Homeward Bound

 Baja Naval Astillero in Ensenada Mexico 

Our boat was launched yesterday after thanking the 30 boatyard employees with a Pizza Lunch. Traversay III looks brand-new, with her gleaming white paint and renewed navy stripes. We estimate it will take several weeks to reach Victoria. At least, we have enough provisions aboard in case we are in for a 'Long Haul'.

'Matterhorn White' top coat

L & M.A  with Bianca & Gabrielle

Traversay III with 'Flag Blue' stripes & Lettering

 

Baja Naval Mexico

 We got here to have our boat painted on May 13 after a 10-day passage. It was a rough trip along the coast until we came abreast of Cape Mendocino California. We had several equipment failures. Fortunately,  Larry had purchased a spare starter motor in 2008 and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately, when the auto-pilot failed, 1 of our 2 spares also failed.

He's now attempted to fix them Had Garmin followed the RIGHT to REPAIR regulations when they purchased Nexus Instruments, he could easily have written the code to fix 2 of the three instruments. He has attempted to repair this board with extra parts he had by intuiting  what needed to be done. We will find out whether our spares work when we set off for Victoria in about a week.

We are happy to be getting the painting done here for the second time. We got here exactly 10 years after our last visit because our steel boat needs to be re-painted regularly. Mexico is terrific because normally it doesn't rain, the mast doesn't need to be taken off and you don't need to rent a shed. We need new paint ... once the paint gets 'thin'sea water can creep under the paint and start rusting. 

Painting Traversay is a lengthy process because there are 7 coats of paint. She has 2 grey primer coats and 3 of glossy 'Matterhorn White'. In between some coats, everything around that you don't want painted gets masked (including all nearby boats who might not like Matterhorn White). Between many of the coats there's sanding and vacuuming. The work stops for rain and we're now stopped. The boat still needs it's navy (Flag Blue) stripes, lettering and 2 coats of  black anti-fouling bottom paint. 

Primer Coat

Glossy Top Coat