What other boat refitting blogs won't tell you

There's actual snow in that sunset.

In case one is completely delusional and thinks "hey, this sailing around the world ambition is a bit of a doddle: all I have to do is fix up some old boat and push off", I would like to, by example, provide a small reality check.

I have alternated in the last two weeks between my paying work, the usual household stuff, and hauling out and winterizing two boats. While these are arguably the problems of someone, in worldwide terms, of relative affluence, it does not diminish in any sense the time and labour involved.

Let's take today, for illustrative purposes: Having finished by noonish my duties to one of my clients,  I determined to go down to Alchemy to get a start on the fuel system. Let's face it: a jug of diesel with a fuel and a return line clamped awkwardly in place is no way to run a freshly instaleld diesel, even if said diesel has run quite cheerfully for 2.1 hours (as per the hour meter) on said half-arsed provision.

But what the other refit blog won't disclose is that in order to do anything constructive, one must undone the previous efforts. Add to that a fair bit of stowage, followed by unstowage to get at the things you've forgotten are beneath the things you've just stowed, and the time alloted can be eaten quicker than an unzinced hull moored off a nuclear plant.

I wanted to set up the "proper" fuel system, which involves installing the FilterBoss dual Racor device in a place both easy of access and not so high up that it would tax the various fuel pump. So first I had to undo the diesel jerrycan. Then I decided, it being both cloudy and wintry, I should rig a second 15 amp power cord. I also hauled up to the deck level the roughly 25 kilos of docking lines (there are chains and shackles and general beefiness in play), because we are not permitted, nor is it a particularly bright idea, to leave them loose on the slips, given the possiblities of ice and storm.

More power is required if I wish to run heaters, which I really should, because it's already bloody cold.

Then I needed a light, which I found in the aft cabin. Then I heard the ripped and worn tarp overhead flapping in the breeze, and concluded "well, it's no use having rain coming in because I put the gasket repair of the pilothouse hatches down the list" (which I have), and so I thought "clever you, to have several 9 x 12 tarps and hundreds of cable ties to hand". But alas, unclever me, I had buried them in the paint locker, which was topped by various boxes of cable, which was jammed into the pilot berth.

One can see where this is going.

So, to the sounds of Beethoven's symphonies, which, blasting away inside a partially uninsulated metal boat, can be appreciated at some distance in the boat yard, I set myself to the tasks at hand. One issue was immediately apparent: in order to safely transit from dock to slings, and hence from slings to cradle, I had put most of the boxes of fasteners, hooks, sailing bits and random tools atop the locker in which I keep the sort of tools one requires to install FilterBOSSes.

Anyway, I had to move an excessively large amount of gear to merely reach the tarp stores, after which I removed the old raggy one, installed the new, replaced the boat hooks, froze a bit in the wind and snow (yes, there was snow, unseasonably, I suppose), and vacuum the dirt in the boat from the haulout-related footprints.

And then the sun went down (see Figure 1).

And I haven't yet got to the reason I was ostensibly present, because I needed to rearrange so much stuff.

And that what other boat blogs won't tell you: a significant amount of time spent refitting is actually spent rearranging, cleaning and sorting. With a touch of labelling.

Please don't tell anyone.