The monotonous task of wet and dry sanding of the antifoul has been undertaken which has taken a good few days, but the results are good and her hull is now lovely and smooth and ready for antifouling nearer the lift in.
The boot topping has been rubbed down and two coats of paint reapplied so it can harden over the coming weeks.
Another two days work involved buffing up the stainless steel rubbing strake, which looks nice. Prior to re-launch we will fit a new rubber insert (to be obtained from Trend Marine).
While the outdrives were off, we have taken the opportunity to replace the steering bushes and seals. This should have been a straight forward task, however the grub screws locking the steering arms to the shaft were seized solid, one of them rounded off and the hexagon bit snapped off in the other. We have managed to drill the rounded screw out and remove the steering folk, but could not do the same with the other, this has resulted after a lot of 'head scratching and a call to I.V.S.S Marine) in cutting the arm off with a grinder. This was not easy in the tight confines of the engine room and will result in a new steering arm at around £135. This would all have been avoided if these had been properly maintained and reassembled with grease last time they were apart....indeed we do have a receipt on board claiming these had been changed by a marine engineer shortly prior to us purchasing Moonshine, but we don't think these have been looked at in years!
