Haulout and Survey

I was up very early to drive our spare van back down east....Duane got to sleep in (relatively) and fly the airplane down to New Bern where I picked him up at about 7:45AM.  Off to Oriental to meet the marine surveyor, the broker and the boat owner for the long sail/motor up the Neuse River to Wayfarer's Cove Marina.

Mike Draughan is one of the boat brokers.  Nice, knowledgeable fellow.  Helping us get ready to shove off the dock.

Beautiful fall day - warm - glassy smooth water.  (Not good for sailing, but beautiful anyway!)

Meet John Hughes, the marine surveyor we hired to go thru the boat with a fine tooth comb!  I saw alot of him this way for the next several hours!  He crawled into every cavity on the boat.  Some amazing tight spaces too!

See what I mean?

The boat owner and the broker quickly tired of piloting the boat....so I took over for a while.

View aft

View forward -

John banged on every surface on the boat with a rubber mallet - looking for soft deck or any rot.  He also is holding a moisture meter that he used to test if the hull is compromised by wetness.  No problems were found - he deemed it strong and dry!

We lifted the sails (while motoring) for John to inspect.  They are in pretty good shape.

Nice to see them flying even if they weren't really pulling us along very much.

What is a sailing blog post without a ferry photo???  We are going up the Neuse River, so we passed the Minnesott Ferry on the way.

The channel into Wayfarer's Cove is almost invisible unless you know where to look!  Very narrow!

But we made it thru just fine.

Look at completely calm water - like a mill pond!  Approaching the huge travel-lift.  This marina can lift boats up to 20' wide.  Island Girl is 19'3", so it will be a snug fit!

Two deck hands are waiting as we approach the lift to guide us in.

After a good bit of maneuvering, we are under the travel-lift structure.

The huge straps are underneath the boat and adjusted to exactly the correct "lift points" to stabilize the boat as it's lifted.

Out the boat comes as the guy on the left activates the numerous pulleys.

Coming up!

As the entire boat is now clear of the pilings, the lift operator simply drives the structure onto land where they wash the slime off the bottom with pressure washers.  This gives the surveyor the ability to see all the things that he can't while it's in the water.

Several hours later, we make the decision to have the marina keep the boat on dry land for a while so that the owner can do some fairly minor repairs before we close the deal.  Here they're driving the boat thru the boatyard to it's parking place for the next few weeks.

In addition to the owner's list of items, we'll have them do a few things we want done including new bottom paint.

It was a long day....back to New Bern airport for the flight home.

Home just in time for a beautiful sunset!!