Back on the Water

She was put back into the water yesterday after almost 2 weeks of hard work. The finish coat looked GREAT! It looks so good in-fact, that I'm thinking it will probably motivate Kat and Phil to start on the deck paint sooner rather than later :)

I took quite a few pics of the put-in. We would have had the traditional bottle of champagne, but they hadn't painted the name on her yet -- so it didn't seem appropriate just yet.

Here's a walk around her while she's still on the stands, showing off the new finish coat.








Shiny!






Outboard mounted...


Here comes the TraveLift to pick her up!


This time they had to wrap the 'straps' up with wax paper so as not to 'pull' the bottom paint, making it sag or stretch. Bottom paint, as it turns out, contains two very important ingredients for salt-water craft.
1. A chemical cuprous oxide that helps to prevent bottom growth. (barnacles, sea anemones, sea-weed and various types of algae)
2. A 'sloughing' agent. This basically refers to the ability of the bottom coat to 'slough' off in layers, exposing a fresh layer with more of #1, cuprous oxide, to allow for continued protection from the sea.

You can see the 'slings' wrapped in that white wax paper.


They slowly raise them and the ground crew verifies that they are in good position before lifting.


An initial test, to make sure the slings will hold the weight w/o slipping.


Then they start to lift.


And we now have a road worthy sailboat :)


Here's where she's heading...


as you can see :)


All the way out to the end of the ramp before dropping her...


Then I head down to the dockside to get a better vantage.


and watch for her keel to touch the water for the first time in nearly 2 weeks.


Down a bot more...


Touchdown!
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Well, not quite...


OK... touchdown!


Removing the slings is somewhat entertaining. Remember the 'keel' of the boat sits between them... so if the boat were to simply back up after hitting the water, it would catch the rear sling and pull it.

So, they have to lower the rear sling enough that the keel will clear it when they back the boat up. Notice in this shot...


After that, instead of powering up the boat's outdrive and hitting reverse, they just raise the front sling a bit, creating enough lift to drive the boat backward and over the rear sling.


Then they let go of the front sling, and that's all folks!


A couple of the happy couple (third wheel in the water).




Lenny was on hand to help us raise the mast into place and took a few shots himself.


It turned out sooo well!


Neat angle


The happy captain...


and the final resting place, back on the moorage at Boston Harbor marina after an EXCELLENT sail from the Swantown boatyard!

And she's SOOOOOOO much faster! We knew that a properly prepped and painted bottom can make a HUGE difference in speed, but we had NO IDEA!