We decided to leave Tuesday night and anchor in the Rapphannock so we could visit Merroir, a restaurant our friends introduced us to last year when we were in Deltaville. Our anchorage had been so quiet and well-protected that we didn’t realize how windy it was in more exposed waters, and it was rolly enough that we were worried we might not be able to get off the boat. We tucked in close to shore to drop the hook and the breeze settled back, and we were able to head in for a nice dinner.
We hauled anchor at first light and were in the slings at Deltaville Boatyard by 8am on Wednesday morning. I’m always terrified watching my boat get lifted out of the water. The team here is very competent, but that doesn’t mean the irrational fear isn’t there. I imagine a strap breaking, the boat getting raised too high and the rig getting ruined, or the strap being in the wrong spot and the shaft getting crushed. Of course, none of those things happened and Windara made slow, stately progress up into the lot to be pressure washed before being placed on stands. It was satisfying to see the the considerable beard we’d acquired get blasted away.
We had a few things that needed some attention, and since Deltaville Boatyard did a great job with our work last year and had been working on Windara for years, it made sense for us to haul here. First on our list was to have the bottom sanded and repainted. We were getting a lot of hard and soft growth on the hull, and I can see why – the paint was flaking in a lot of places. Our shaft zinc looks pretty good, but the prop zinc has been completely destroyed.
While we can do the routine engine maintenance ourselves (and we do do most of it), things like oil and transmission fluid changes are easier to have someone else deal with – it’s hard to find a place to properly dispose of used oil – so we had them take care of that for us as well.
And while we’re at it, we wanted them to wash and wax the hull – it’s a big undertaking and they’re far better equipped to do that than we are!
I hate heights and ladders, so I wasn’t excited to be faced with trips up and down a 10′ ladder to do absolutely EVERYTHING (including going to the bathroom and showering), but I’ve gotten better over the years and before too long I was able to (very slowly) go up and down without making Chris hold the ladder in place for me. Otherwise, the transition to land life wasn’t too bad.
As soon as we settled into life on land, our own boat work season kicked into high gear. We put together shopping and project lists – one for now, one for future projects, and it’s quite the list. We were chatting with the owner of the yard, and he mentioned that Windara is getting up to that age where a refit is in order, and he’s right – there are several systems that need an update/upgrade and the list is growing. We’re not tackling it all at once, but we’re starting to chop away at it and at least note what’s going to come next.
We wandered over to the local TrueValue Hardware, which has an impressive marine section, and managed to find a lot of things on our list including a replacement for the teak flagpole we lost overboard during a rough passage in the fall. I’ve been looking for a replacement ever since to no avail, so it’ll be nice to be able to fly a flag again (especially since it’s a requirement!). I also picked up some plant food for our poor little basil plant, Basil (UK pronunciation, of course). I’ve somehow managed to keep him alive since September, but he’s been looking a little sickly and I can’t imagine there were any nutrients left in that soil.
I broke out our “little green Bissell” and started cleaning our cushions. Between the v-berth cushions getting DRENCHED with salt water on a couple of our fall passages before we repaired the hatch and Jack getting sick/peeing on the settee cushions when he got mad at us, plus general dirt accumulation from normal use, they were in desperate need. The cushions aren’t perfect, but they’re a whole lot better than they were! I also gave the wood around the galley stove a deep cleaning – while I’ve been using household cleaner/diluted Simple Green to clean after cooking, we’ve still built up some splatters that those two weren’t getting rid of. Some friends recommended dish soap (which now I can’t help but think “duh!”) and it worked like a charm.
On one of our recent passages, one of the reefing blocks at the mast failed, and we temporarily replaced it, but we realized that the set-up isn’t great. We’re trying to figure out how best to fix it, and we uncovered a whole mess of issues. The boat was originally set up for single line reefing, but the previous owner switched to having separate luff and leach reefing lines. I like that system better, but the boat’s not really set up well for it. It looks like the outhaul is currently lead through the block on the boom that’s meant to be for the first reef, and we’ve got three blocks (one for each reef point) attached to a piece of dyneema at the mast end of the boom. Under load, the blocks interfere with the mounting bracket for the on-mast instruments, and the blocks were massively undersized.
We made a West Marine run and picked up a U-bolt to replace the dyneema and blocks that will better handle the loads (we still want to upsize and replace the individual blocks with a quad block, but that will be a special order item for later). We also got new bow and stern lines since a couple of our dock lines were looking pretty suspect. We’d like to replace the spring too, but that will have to be special order, since the longest pre-spliced line they had was 35′ and we need 50′.
I love marine stores (and hardware stores for that matter), and I enjoy browsing the aisles. I’m not really an impulse shopper, but I do like to keep an eye out for things that I may not have realized existed. That was how I stumbled on the Luci lights and Gear Tie twist ties on our first passage. And this time, I found flat fenders that I think would be perfect for the fixed docks in the Bahamas. We’re not going to get them now, but they’re on our list to order or pick up over the summer.
We’re so lucky to have friends all up and down the coast now, and we were happy for the chance to catch up with our friend Cyndi, who lives just outside Deltaville. We had Sunday brunch at The Table and she took us to the grocery store (the Food Lion in Gloucester, rather than the Deltaville IGA), and on the way back, we stopped at Nauti Nells. We’d passed it a few times but never stopped in, and this place is a treasure trove. It’s part gift shop, part nautical consignment, and we were excited to find a couple more things on our list.
Since we had nothing else to do in the evenings, we decided to go check out a Deltaville Deltas game, and it was a lot of fun. It seemed like the whole town came out for the game, including lots of families. The team is actually really good – not quite Cape League level (for the Cape Codders following along), but impressive all the same, and they won 15-1. It was a fun way to spend an evening and it reminded me of going to Cape League games when we’d spend the night on our first boat, Sorcerer’s Apprentice. With the slight haze in the air, it really felt like summer.
We’ve had garbage weather, so work was delayed. They were able to get the bottom sanded, prop and shaft cleaned up and painted and zincs replaced, waterline cleaned and the starboard side of the hull buffed and waxed (and it looked amazing!), but the port side still needed to be done along with the new paint.
Since we were here for another weekend, Cyndi suggested we take the day to go to Colonial Williamsburg, and I’m so glad we did. On the way, we did a quick drive through Yorktown, and we’re going to have to anchor out there sometime and visit – it looks like a cool little town. We spent the afternoon wandering around Colonial Williamsburg, touring the Governors Palace, the book bindery, tin smith, blacksmith and apothecary, and ended the day at the capitol. We were too late for a tour but just in time for Resolved: An American Experiment, an interactive presentation about the fifth Virginia convention. It was written by one of the performers, and it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s fun, funny, and engaging, and it was the highlight of our visit.
She also took us over to Wake Beach on the Rapphannock, on a driving tour of Irvington and some of the other small towns in that area, and to a nice dinner out. We can’t say enough how much we appreciate her willingness to take us shopping or let us borrow her car and offering open her home during some of the less lovely weather that rolled through.
And did we ever have some nasty weather! It was nerve-wracking to be up on stands with intense storms in the forecast, but fortunately they passed quickly and the worst didn’t hit us. I did, however, manage to fry our Starlink – we left the cable out in the rain and I didn’t dry it off enough before I plugged it in. So we were stuck a whole week relying on marina wi-fi, which wasn’t great from where we were in the yard.
As much as we’ve enjoyed our time, we’ve been itching to get back in the water, and we’re so excited to be floating again! A huge thanks to the Deltaville Boatyard crew for their hard work and attention to detail. Windara looks amazing!
