electrics. Pleasingly, there were no real issues. The port navigation light was intermittent and so needed its contacts cleaning and the solenoid for the anchor windlass seemed to have seized. The electrics checked out but the windlass would not function. We serviced and greased the windlass and ordered a new solenoid. It was delivered the next day and, once fitted, everything was functional again.

Polish on, polish off - worth it for the mirror like shine

With everything mechanical and electrical checked, the running rigging was re-run using the mousing lines that we had left in their place over the winter. That left us a couple of days to polish the hull. It was a bit touch and go whether or not we would complete the polishing in time because it rained. A third layer of polish would have been nice but in the end 2 were enough to give BV a mirror-like shine ready for re-launch. We’d manage to cram a lot into 5 ½ days!

Marmaris, Turkey