March 19, 2011-Keel Repair In Mauritius

wingssail images-fredrick roswold

Judy takes the yard launch to the boat yard

The cyclone shelter here in Port Louis has a few wrecks hiding in its murky depths; we knew of three and while moving around back there last month trying to avoid cyclone Bingiza we found a fourth. Backing up a few feet from one spot to another we unfortunately came to a sudden stop. Bang! Wow! What was that and what damage did it do?

Diving later to take a look at the keel (when we had gone out of Port Louis to a bay up north where the water is cleaner) we found a nasty little ding.

I guess we could have sailed on to Africa with that little ding; the damage was slight. But our bottom paint was 17 months old and the zinc was almost gone and with this damage it just made sense to do a haul out at Taylor Smith Boat Yard here in Mauritius and fix everything and that’s what we did: Tuesday we hauled it out, over the next three days we fixed the keel, sanded and painted the bottom (with the help of yard worker Rayman), replaced the zinc, and on Saturday morning, in the rain, we relaunched.

So that’s done.

Now we just have to provision the boat, dodge a couple of more tropical depressions which are prowling around out there, and clear out. Africa here we come.

Click here to see photos of this haul-out.

Click here to see the log book page of this incident.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Mauritius