We were in dry dock for a long, hot, dusty, dirty, and frustrating month. Waterdog was pressure washed and then surveyed underneath for hull thickness and condition. The survey showed up an area of original plate that was potentially thin in places so there was welding work to do but otherwise was very good. Then we had the underside grit blasted to remove all old paint and rust, this revealed a few popped rivets, a cracked iron plate and a couple of small holes. These were all marked up for welding or over-
We lowered the anchor into the dock and Lorna got on with wire brushing it and then painting it, the anchor has been looking very rough for years and she looked pretty pleased when it went primer yellow and then shiny blue.
Lawrence helped the welder, chipped and primed the deck and drilled all 14 anodes to be bolted on. Then changed the cone shaped anodes on the bow thruster propellors by reaching down the weedbox installed above it in the bow. The old ones didn’t look so bad but when weighed they were less than ¼ of the weight of the new ones so we figured that they were worn out.
We bought a lot of Hempel ,2 pack epoxy, paint system!
The small workforce at Blackwater Marina all pulled together, as a great team, to get Waterdog blasted, welded and painted. The grit blasting is known to be very harsh on a hull and it did uncover some problems that couldn’t have been spotted by the surveyor, it might be risky to have it done but we wanted to see the problems now.
We carefully inspected the whole hull and marked thin spots/holes and popped rivets for the welder to sort out. Then the painting could go ahead.