This year we had Naughty-Cal out of the water for much longer than usual. In previous years we have had her ashore for just a couple of weeks, this year we had her out for a couple of months. We actually enjoyed having her out for longer as we could take our time over the jobs we had to do, and being the beginning of the year we didn't miss out on much cruising either. The extra time ashore didn't even cost us more money. It turns out that the weekly charge for storage ashore is pretty much the same as the monthly charge ashore!
This time we wont have the laborious task of scraping off all of the old antifoul paint. We did that last time so we should be left with a smooth finish so will be able to just paint straight over whats there, well thats the theory anyway.
Hopefully as in previous years we should have a straight forward time ashore. Its time to do a major service on the stern drive, which will include changing the bellows, oil seals, anodes, flushing through the oil, changing the props and painting the drive. We also know that some bushes need changing and we have some wear on the shaft which either wants replacing or fixing. We will have a look how bad it is and make that decision once its out of the water.
As we know roughly when we will be pulling her out of the water we can start to gather together all of the relevant materials and parts prior to her coming out so that we will be fully prepared, or as prepared as we can be, for when she finally does come ashore.
It seems like it has been a long hard season already for Naughty-Cal despite our later than usual start to the cruising season. She has been far and wide this year and that is set to continue for a couple of months more yet. 2014 promises to have been our busiest year afloat to date and our most adventurous. With plans for next years cruising already in the making we need to make sure that Naughty-Cal is going to be ready for action in 2015 so we need to put in a bit of hard works as well.
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