Hauling out at the DSS, we have had quite a number of old salts wander past, admiring ERIK and giving us the benefit of their experience… Albeit while we are swaddled up with breathing masks, eye protection, gloves, toxic chemicals all over the place… What better time to have a chat?
That aside, there have been some real pearlers, and I thought I should share:
An old salt on modern racing designs…
“Look at that thing there”, says an old salt, pointing at a custom built racing 22 footer. “Who’d build something like that?” A rhetorical question, I assume, because he doesn’t pause before going on with “…carbon fibre masts, bloody good in a lighting storm, but I wouldn’t hang a sail off one.”
An old salt on steel boats…
“Wouldn’t have a steel or alloy boat, the sea always has it’s eye on it, don’t you know, always looking to turn it back into the dirt it came from.”
An old salt on putty…
“You can thin that up with turps, you know, yeah, that’s it get your fingers in there, work the lumps out.” The good wife remarks that’s a bit thin now, so he says “Oh you can thicken it with whiting”. I look at her goop covered hands, back at him, and he just grins.
An old salt on the sailing properties of older boats…
“These olds boats know more about sailing than we do.” He pauses to draw a long breath, “I was sailing to New Zealand, roughest weather I have ever seen, got my new lines out, tied shackles and swivels to it to weight it down, flung the whole lot over the transom and went to bed.” He pauses to draw another long breath, “…then, see, I awoke up the next morning and found the boat was rocking along under her staysail, dead on course, all the warps gone, lost the jewellery too. She knew what was best.”
We got the second coat of topcoat on the topsides this morning, and they gleam! We masked off the waterline (guessing where it was, again… We really must get round to scribing a waterline on the planking that we can paint to…) and painted hard anti foul for the waterline and around the prop aperture. Tomorrow, before she goes back in, we’ll put 5 litres of soft (ablative) anti foul on the hull.
Doesn’t she look good?!
We get in the water tomorrow; last night on the hard tonight. Poor ERIK doesn’t like being out of the water, it puts unusual loads on her hull and her planks crack their paint in unusual places. It’ll be good to get her back in.
