Old Scrubber

Yep, it's that time again and yes, I'm the old scrubber mentioned, since I'm not rich enough to employ someone else to do the scrubbing for me.

I took the day off on Tuesday in order to take advantage of the tides. I was a bit desperate since I wanted to do some sailing this coming weekend.

First off, to run aground. Deliberately. Avoiding obstacles like the ropes, chunks of concrete and anchors the guys permanently moored on the beach like to use to moor their boats.

One the boat is firmly beached, a hop ashore and a walk down to the burger van for a bacon butty and a coffee while I wait for the tide to go out:

Once the water is low enough, time to assess to job.

As you can see, I wouldn't be doing much sailing with this lot stuck to the bottom:

I'm getting the removal of the heavy weed down to an art now: using a garden hoe, I slice the weed off the hull, just leaving green slime. After 30 minutes to an hour, you end up with this:

Then once the water had dropped enough it was out with the scraper to remove the Barnacle farm from between the keels.

Then it was out with the sanding grid and water to clear most of the green slime. Water keeps it moist and easier to remove. Once the slime dries out it is as hard to remove as paint.

I tried a power sander and a scraper on the green residue, but it's tough stuff when it dries. I'm sure a pressure washer would make short work of it, but getting mains power and a decent water supply to the beach is a bit of a tall order.

Maybe a drill and a rotary wire brush might have more luck. I'll try that next time. What I need to do is get the hull spotless so I can lay down a coat of primer ready for slapping anti-foul on top.

In one day there's not enough time between tides to do it all. Maybe I need to organise a day on the beach with a wire brush, then another day soon after to clean the hull and lay down some paint.

By the time I got Sprite on the mooring and back on dry land, it was the very last of the twilight:

As I packed the car up to go home, a Fox walked down the beach and stopped about 3 feet away from me. It looked at me as if to say "What the hell are you doing on my beach?" We exchanged a look for a few seconds and then went our separate ways. An interesting end to the day.

Boy did I ache!

Boy do I ache two days later!

I need that lottery win so I can have a man do it all for me.....