In The Dock.

We went into the dock bang on time Friday morning following a 58 footer in, they moved over to the right hand side and No Direction was on the left, both boats were lined up so that when the water was pumped out they would be sitting on the stocks with the base of the hull 3 feet off the floor giving a good working height. The pump which is driven by a 4 cylinder Ruston Diesel engine emptied the dock in around 20 minutes.

The vertical rods are there to line the boat up so that it settles on to the stocks, then they are removed.

The Pump.

Empties the dock very quickly.

Once the dock was empty the pressure washing began and lasted about an hour, then another couple of hours for everything to dry out, I could then start scraping and sanding any weed and loose material off the hull.

A Marina local keeps an eye on things.

Saturday morning I applied a thick coat of Comastic Vinyl Tar by brush around the hull at waterline level as this is the area most likely to suffer from rust, in the afternoon the whole hull had another coat by roller and Sunday morning another roller coat was applied.

I used less Comastic that I thought I would as the covering that was on originally was still in good condition.

Resting at a good working height.

Using the dry dock at Shobnall has been good, included in the price for D.I.Y. blacking is a pressure wash carried out by one of there staff which saves you getting wet and dirty, after that they leave you alone but are always available for advice, we will certainly use them next time.  

So tomorrow (Monday) morning at 9 o'clock they let the water back in and we reverse out of the dock trying not to scrape off to much of our new blacking.