Well, for once in my life I decided to "Dry Out",
normally I do this when I go to sea, but as we had been in Brest for so long I
thought it was a good time to give it a try for once whilst on land.
Quite an interesting experience for me, as it was a "First time" and I was quite nervous about how it would go............... but with luck and a few prayers it all went very smoothly.
Of course I am talking about the boat !! yes not me (god help me if I stopped drinking, I think that would kill me )
We tried for the first time here in the commercial port to use the large tides and a good place next to the old stone wharf, safely tied up, the tide went out and low and behold Xplore was sitting on her One Leg, happy as can be, it didn't even lean into the wharf, but sat there on her keel for the day whilst we did the next stage of the Bureau Veritas out of water survey.
Shortly after the tide had disappeared we commenced works under the hull, there was a small classic timber boat in front of us which was drying out also, we were busy disconnecting the shaft when we heard an enormous bang, my heart nearly stopped as we saw the timber boat fall over on its side in front of us ! there we were under Xplore and the thought of 38 tons of boat falling on top of us was a nightmare too grave to even imagine.
In removing the propeller shaft for inspection, I found that the hull cutlass bearing needed to be changed, so with a rush, I luckily had a spare on board (yes all my crew laughed that I had one in stock) we cut out the old one and had the new in place before you could blink.
The tide returned and we floated again, survey completed and with a clean bill of health for the external hull and equipment, we now move on to the 3rd and final stage of survey in the next week.
Stephen
Quite an interesting experience for me, as it was a "First time" and I was quite nervous about how it would go............... but with luck and a few prayers it all went very smoothly.
Of course I am talking about the boat !! yes not me (god help me if I stopped drinking, I think that would kill me )
We tried for the first time here in the commercial port to use the large tides and a good place next to the old stone wharf, safely tied up, the tide went out and low and behold Xplore was sitting on her One Leg, happy as can be, it didn't even lean into the wharf, but sat there on her keel for the day whilst we did the next stage of the Bureau Veritas out of water survey.
Shortly after the tide had disappeared we commenced works under the hull, there was a small classic timber boat in front of us which was drying out also, we were busy disconnecting the shaft when we heard an enormous bang, my heart nearly stopped as we saw the timber boat fall over on its side in front of us ! there we were under Xplore and the thought of 38 tons of boat falling on top of us was a nightmare too grave to even imagine.
In removing the propeller shaft for inspection, I found that the hull cutlass bearing needed to be changed, so with a rush, I luckily had a spare on board (yes all my crew laughed that I had one in stock) we cut out the old one and had the new in place before you could blink.
The tide returned and we floated again, survey completed and with a clean bill of health for the external hull and equipment, we now move on to the 3rd and final stage of survey in the next week.
Stephen
