Back in the Yard

As Marcy was lifted out of the water – again – to repair the leak in the rudder bearing – again – we noticed that the old girl was looking a bid dingy in the topsides. She was showing the marks of months of docks in windy Africa and a difficult cross current landing at the fuel dock.



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Since we were in the yard for a certain amount of time in any case, we asked for a quote to paint. With the help of a favorable exchange rate, the yard would paint Marcy's topsides for about $2600 US, which is a fraction of the prices we'd been quoted in the US, Mexico, NZ, and Fiji. So we said yes, please! In no time at all, the sanding commenced.



Marcy was taped and screened.



A stuffing box was installed to take care of the leak.



We dreaded the trip up the ladder.



But the trip down was much worse.



The paint job looked good. We decided to move the name and home port to the sides, considering Marcy's transom is small and obscured by the wind vane. When the Australian patrol aircraft flew over us last year, sometimes they had a hard time reading our name. Once they got it very wrong and called us “Money!” So we had the name and home port made in vinyl and applied it port and starboard to the new paint.





We enjoyed one last beautiful sunset in the yard, and were launched the next day. The grime and soot from a big wildfire at the edge of town had made the yard even dirtier than ever, but the sunsets were spectacular.





We will head north after washing the decks, re-rigging and checking out with the authorities. We've already begun the paperwork, including the all important sketch of Marcy required by South African search and rescue.