Work ashore, ready for winter

Robinetta came out of the water on 15th September, and I drove up there on the 21st, leaving home at 5am. It's a five hour drive, and leaving that early gets me past the traffic bottleneck of Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction before rush hour.

I reached Holyhead at 11am and was shown where to find Robinetta by the yard staff.

Start of Day 1

I got to work putting away ropes and fenders, then unshipped the bowsprit before touching up the hull where the paint had flaked off. There are always patches of bare wood at the end of the season. It was just about dry enough to get a layer of varnish on the cabin sides too.

End of day 1, Proped up rather than on a cradle

By 5.30pm I needed a rest, so headed for my B&B for an early night.

I was back on Robinetta before 9am, to find puddles in the yard from heavy overnight rain. Thursday itself was beautiful though, warm, dry, and sunny, and I got a lot done. First came emptying out the cabin and all the lockers, then giving a second coat of grey metallic primer to yesterday's bare wood. After that it was time to renew the Woodskin in the cockpit, and re-paint the fibreglass there. This had not been done since leaving West Mersea, since it is only practicable to do it when there is only one person working on Robinetta at a time.

A clean, rope free cockpit

The cockpit looked great when I had finished, and I left the paint to dry while I sanded down the hatch surround on the foredeck. The varnish there had got quite badly damaged over the last couple of seasons, so it was time it was redone. I decided to go with Deks no.1, like the forward bulkhead, so had to spend a couple of hours sanding it down completely before I could apply the new coating.

After that it was on with the winter covers, to protect Robinetta's topsides from the weather until the next time I could get to Holyhead.

End of day 2

I drove away at 5pm, feeling as though I had got a lot done in my two days.