The purpose of this trip of course was to get some maintenance tasks completed for the Faraway.
For that to happen the guys at the shipyard had to haul the boat out.
The shipyard has two massive ship lifts. For my boat they use the smaller lift, rated to lift up to 50 tons.
My boat weighs about 11 tons.
The mechanic from the Wrangell Boat Shop came with me over from Heritage Harbor to the lift area. I drive very slowly and carefully into the lift channel. They have the slings from the lift already lowered down into the water and I drive into them. Then they lift the boat up level with the ground and the mechanic and I carefully step off the bow pulpit. They don't want us on board as they move the boat over to the spot where it will be blocked. The shipyard guy controlling the lift has a remote-control box strapped on his chest and he just walks along with the lift as it moves.
The next step is to pressure wash it right away before the brown slime on the hull has a chance to harden. They just leave it suspended in the slings right there as a guy from Wrangell Boat Shop pressure washes it. Honestly, I don't know how we ever cleaned our boats before they invented pressure washers.
After the pressure washing is done, the shipyard guy drives it over to the spot where it will be placed on blocks.
Once it is blocked, I plug it into shore power and the guys from Wrangell Boat Shop can start working on my list of tasks to be done this year.
We were fortunate to have nice sunny weather for my time on blocks. You can't really do the bottom painting or the waxing of the hull when it's raining.
The guys were done with my list by Thursday afternoon so on Friday morning I was dropped back into the water. It was about 11 AM on Friday morning and the marine weather forecast for Clarence Strait was good, so I made the decision to head back to Ketchikan right away.
It's about an 82-mile run from Wrangell to Ketchikan, and I really wanted to get in before dark, so I ran a little faster than I usually run. I made it back to my slip right before dark at 8 PM.
Total round trip mileage for this trip was 166 miles.
Faraway is sparkly clean and ready for her spring and summer trips.
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