February 8

Today's maintenance task was to clean the grass (long) growing on the waterline. Since I also knew the speed transducer wheel was clogged with growth (it has not been reading since PV) and I wanted to check the zinc anodes anyway, I decided to dive on the hull to take care of all three at once. Also, the centerboard has been stuck (in the up position) for several months and I wanted to take a look and see if I could discern why.

To begin, I found the primary zinc almost completely dissolved. It probably should have been replaced 2 months ago. The prop zinc was again missing. This is the third time it has fallen off and for all I know, it fell off right after we left San Diego since that was the last time we replaced it. Not sure why they keep falling off, but I am fairly confident it is not required as the prop and shaft are bonded to the rest of the boat's metal via a shaft brush. The skeg zinc (at the bottom of the rudder skeg) looked fairly well eaten, but not critical. The bow thruster zincs also looked somewhat tired but not critical. I replaced the main zinc before continuing with other tasks.

Next, I surveyed the bottom and was basically shocked to see the amount of growth on the keel. We are essentially supporting a mini-ecosystem down there. The growth on the keel is at least 2 inches thick and blankets an area of about 30 square feet. Well, I started with the stbd. waterline and spent about another hour doing that. After that I was bushed and called it a day.

I need to go back down and spend at least an hour or three on the hull itself, though I am concerned that the growth is so severe that I will end up scraping off most of the paint in my efforts to clean the hull. And I still have to mow the lawn on the port side which is thicker then the stbd side was.