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9 weeks 'til haul out! Single digits finally. We had some wild weather this past week with the local weather station clocking an average of 50kts, and some gusts up to 62kts. I was relatively concerned for the well being of our Rutland but true to form, it kept spinning away and seems like it survived ok.

With the temps dropping rapidly over here, the weekend was always going to be a bit hit & miss but we still managed to get some work in.

First up was some more watermaker work - I tell you, plumbing in a watermaker has been a lot more work than I thought it would be. Still, we ran the product water lines (test & tank) through the boat and connected up the tank line. The test line runs to a tap in our galley that should arrive this week, and I'll fit it next weekend. We also spliced in the freshwater flush line to our pressurised system - this line flushes fresh water through the system if we're not going to use it for a week or so.

More plumbing up next - I connected up our manual galley tap, just in case we lose power and want access to our freshwater tank (always a good thing...). The pressurised galley tap also needing replacing after it developed a leak a little while back. What should have been an easy job turned into a bit of a nightmare, but we got it done in the end and it works a treat.

While I was doing all this, Lauren was busy labelling up the last of our courtesy flags, which are now all stored away, ready for the trip.

I'm going to try and repaint the boat in the water as well (as I'm pretty sure our 8 weeks lifted out will be devoted to rigging and the rudder) so the afternoon was spent sanding back the hull to give the new paint a good area to grip to.

 

On the next tide, we ran up the engines and tested the aft deck engine controls. They work really well and I'm looking forward to how easy it'll be to dock next time we go out.

That's about it really. Next weekend signifies the last weekend of plumbing (other than connecting up the watermaker thru hull when we haul out) and believe me, I will be glad not to have to crawl around the bilges with hose clamps and a heat gun anytime soon. Our railings also need a bit of a sand to get ready for their new coat of paint, so weather permitting that'll get covered off as well.

Not long to go now....