Wednesday 20 March 2013

Time to Prepare for Cruising

Spring is here, it`s official, sailors should now be focusing attention on preparation for the coming season.
For El Capitano this means planning to take the boat over to Oscar`s Yard for an annual service then lifted and the bottom cleaned to remove the build up of marine algae and barnacles. Even though we invested in ultrasonic anti-fouling when the boat was new we still have to periodically have the boat lifted, checked and manually cleaned as the claims made by the anti fouling people are way off the mark! Within days of a bottom clean you can see staining and the algae starting to build up again on the bright white anti foul painted hull.
 I  accept that the ultrasonic system does afford a degree of protection to the hull and at best perhaps slows down the rate of attack BUT it does not protect the hull as well as the manufactures claim, I would go so far as to say that on Wonderful World the system offers no protection at all to the stern drive, even after the installation technician has had several attempts to improve this situation there is no visible improvement, the barnacles are back before long, so that is why in the Spring time the boat has to be lifted and cleaned.
Anyway, back to the joys of Spring and we can look forward to the warm Mediterranean weather and cruising the coast onboard Wonderful World, just to whet the appetite I have attached a photograph provided by Marina Salinas of what we can expect in the coming months.


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