After a quick chat with Constantin at the beginning of the week, I decided it was the right time to lift Mem Pas Peur out of the water and properly adorn her for the new sailing season. I already knew that the underwater hull was completely covered with shells, algae and myriad other small sea creatures. A good bottom scraping and two new layers of antifouling paint to last for a whole year were needed for quite some time. Not to mention that I was also curious to see if everything was in order down there since when I bought her I made my decision without taking her out of the water. I took a great risk against all sound advice about buying second hand boats, especially older ones that tend to develop osmosis if the fibreglass has not been treated well over the years.

Thus, not without some feelings of anticipation and excitement, I brought Mem Pas Peur to a specially designated spot in the Tomis marina, behind the administrative building, where Nea Vasile was waiting for us with his lifting crane.

To my great surprise Mem Pas Peur was not as dirty as I imagined. The keel was the worst, but still better than expected. Last fall the propeller got so foul that the boat could hardly move even in full throttle. I learned about this the hard way when after a short sail I had to return to Constanta and enter Tomis Marina against the waves and the wind blowing from the south at 10-15 knots. To my utter surprise it was impossible to point the boat into the wind and had to use the mainsail to enter the marina. On flat surface the boat could barely reach 2 knots at full throttle. When the sea was choppy I could not advance against the wind. And thus it took us about two hours to get to our mooring spot, doing dozens of unwanted spins around passing boats and between the rocks of the interior breakwater. I think we were quite a show for the people onshore… and all these because of a foul propeller!!

My original plan was to keep Mem Pas Peur out of the water only three days. Thus the cleaning work started immediately.

Three days later,  with a new layer of primer, two layers of burgundy red antifouling paint and a new higher waterline (because the salinity of the Black Sea is lower than in the Mediterranean Sea, the boat sits lower in the water), Mem Pas Peur was in much better shape, ready to glide 🙂 Unfortunately we could not peel off the previous waterline, and afraid to scratch the gelcoat, we left it there for another year 😦

Now I am eager to see if I can get close to 7 knots :)) My previous top speed reaching in 12-15 knots of wind is around 6 knots.