A look at my bottom

Well, alright, Herbie’s bottom. Here it is after a thorough pressure washing.

According to Andy at the dock, all the hull below the water is in pretty good shape. Everything seems sound.  Some of the boats built these days use quite inferior steel which pits very easily, but Herbie was built of sterner stuff and Andy thinks the welding was pretty good. He said that twice lately he has had to call out a surveyor to check out boats that were looking as though they might spring a leak due to extensive pitting – and not old boats either. You can see that the anode has been doing it’s stuff by the fact that it is half eaten away, but it should last another few years yet.  I had a good poke around the prop and the rudder and all seems in order there too.

Above the waterline though, things are not so good.  There’s a fait bit of rust where the blacking has scraped or flaked off, rather more than that caused by normal wear and tear.  Andy thinks one of Herbie’s previous blackings might not have been prepped or applied thoroughly enough.  This time he is using one of those tools with rotating tungsten carbide tipped wheels to get all the old rust out, then he is applying an  anti corrosive primer before the three coats of blacking, so it should be much better (it’s also costing quite a bit more but it’ll be worth it). Apparently he’ll leave me with a photographic record of the work.  Herbie should be back in the water at the weekend complete with repainted tunnel bands and the new button fender that Rick gave us.

Cropredy marina’s floating dry dock thingy is pretty good. Nice and light and with good room to move around. It also seems pretty water tight