The sails were down and Salty Lass was ready for going into the yard. Once in the yard she got her bottom cleaned. Salty Lass is copper coated so there were very few barnacles, the ones we have tend to be where the rubber seals are and the top of the rudder. We were both pleased that there were very few barnacles on the propeller because last year when we got hauled out we had barnacles close in to the centre of the propeller while this time we had none, so we were both pleased with that result. Once we were in the yard and on stilts we got on with the few tasks that we had to do. Beverley's task was to meant our broken fairlead. This is the second time that Beverley has had to sort out that particular fairlead, the last time was after storm Miguel that hit us in Islay in 2019. This time Beverley found a few additional screws that were obstructing the installation of the fairlead, so Beverley removed those and re-bedded the fairlead. We hope that this time the installation will last longer than the 3years of our previous fix.
While Beverley was doing the fairlead I sorted out the sinks. While we are in the yard then we have to use buckets to do the washing up, so this was a good opportunity to clean out all the old sealant around the sinks and put in new sealant. This is a particularly good job for me because the job is picky, for the most part the sealant comes off in one long string, but there are always little bits that need to be picked out and these are the bits that I love to do. Once all the sealant was removed I just masked it all up and resealed using one of the many sealants that we have onboard.
These were just minor tasks that Beverley and I sorted while we waited for the engineer to come look at our propeller. The issue with our propeller is that we can hear a rattle in our engine compartment that was not there previously. By moving the propeller by hand I can simulate the noise. The engineer said that the only way to see if it is a bearing failure is to remove the oil and see if there are any particulates in the oil, so this is what we did. After careful examination there was no metal fragments in the oil, while there was wear on the propeller so that there was plenty of play in that. In addition there was no grease on the bushing that went around the shaft so that again could of caused a noise.
Seeing as we had dismantled the propeller and greased the shaft, it was time to put the propeller back together again. Unfortunately the shop did not have our type of anode so what we did was weigh last years anone with the anode that we had just taken off. The anode that we had just taken off was 20grams heavier so that was the anode that we put back on.
The antifoul did need a few touch ups but the only antifoul that I had was the Trilux so I painted that where she needed it. It did mean that Salty Lass looked like a bit of a Dalmatian, but that just added to her unique charm.
After we had sorted out all the things we wanted to do under Salty Lass, it was time to splash the boat and put everything back together again.
