It’s now almost two years since Halo got her last antifoul. Time for a bottom clean and refresh before we do the Wellington Women’s Regatta!
I made a booking with the Evans Bay yard and motored the boat round to the slipway on Monday 16th April.
First job was to water blast the hull while the boat was still in the travel lift sling.
Then the boat was mounted on to its cradle ready for sanding and repainting.
Imagine my surprise to find three Whiting Reactor 25’s lined up beside us: Rueben Clark’s ‘Madam Butterfly‘, Richard Hope’s ‘Reactor‘ and Kevin Smith’s “Eleanor‘.
We still had some of the antifoul left over from last time so I just needed to buy one more 4L tin of International Ultra 2 from Barton Marine. According to the manufacturer Ultra 2 is a hard antifouling paint, with smooth, low-friction surface and scrubbable finish.
Taking advantage of having the boat on the hard we also did a few gel-coat patch-up jobs and various maintenance tasks:
Teak Repair
I sanded the companionway teak surround and treated with Devon Care No. 2 Teak Protector. It’s sold for protecting outdoor teak furniture but I had previously done a test with this on the wood on the washboard and it looks great. We’ll see how long it lasts.
Signage
I also needed to replace the “Halo” signage on the topsides which had become scratched and torn. Brett Linton helpfully recommended the guys at Watermark Signs who do marine work. I scraped and cleaned the old signage off and on Friday morning the beautiful new signs were supplied and installed in accordance to the graphic I gave them.
New Galley Tap
The fresh water hand pump/faucet in the galley has been problematic for a long time so I decided to replace it. Eventually decided on a modern electric TMC Galley Pump and Faucet which I picked up from Burnsco using my accumulated gift cards. Thanks LBYC!
I removed the old PVC hose from the tank, installed the pump below the level of the tank, connected up the new hose and wired up the electrics. It works surprisingly well. A great improvement over the old hand pump.
Teak Addons
I also installed a nice teak toilet roll holder for the head and a teak tea-towel rack and a cutlery drawer for the galley. After a couple of coats of clear Norski Polyurethane Varnish they came up very nice.
New Bilge Pump
The old bilge pump failed my latest test so I replaced both the TMC pump and float switch with a new SEAFLO 1100GPH Automatic Bilge Pump. I tested it with a couple of buckets of water and it seems to pump well.
One 12V feed is connected directly to the battery via a fuse so that it can activate automatically even when the battery is switched off. The other 12V feed turns on the pump manually via a circuit breaker on the main control panel.
Relaunch
After replacing the 1″ Zinc Anode on the prop shaft we re-launched Halo on Monday 22 April and motored back to Chaffers Marina.
The boat is now looking like new and all ready for the Wellington Women’s Regatta next week!
Halo Log Book 