Suilven - Part 2

Getting Suilven back to  a shipshape condition and back on the water before laying her up for the winter was the goal. The intention had been to try and get Suilven ready for the water last season (2017), but the work progressively became more involved and time ran out. We certainly learnt a great deal about her with many achievements, enjoyable moments and frustrations along the way. 

Sanding down all the wood work to re coat with teak oil. Sanding and repairing the hull under the waterline especially around the keel where it penetrates the hull. Measuring up for replacing the mast foot and the companion way hatch and renewing the makers plate. Hilary spruced up the inside of the cabin to make it more welcoming and comfortable so that we could relax and eat alfresco while we worked. The more we worked the more jobs we seemed to uncover.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
As we pressed on we started to see improvements the wood work restored to natural beauty with the grain showing. The hull starting to clean up. As the weather warmed up and the days got longer we were able to come down in the evenings as well as weekends to work away. Progress was slow but sure

The new companion way hatch took shape after lots of going backwards and forwards measuring, cutting and remeasuring. The bilge pump was removed and overhauled and reinstalled with a protective cover. The repairs to the keel progressed and the new mast foot started to take shape. However the season was nearly over and we realised we were not going to get Suilven back in the water in 2017 :-(.








We decided to give Suilven some new decals to show off her name and finally get to raise the mast on her new footing with a self made mast lifting jury rig. Before that operation though we had fun and games fitting new running rigging and feeding the ropes up the inside of the mast! I realised after the mast was up that I had forgotten to fit the weather vane to the top of the mast oops!! Still Suilven felt like she wanted to be back in the water at that moment, but there was still some work to do on the hull and anti-fouling to apply.

All the new rope rigging was checked; the new companion way hatch was installed; deck fittings installed so that the mast ropes can be fed back to the cockpit to allow the sails to be controlled from the cockpit and a grey pre-coat primer applied to the hull in readiness for the anti-fouling coat.

We decided we had time to raise the main sails and test them although fibreglass battens are required for the main sails. Then we put Suilven to bed for the winter months and prepared for our trip to New Zealand. We took down the mast and secured it for the winter. The last thing was to put a tarpaulin over Suilven to protect her from the worst of winter. Roll on to next spring in 2018 for our continued refit adventures!!