16 May 2019 Herrington Harbour North, Virginia
There was a slight drizzle in the morning, so we emptied some more lockers getting ready to pack into boxes. When it stopped raining, Glenys finished off washing the hull and I wandered over to Roger’s workshop and painted the seacock handles.
In the afternoon, I gathered together the boat’s documentation and took it along to Free State Yachts. There’s quite a bit of paperwork - Bills of Sale for all owners; Lloyds certification; European CE certification; VAT documents for when the boat left the UK; USA customs documents, etc.
Americans have to register all boats with an engine larger than 3hp, which includes our dinghy. Under our cruising permit, we’re exempt from this regulation, but in order to sell the dinghy, we have to produce the original invoices for the dinghy and the outboard. Fortunately, I was able to find both pieces of paper.
Back at the boat, I lowered myself into the 6foot deep, cramped anchor locker and spent a couple of hours washing and then wire brushing the loose old paint off. I’m not looking forward to painting it.
17 May 2019 Herrington Harbour North, Virginia
Glenys spent most of the day packing our personal effects into four boxes and a cargo bag. The plan is for us to only carry one cargo bag and my guitar case onto the plane back to the UK, so we sorted through our belongings and left ourselves with only enough clothes to last the two remaining weeks. When Glenys had finished, we loaded the boxes and bag onto trolleys and trundled them ½ mile to store them in Roger’s workshop for a few days.
I spent five hours sweating in the engine room. I changed the coolant in the engine and the generator, which took ages - not helped by the one hour delay while I cycled to the hardware store to get some more antifreeze and oil. I then changed the oil in the engine and the generator, so both now have clean oil and strong enough antifreeze to survive a cold American winter.
18 May 2019 Herrington Harbour North, Virginia
We had a long but productive day. Glenys washed down the teak on the deck, coach roof and cockpit, which took most of the day. She used a mixture of 2/3 cup of bleach, 4 table spoons of Tri-Sodium Phosphate and a dash of washing up liquid in a bucket of water. There was a terrific amount of dirt that came off the deck and it looks very clean now with a slight teak colour rather than grey-silver.
I fitted the painted seacock handles and replaced a few teak plugs in the aft coach-roof and toe rail. I then cleared the lazarette and gave it a good clean. It’s amazing how much stuff came out of the locker, so I was ruthless and threw a load of stuff into the skip.
After lunch, I cleaned the main sump bilge, which was looking pretty grim and while I was at it, I cleaned a couple more in the aft cabin.
I then tackled the odious job of painting the anchor locker. By squatting uncomfortably in the bottom of the locker for an hour, I managed to paint the top half. I then tried lying on the deck, hanging upside down to paint the bottom half, but it was like doing sit-ups for ½ hour and I couldn’t reach more than 2/3 of the way down, so I’ll finish off tomorrow with a paint brush on the end of a pole.
Only one more day until the viewing, but I think that we’ve done most of the work - we’ve removed a lot of our clutter from the boat, the deck looks great and the hull looks good. All we have to do tomorrow is clean and polish the inside woodwork and tidy up.
19 May 2019 Herrington Harbour North, Virginia
Only ten more sleeps until we fly back to the UK. Glenys talked to the shipping company about sending our belongings back to the UK and discovered that DHL sometimes refuse to take cargo bags and we have a cargo bag in our consignment. Somehow we needed to repack into a box, so Glenys walked to West Marine and scrounged a large cardboard box, which we cut to the same dimensions as the cargo bag and put the whole bag inside - job sorted.
Unfortunately, sorting out the shipping took ages, so we didn’t get started on cleaning the boat until 11:30. The rest of the day was a frenzy of finishing off small jobs, cleaning and polishing the interior woodwork. By 17:00, we’d done as much as we could and the boat looked great.
In the evening, we invited Vince and Lara from a HR40.
- << Prev
- Next