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If your boat is living in saltwater, you need the bottom scrubbed on a regular basis. When we were buying our boat, we chanced upon a meeting with a guy at a local marina who offered this service. He had a lot of experience, and seemed to know everyone in the area so we hired him.
We’ve been paying $126/month for this service, which we learned from our Dock 4 neighbors is too much. But, he always showed up on schedule and he seemed to really care about No Tan Lines (“Tanny”). This week, we had Tanny hauled out for some work so we were able to get a good look at the bottom, which was scrubbed only about 9 days before the haul out.
Notice that, from a distance, the bottom looks really good. But, on closer inspection…
If all of this growth was “new,” it would be all over the hull. It’s not. If the growth above the tiller was permitted to keep growing, it could cause problems with steering. Don’t even get me started on the condition of the propeller. The growth on the bow thruster is pretty old, based on the size of the barnacles.
What really angered me was the thru hull. The one in the picture is from our aft air conditioner, which has been periodically shutting down with an error message. Now we know why! There was a lot of growth in there. The diver could have simply put a screw driver in there to break it up. Brian pulled his keys out of his pocket, stuck one in there, jiggled it around for a second, and then a mess of growth poured out, followed by a steady stream of saltwater. I was NOT happy.
I posted this photo to our Dock 4 Facebook page, asking our neighbors for a recommendation for someone who charges less, and who does a much better job.
NEXT: WINE GLASSES, EQUIPMENT AND PEOPLE FALLING IN THE DRINK
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Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.
Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.