Bottoms Up

January 10-February 6   Eagle's Wings sailed to jack stands at the All American Boat Yard.  With only light sanding and bottom paint plus replacement of the cutlass bearing and shaft seal bellows, we expected to be back in the water in a week. One month later, bottom sanded, barrier coated, painted, minor gelcoat repair, shaft replacement, PSS seal face polish and davit installation, in addtion the bearing and bellows replacement we were back in the water much lighter in the wallet.

To reach All American we motor sailed with  Hide Away up the Myakka River and through a lock to the Gulf Cove fresh water lake and canal system.  We anchored in the lake overnight with one millon mosquitoes to await our morning haulout.  Our haulout went smoothly enough but later our 4 year old bottom paint started to flake off in a few places.  So we decided to have the bottom sanded.   Bottom sanded, we decided to have a barrier coat added before painting the bottom with Micron CSC ablative paint.  I chose red for the first bottom coat followed by blue for the later coats. When we see red we will know it's time to repaint.

To replace the cutlass bearingshaft, we need to remove the shaft. To remove the shaft, the rudder had to come off.  We found that the shaft was corroded so it needed to be replaced as well. Of course one needs to pay for the labor to disassemble and then reassemble everthing.

We had ordered Kato davits that I planned to install but since we had all this other stuff going on we had them installed as well which was just as well as Daniel Lambert the certified marine techincian who either performed or coordinated all the work did a great job.  His phone number is 941626 1684.