Barnacles! Barnacles!
You want to talk about barnacles. I'll tell you about barnacles...
It was a sunny day much like any other sunny day in the Seattle area, rare and beautiful. It was the day to pull my newly acquired Chrysler C-22 out of the water and trailer it to it's new home. My friends and I have taken the mast down for the very first time, no easy task I might add as there was no OEM hook holding the base of the mast. No it was a 3 inch tall rectangular aluminum post. The mast had to be lifted strait up then lowered backward. But I digress...
As the boat lift strained to raise my beloved Honu from Puget Sound, the horror and it gives me goose bumps to this day. There was a 2 inch crust of barnacles unevenly coating the bottom of my boat!
No it gets worse. You cant see it in the photo because we were all too stunned to take a photo. The entire marina and it's a big marina took in a huge gasp of air and put there hands to there faces, some covering there eyes, me crying just a single tear on the Port side of my own face.
There it was, a 6 foot tall upside down Christmas tree of barnacles and sea life hanging from the keel cable and the keel was not retracted as I thought it was. Yes a conical mass of brown writhing sea-life and indescribable fresh and foul at the same time. My quick thinking friends pulled the hanging mess as fast as they could, blooding there hands in the process. They had to move fast as the villagers were now swarming the rails to see the sight, fetching pitch forks and torches to push my lovely boat back into the water. The marina manager was on a run to stop my intrepid friends from fouling his beloved marina and dock. He was too late, the dock had inches of the writhing mass as it was trying to crawl back into the sea from which it spawn and I still could not move, transfixed by the sight and in shock.
The keel cable was now cleared of most of the filth. and they lowered my boat back in the water so I could re-board her and crank the keel up all the way as you can see in the photo's below, after the deforestation of course.
(Double Click to enlarge photo's)
Sadly the boat was 3 inches too tall in the keel to fit the trail and was once again lowered back into the water. While this was going on one of my friends pulled the panicked marina manager aside and slipped him an un-disclosed some of money. The marina manager told my friend to get the crazy owner (me) and his boat out of his marina in 1 week or he would and send me the bill.
Next weekend I sailed my Honu proudly out of the marina with the same marina manager glaring at me from the end of his dock as I passed. I could not hear what he said. Was he swearing at me or was he saying a prier I can not say? It took me 12 hours to motor sail about 10 miles to my new marina.
An estimate 1200 lbs of sea-life came off my boat that week from everyone concerned from the time we first saw it till it was cleaned off 3 hours after it was up in the hard.
This is what it looked like after the scrapage.
(Double Click to Enlarge)
Yes a face shield would have been in order but I was to embarrassed to go buy one and in a hurry to get it cleaned off.
So yes keep your bottoms clean and painted with the best anti fouling paint money can buy once you've sanded your bottom smooth and your barnacle free.
Thanks
Alan
