Down in the dock

Tuesday 10th June.

Dry docked and pressure washed.

Not much old blacking left after pressure washing.

One of the welding jobs is to renew the socket the rudder sits in. You can see how worn the socket is.

Port side of hull, steelwork is quite sound.

The port side wear edge at the stern, another welding job is to replace the metal that's been worn away by the rudder banging against it as can be seen in next picture.

Starboard side wear edge, same problem.

Looking at the state of the blacking its hard to believe Bracken was last blacked only 12 months ago.

The reason it hasn't lasted is because the previous owner blacked over a layer of scale instead of removing it first. When my surveyor did the pre-purchase survey, in order to measure the steel thickness he hammered the side of the hull and some of the scale fell off taking the blacking with it.

The moral to the story being remove scale before blacking and don't black over loose or flaking rust or steel!