The Work Commences

When arriving at Harbour Island the hard work of refitting the old lady for our journey quickly began.  The unfortunate event of a nearby boat yard burning down bought us a number of hatches which could be salvaged to create 3 perfect hatches, one for each cabin. These were installed and the old leaky wooden hatches where happily discarded. The stripping of the back cabin began and decaying dog house was removed, which greatly improved her appearance, all in time for a visit from Joe and Vivian's parents, David and Marlis. 

First published on offtheline.co.za

Back Into The Water

After loads of hard work Melody's plump hull was gleaming and she was ready to go back into the water. We gently lowered her down and our spirits where lifted when she gracefully entered the misty bay and kept afloat. We motored her across to the Saldanha Bay Yacht club where she would stay until we were able to bring her down to Cape Town and around to Gordon's Bay.

Viv

First published on offtheline.co.za

Paint at Last

Finally the Jotun Marine paint started being applied, layer by painstaking layer. The summer Saldanha heat was almost unbearable but again, thankfully, our blind determination helped override the strong desire to hide in the shade and drink ice cold beer. So we pushed through and were rewarded with a sexy "new" Melody as a result!

Photos first published on offtheline.co.za

Mini Melody

As mentioned in a previous post, in between all the hardstand work on Melody's hull, we managed to queeze in some fun and a little bit of sailing on our tiny tender. We had very relaxed New Year's Eve "celebration" (mostly sleeping from exhaustion from all the work) in Yachtport's yacht club, which e had all to ourselves because aparently no one else in their right mind works in a shipyard over the Christmas/New Year holiday season ;)

Thank you to Yachtport for trusting us with their brand new beautiful facility. It made for a welcome retreat from the chaotic boat work!

Photos first published on offtheline.co.za

New Hull

A few shots of the gritblasting process, to take all the old crusty paint layers off and start fresh on clean steel, with all the correct primers and commercial shipping grade paints.

Photos first published on offtheline.co.za