Thankfully the blog IT problems should be now resolved (thanks, John) even if theres not much excitement in the content.
A few days ago Allan helped me get Bonita up the narrow winding Faversham creek. It was a nice sunny day but was blowing about force 5 SW which is more than I would choose for this manoever. We succeeded in not going aground this time, but we did have to negotiate one bend in reverse as we couldn't manage the tight turn going forwards.
The next day Bonita was lifted out by the yard. It always makes me a bit anxious seeing her dangling from a crane and it seems a rather undignified way to treat an old lady.
However the yard are always very careful with her. Here Bonita is being lifted by a 70 ton crane over the top of the motor boat with the stripey topsides to be settled down on the blocks in the foreground.
The main purpose for having her lifted out this winter is to investigate the leaking keel bolt. This was removed without too much trouble....
The picture shows the bolt after it was extracted and cleaned up a bit. Although much of the strength is still there, the metal has corroded to produce channels along the length of the bolt, and clearly this is why the water was getting in.
What to do? Could I get away with smothering the bolt with some kind of water repellant goo and putting it back in? Well, perhaps it might work for a bit. There is one firm, maybe the only one left in the world that still produces wrought iron from recycled material ( thanks for the tip, Kevin). I bought from them some 7/8 inch diameter rod to make up into a new bolt. Cutting threads on iron rod of this size with hand tools definitely gives healthy exercise.
And what about the other keel bolts? I dont like having the boat lifted out more often than necessary, so it makes sense to look at them, too.