Well, It’s that time of the year again when we buckle down to yard work on Sea Dragon to get her ready for the next sailing season. We’re doing a lot of big projects this year in addition to our normal maintenance and annual survey by MECAL for coast guard compliance. We began the work in our winter berth in Chula Vista, getting prepared for the rigging maintenance to be done in San Diego.
Last month, we had our mast pulled out of the boat at Driscoll’s Boatworks in Shelter Island, San Diego, for a new set of standing rigging. Since the mast itself is turning 20 this year, we decided to give it a full inspection, so pulled all (and I mean ALL) of the hardware off the actual extrusion for inspection. We’ll also be replacing our 20 year old Bainbridge mainsail track with a new Antal one, as we’ve just about run through all the extant Bainbridge spare parts keeping ours together.
While the extrusion is bare, the team at Driscolls has cleaned up any corrosion and is repainting the mast so it will last another 20 years.
Meanwhile, we motored Sea Dragon the 80 or so miles down the coast to Baja Naval in Ensenada. Sea Dragon is just about the biggest boat that Baja Naval can haul on their 75 ton travel-lift, so our haul out involved some precision timing of tides, a few nervous moments, and a lot of gratitude that the mast and rig were all up in San Diego. We fit, but the stanchions were almost to the crossbeam of the Travelift, the tires were groaning, and the slings were two-blocked.
While we’re here in Mexico we’re doing a lot of our normal annual maintenance – painting bilges, servicing through hulls, inspecting keel bolts, touching up varnish, and so on, while the yard focuses on repainting our topsides and bottom paint. We’re also doing a number of canvas projects that are really going to spruce up the boat – new bunks, some new cushions, and new hatch & helm guards on the entire deck.
Now that the Holidays are over, we’re back in full boatyard mode, so we’ll be posting instagram and facebook posts more regularly with photos of the progress. We make a daily lunch-time Pilgrimage to Tacos Lucero for some awesomeness – we can’t wait to share some of our favorite spots with our guest crew in March when we return to Ensenada on our way out to Hawaii. We wish you all the best in the new year, and can’t wait to sail with you soon.
-E&S
