Leaving the boat for a month while the family went off and did some other things was interesting. As an engineer and active in the maintenance of the boat I like to know what is going on, with us in France while Aphrodite was worked on I was unable to see the progress and that was disappointing, but I knew it was the best use of time.
There had been a few emails and phone calls while the work progressed and all was in progressing as planned. On Wednesday 31/07/2019 I received an email to say all the work was completed, but due to the time of high water at Mylor Aphrodite was being launched at 0700 UTC and there was no way that Garry and I could get down for the launch.
The original plan was to get down to Mylor, inspect the hull, check the mast, do a modification to the windex then watch her being launched; not that I am paranoid but like to be present when the boat goes back in the water. Having watched one boat launched and slowly sink when the skipper failed to check all the through hulls! But that was not to be, time and tide wait for no man person.
I had arranged to meet Garry in town and drive down to Plymouth, from there to pick up the train and complete our journey to Mylor by taxi.
At Turo I picked up a message on the phone to say that Aphrodite had been launched, but they had spotted a leak. Sat on the train about half an hour from the boat with a message that did not give much information about where the leak was, what the ingress was like and unable to do anything until we got there was somewhat disconcerting. So disconcerting we missed the call for Penryn and only realised when we left the station heading for Falmouth. The train crew were very understanding and we sayed onboard for the return journey. Gathering my thoughts I call a local taxi company to be collected from the station.
We arrived at Mylor to see Aphrodite afloat, not in strops and looking good. Popped up to the office for a coffee and meet Spike for a handover and an update on the leak which was not as bad as I thought.
Having got on board we were shown a weeping seacock on the cooling water input and were happy to accept the boat as is.
The hard work started of getting boat back ready for sea, sails had to be bent on and after the usual mistake of winding the furling line the wrong way and having to drop the genoa and start again. After a couple of hours all was complete on the sail front and it was into the cabin to move everything to where is should be.
After a few hours thirsty work we adjourned to the bar for a well earn't pint of beer, dinner and a long catch up on a warm summer's evening.
Bow ready to be Copper Coated. Credit Mylor Marine Team
Bow Copper Coated. Credit Mylor Marine Team
Crew: Sandy Garrity, Garry Lester
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