- Date: April 21, 1987
- Location: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
- Subject: Hauling out at the Cairns Cruising Yacht Squadron
Dear WaterFairy:
Today is a very BIG, exciting day. We are now motoring south to the Cairns Cruising Yacht Squadron which is up Chinaman Creek, to the right of Admiralty Island, and haul Sacha-B out of the water and move her into the boat yard. Capt says there is a bunch of stuff he has to do on Sacha-B before we leave on our trip, and it is safer to do it with her out of the water and “on the hard”. We will be living on the boat, in a boatyard. Sounds like an adventure to me.
Like I said, I have never been around to see the boat lifted out of the water, so I am looking forward to seeing that. I think it is going to be interesting. Mom says it will be interesting, but also very nerve wracking for the grown-ups, because so much can go wrong, so I am better off out of the way and sitting on the picnic tables under the shade awning. I have my art supplies and book, and a cooler of snacks so I will be just fine. I can watch the boat lifting out of the water, like watching a movie.
OK, it is now 8pm and I am writing to you fromthe decks of Sacha-B, but out of the water!!!!
This is how it went. We motored Sacha-B to the slip in the boat yard at high tide. This HUGE blue machine called the Travel Lift was standing by on the wharf. It looks like a gigantic metal cube about 20 feet tall and 20 feet long, and there are wheels on the bottom of each of the corner poles. The wheels are taller than a man. Attached to the top cross bars are two canvas looking slings that will slide under the boat and used to lift the boat up and out of the water.
The travel lift rolled out onto the special pier, and dropped the slings into the water in a special slip. Then Sacha-B slowly drove into the slip, over the slings. The workers then adjust the straps under the bow of the boat and under the aft section of the boat, and secured the boat to the straps. Then the machine slowly winched the slings up, lifting Sacha-B out of the water. It took about a half hour to completely pull Sacha-B out of the water. Boy, did she look BIG out of the water and I could see her hull which is usually under the water. For about an hour the guys who worked in the boat yard used a power washer to spray and clean the bottom of Sacha-B She had been in the warm ocean water for so long that barnacles and algae were growing on her. If you have a lot of stuff growing on the bottom of the boat, the boat will not move as fast through the water.
Once the power washing was completed, the blue travel lift slowly backed down the wharf, carrying Sacha-B and drove over to the boatyard across the street and stopped at the spot we were going to ‘park’ Sacha-B, and live for one week. The workers put big blocks of wood under the keel and then put a bunch of braces along the hull to keep the boat upright. This is called being on the hard stand, or “on the hard” for short.
Now we have to climb a ladder from the ground up to the deck. It has 11 rungs! I feel so high up compared to when we are in the water.
Of course, now that we are not in the ocean, our head does not work, so we have to go use the toilets and showers at the boatyard building.
Capt will start patching the part of the hull that normally sits in the water and getting ready to paint the underside with anti-fouling paint. “A nasty job indeed,” Mom always says. I will write more about that in a few days.
Brian from Sunshine and Whiskey, Craig from Mollemok and Grandpa Pete from Gangemi were all on hand to help with the hauling out. Well, they didn’t really help, they were “overseeing” the boat yard workers, and were on hand mostly for moral support to Capt, who looked so nervous. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. Poor guy. It was late in the afternoon by the time Sacha-B was securely put on the hard stand, so we all went next door to the Cruising Yacht Squadron, which has a very large cement patio with picnic tables and chairs all under a sun canopy. There are also some bbq stands, so we had a BBQ of hamburgers and hotdogs for everyone who was on hand to help. The food concession stand was not open so we had to bring everything we wanted. Because the Yacht Squadron is up the creek and surrounded by mangroves and there is very breeze which means there are alot of mozzies. Even though we light 4 mozzie coils to keep the buggars away, they eventually won the battle and we all left.
We will have a few busy days ahead of us now. I wonder what it will be like to sleep on the boat, but out of the water.
