Yard Update

No photos yet--still have to upload from the camera. 

We took the boat to SF Boatworks on January 29th.  Matt took the boat up with one of his work buddies and the buddy's wife while I drove up in the car to meet them.  I had a nice breakfast at the Ramp while I waited. 

Matt decided to tie the boat off right in front of the travel lift so they'd have no choice but to get to work on our boat Monday morning.  This is pretty much frowned upon at a boatyard as they like to keep the travel lift clear but Matt really wanted our boat back ASAP so he decided to be a bit of a wise-acre and leave the boat front and center.  Once we had the boat tied up we headed over to the Ramp for lunch.  The Ramp and the Boatworks are right next to each other and I believe are owned by the same people.  The Ramp is a very pleasant spot with a large patio overlooking the water.  After lunch we made sure we had everything off the boat and the boat was locked, then headed back to Coyote Point marina to take the crew back to their car.

Not a whole lot happened the first week the boat was in the yard.  There was a lot of back and forth between the yard and the insurance company as to what needed to be done and how much it would cost.  As I mentioned before, the insurance company felt all the work could be done in two days and the bottom would not need to be repainted.  As the boat has now been out of the water for two weeks, needless to say we had a new bottom put on.  We are splitting it 50/50 with the insurance company as it should have lasted about three years but we were forced by this event to have it redone after 18 months.  SF Boatworks did a really nice job on the prep work and bottom paint.  For instance, the through hull for the forward head discharge was almost completely painted shut before and it now has an opening like it is supposed to!  There is still some excess paint on it but nothing like before.  They also used a slightly darker blue which is a much nicer color.  We are going to need to have all the layers of bottom paint removed at some point in the next few years and "start over" and after the bottom work they did here, I would be happy to bring the boat back for that project.

We had hoped to have the boat back last Friday but the weather did not cooperate.  They had it "done" Thursday, the gel coat just needed to cure, when it started to rain and ruined the gel coat that had not set up properly.  Which turned out to be just as well as when we went to check on it Saturday Matt was NOT HAPPY with the work at all.  The non skid is this texture that is like little pyramids molded into the gel coat and where they had to redo the non skid the texture was not the same and there was a ridge line between the new and old sections.  In addition, the original non skid was gray and the new non skid, and large sections around it, was white.  It looked hokey to say the least.

Now Matt is a non-confrontational guy and he was not looking forward to telling Craig, the project manager at SF Boatworks, that he was not happy with the repair.  I suggested he simply tell Craig he did like how it turned out and ask what options we had.  He was pleasantly surprised when Craig agreed that it did not look good.  They decided the best solution would be to completely remove the non-skid and replace it with a sand based non skid that would be the color of the hull of the boat (Kind of a cream color).  I am not entirely sure how this is going to look but I guess it is better than the mismatched situation we have now.  We are hoping the boat will be done by Friday, but it is raining now and I think rain is forecast at least for tomorrow as well.  We'd really like to have the boat back for the weekend as we were planning a trip (not sure where we are going!) since we have Monday off. 

We have really missed having the boat.  Super Bowl weekend we had commitments at the yacht club Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we were dreading having to drive back and forth.  Luckily Joe and Carrie invited us to join them on Ada Helen, which was great, though when they stopped by our house last night on their walk it sounds like we will be paying them back all summer with them staying in our V-berth up on the Delta. :)  The perk to that will be going with them on their "little boat" to explore the Delta.  We ended up discussing Delta destinations and ruined their plans for a long walk by feeding them pot roast and Budweiser.  We are even more excited now to head up to the Delta in 53 days.  I am sure we will be spending more nights on Ada Helen at Coyote Point while our boat is in the Delta so it is a great trade off for all concerned!