Winterising Meritaten

I’ve emptied the hull in preparations for winter: madrases taken home for dry storage, all food removed to avoid rodents.

Engine sea-water cooling system was emptied and filled with glycol-water mixture, to prevent it from freezing.

As usual, I started with hull-oiling procedures. This year I do it manually, instead of running my complicated and troublesome pipe-vent system supplying oil/turpentine mixture. It never worked properly and caused lots of mess. This year I simply go to every cranny and apply generous amount of oil by hand.

Effects are already visible on the outside: oil sweeping through planks seams.

The only source of leakage on Meritaten - at stern knee - got putty removed, to allow all water out. It’s now filled with oil mixture, hopefully expelling all remaining moisture from whatever cavities exist there. It will be sealed again before launching next spring.

Once all was done I sat inside the cabin and started preparing to-do list for the coming winter.

The first thing to do is to reinforce cabin table - it’s too wobbly to my taste. I’ve removed the whole assembly to work on it in my warm workshop.

For bigger jobs which I plan is to rebuild fo’c’s’le with toilet installation, installing POD heater and making new electrical installation inside the boat, including autopilot installation and place to mount VHF radio.

But for now, while I’m still occupied with my house renovation, I just keep on oiling the hull.