Let me start by saying, this is a very long post, and it is somewhat embarrassing to write.
We are on the hard, we had ordered new sails last March, but they were late getting here. Always “just a couple more days away”. Anyway, we needed to be in Barra de Navidad on December 2nd for the Panama Posse seminars this year.
So, we finally said “put the old sails back on, and we will head out from Puerto Vallarta on November 28th”. The sail loft that is getting our new sails had our old ones and told us to only use about 1/2 of it, he marked a spot near the top on the leech to not go out any further.
It is about 160 miles. We really don’t like doing overnight passages, so we had mapped out a couple of stops.
The first one was at Ipala a point about 40 ish miles from La Cruz, the marina we were in. We have been there a couple of times, and it is an adequate anchorage. There are a couple of obstacles in the little bay. There are pangas (fishing boats), fish pens, (netted areas) and, oh yeah there are ROCKS. We got there mid afternoon, and set up to anchor, this means my wife takes the helm, I handle the anchor, she has two phones running the anchor alarms, and an iPad with Navionics running, so she has better detail than just the chart plotter.
I had reviewed the chart before heading forward to the anchor, but reversed the fish pens and the ROCKS in my head. We headed in and were just about to drop anchor when I saw the rocks behind me and slightly to stbd. We turned and moved away from them, but still managed to bounce a couple of times. Reneé misjudged where we were and I could not back her up from where I was.
We found a safe spot to anchor and after getting setup, I went snorkeling to see the damage. There were a couple of chips the size of silver dollars that I saw, but nothing “major” we debated continuing south to Barra de Navidad, but thought about being 160 miles from the nearest boat lift with a potential problem. So, we turned around the next day and headed back to La Cruz.
Of course there was no cell service, and the satellite phone was being finicky so we could not call ahead to the boat yards until we were in Banderas bay. On the way north, we had the normal sailors wind, that is to say it was coming from exactly where we wanted to go, and it was way too fast. We had 35+ knots on the nose with gusts to 48 knots. Our OLD mainsail, has had issues for some time, and as I mentioned before, we could not use very much of it anyway. We had it out straight back to stabilize the boat while motoring into the wind with probably 3 to 4 foot waves. A couple of hours of this, and Reneé said something about the sail and I looked up and saw it was ripped from the leech forward about 4 feet. So, we rolled it in, and kept going. Once we rounded Cabo Corrientes things calmed down and it was relatively peaceful getting to La Cruz. We even saw a pod of whales.
There are two yards here that could haul us out Opequimar and La Cruz. Neither could take us right away, so we headed to La Cruz as they thought they could get us this week, whereas Opequimar needed someone to leave to have room for us.
We were scheduled to haul on Dec 1st, at 3:30 pm, we called about noon to check in. They said there was a problem with the brake on the travel lift, and they were unsure about lifting our boat. As a side note, a friend had posted a picture from San Carlos yard on November 30 (as in the day before) of a boat getting dropped there due to a broken strap. So, we were really okay with the delay. The yard had parts coming on Saturday, and would need a few days to get back on schedule. We rented a car, coordinated with some neighbors to watch our boat and drove to Barra.
When we got back to the boat, we checked in with the yard and we were told that it would be Saturday December 12. We tried to get the old sails down, actually we tried to get the loft to take the old sails down (our new sails are here now!) but due to other work going on they were not available.
Finally, on Saturday 12/12 we got hauled out. The people doing the repair were ready, and immediately ground out the scratches and cut two holes in the bottom of the keel to let the water out, about 5 gallons. I videoed the water draining, I started about 30 seconds after it started for 7 minutes and then watched for a few more minutes. The first estimate from the repair guy after looking and before the grinding was splashing on Tuesday 12/14. Well, that didn’t happen, they have had someone with a heat-gun drying this out for two days so far.
In the meantime, today the sail loft came for the sails. Three guys at 9 am, they took down the jib, then the staysail, then started in on the main. They took a couple of hours off when the wind came up early afternoon, but 5 of them came back and worked until after 6 pm removing the old sail. I think the biggest piece might have been 10 square feet. It didn’t come out of the mast easy. Most of the time one of the guys was up the mast pulling bits and pieces of the sail out.
Right now, the boat is in the yard, we have no sails (yet), the keel is open and draining/drying and we have shore power.
I communicated with Bill Bolin (previous exec at Island Packet) about how much water was in the keel:
My question to him:
Hello, we bumped our keel on some rocks here in Mexico. We got hauled out about 2 weeks later and when they ground down the two worst areas they cut into the keel and water gushed out. Probably on the order of 5 gallons or so. The water was clear, and did not slow to a trickle till it had been running for about 10 minutes. (I have 7 minutes of video and missed the first 30 seconds and it was several more minutes before it stopped).
My question is, about this void, is it supposed to be there, or do I have another issue to look for?
IP 445-11.
Thank you for your time
His response:
Neil, sorry to hear that happened! there is typically a gap between the sides of the ballast material and the molded keel. I suspect on a 445 that might equate to 5 to 10 gallons of space for water to get into. That water would’ve been pressurized coming into the bottom of the keel and would find its way into any nook and cranny. Just need to let it dry out a bit, don’t think you need to force Erin “air in” or anything else. And make a glass repair as appropriate.
Bottom line, the boat is safe, the damage to the keel is repairable, the new sails are here and will be put up when we are back in the water, our pride, well it goes before a fall anyway, so it will recover.
Today (Saturday 11/18/2021), they applied the resin and fiberglass repair to the keel, and we have a tentatively scheduled splash date of tomorrow. We will get some touch up to the bottom paint as well. I have spoken with Mike (the sail guy) and our sails should be on the boat prior to splashing the boat, and will be put up on Monday. He only has workers until 2 tomorrow (Saturday) and the wind comes up in the afternoon. So, next week we should have sails, and the repairs done on the keel. Only issues left are maintenance/normal repairs that have to be done because it is a boat!
On Saturday, the final touch up of the bottom paint was applied and we splashed at 1 pm right on schedule. Total costs for this repair was:
$900 for the work,
$1148 for the Yard
$490 for the inn
About $37 per night in the marina, figure at least a week more than if we had been able to stay in the anchorage. So at least another $300.
So, ball park of about $3,000 for this repair.
