Wash & Polish

Muriel is now back home in Pillings Lock Marina and we are at our home in Devon.  We`ve had a great end of year cruise, blessed by the weather and the presence of Vera, our aging Labrador.  The final few days were spent outside or close by Pillings Lock, washing and polishing. And touching up the paintwork - an endless task as any boater will tell you.  The thing to remember every time you go into a lock, head towards a bush or go alongside a concrete side wall, is that everything below the gunwale (top of the hull) is fair play; everything above is sacred.  In other words: expect to do a bit of T-cutting and touching up.



Polishing M outside Pillings Lock Marina



We use a car wash & wax on M and then polish her sides above the gunwale with a good `pure` wax, and below it with an ordinary car wax.  The latest batch of touch up paint has come from Halfords (all you need is the RAL number and they mix it for you) which Sue applies with a small artists brush.  The whole affair takes a couple of days but it`s worth every minute, not just in looks but also in protection.



M`s turned around and coming back through Pillings flood lock - for more polishing


















M will come out of the water in a couple of weeks time for blacking and I will head back to Pillings to see her.  There are a couple of issues we need to address while she`s on the hard standing.  Number one is whether or not the anodes need replacing (M has 4 x 2.5kg) and the second, if the juddering we are experiencing in the tiller is due to a problem with it`s bottom mounting. Neither is a big problem - anodes are easily tacked on next to the remains of the old ones and the bottom of the tiller has a simple cup type fixing, so there is probably an easy solution.

M sits at Millers Bridge near Pillings Lock



End of the year - M enters Pillings Lock Marina



We pumped-out and had a well deserved drink in the cafe-bar at Pillings.  (Pumping out the waste tank, running the water down and not filling the deisel tank limit M`s weight as much as possible for when she is hauled out for blacking). The following morning we said goodbye to friends and headed South to a lunch invitation in Towcester - it was a pleasant way to end our trip. Then it was South-West to a mountain of mail.