Winterisation 2015

As I have a large upgrade planned over the coming closed season, I decided to get all of the winterisation tasks completed within a week of our Macwester Malin being craned-out. Thanks to my chum Sandy for the hand-written reminder of my first job (above).

As usual, one of the first tasks was to pressure-wash the hull to remove the season’s accumulated grime and fouling, as tackling that job after it all dries out and hardens would take much longer than a half-day hose-down.

A couple of days later I picked a mild, dry autumn day to remove the mooring tackle. This year I made sure that I had a full set of suitable tools, including a new 24 inch monkey wrench. That alone made a huge difference.

There have been times when it’s taken me more than one session down in the putty, however with the right tools none of the shackles took more than a few minutes to loosen off. Above: view to the Ghauts with the east coast haar threatening to engulf our mooring.

Fortunately the sun kept the haar at bay, and I managed to get our Hippo bouy and the rest of the tackle loaded into a wheel barrow without much drama, although I certainly needed a shower afterwards.

After the mooring tackle was power-washed and stored for the winter, a day or two later my attention turned to getting our dinghy off it’s mooring. Unfortunately some dim-witted twit (I may have erroneously typed in an extra ‘w’ there) had vandalised the dinghy in the intervening days. There was a bottle and bits of wood in her, and damage to the seat at the stern. Nothing that can’t be fixed, but it left a sour taste in my mouth.

This year we parked the dinghy under the bow of our Macwester Malin, and I had to tie the dinghy bow to an old sinker to make sure that the dinghy doesn’t get blown away during the winter storms.

As usual, I swapped out the impeller, ran fresh water through the engine using a make-shift reservoir, and then followed that up by running anti-freeze through the system for the winter. Popping a small rag into the exhaust signalled the end of my winterisation tasks. If you want further details, there are links to previous winterisation posts on the right hand side of this page including this one (click here).

Which leaves me the next five months to work on further maintenance and upgrades. Yay!