De-winterising Follyfin

A couple of weeks ago we ventured south again to prepare the boat for sailing after the winter. She has been out of the water since October. Both above and below deck, the general mayhem was apparent.

Above deck from stern

View from cockpit

Mainsail in saloon

Chaos in saloon

Fore cabin with dinghy

Our work involved re-rigging all the lines and sails that had been removed or packed up in plastic bags back in November, as well as cleaning off bird droppings and seeds etc., flushing through drainage holes, polishing the 'silver' ware, and generally returning the boat to active duty. 

Rigging the lines

The rigger

The fore sail 'jib',  ready to hoist

Main sail in position

Putting on the 'bonnet'

Those mast steps very useful

We were prepared for cold and/or wet weather but as it turned out, we hit upon 3 of the warmest days of the year so far - distinctly reminiscent of summer indeed! This made our work all the more pleasant especially as it also included manual calibration of the 50 metres of anchor chain. A preliminary attempt was made to splice an extra 30 metres of multiplait rope to the anchor chain but as we were working from diagrams in a book, this took much longer than anticipated and did not get finished - 'work in progress' as we say.

Anchor & chain ready for calibration

White paint marks every 10 m

Most recently a wet suit has been borrowed - thanks to diver daughter Laurel - in case one of us needs to go underwater to disentangle stray fishing pots and/or lines that may inadvertently get caught by our propeller.

Not the most flattering of outfits I know you will agree but an essential precautionary cargo!