As you can see from the above image, the hull had developed a lot of dirt and mould while exposed to the elements outside the house. The first priority was to hire a couple of contractors to power-hose the deck, sand back the antifoul and generally restore some sort of life to the paint job.

They told me the name of the weird concoction they used - I should have written it down. I think it’s called Roklore but Google thinks otherwise. Apparently painters use it to clean pebble-dash from the outside of houses, prior to painting. If you know, leave a comment… Please!

Whatever it is, it’s effective. I don’t have a recent photograph of the deck, but I will add one so you can see the transformation. It’s quite awe-inspiring. The deck and hull look like new.

read more

My old man once said (and he wasn’t the first, by any means) that the two happiest times in your life are the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell it. The dream of a life afloat is replaced by the scourge of boat ownership, and that dreaded sense of indebtedness which accompanies it.

Like most kids, I obviously didn’t listen to my father and I now own (or co-own) three boats (for simplicity sake, I’m ruling out anything with a waterline length less than 3 metres).

I bought the Achilles 24 in 1999, and sailed her for the first few years out of Galway Bay Sailing Club. After that, life got in the way and the last time she saw sea water under her keel was in 2007. That same year, after spending a winter doing the usual sanding, varnishing, anti-fouling and generally looking after the boat, she sat on her mooring for most of the summer while I faffed about in OPB (“Other People’s Boats”), including a charter of a 47 foot Jeanneau in Croatia.

read more