Shipyard Stay

 In January of this year, we dealt in detail with the subject of antifouling at the "Boot" in Düsseldorf. We then decided to replace the old antifouling with a new one. Coopercoat seemed to make the most sense to us because it not only promises protection against fouling for 10 years, but also osmosis protection. Actually we wanted to have this done before our big trip, but unfortunately we didn't find a shipyard that let us do it ourselves. Here in Rome we found what we were looking for and so we decided to take our winter break early. But winter break doesn't mean that we take a break now, no we start with our project "The paint is off" and apply the new antifouling.

As promised, the boss of the marina came by on Monday and told us that we would be transferred to the crane in an hour and would come out of the water the next morning. Two minutes later 2 marineros jumped on board and unhooked the ropes from the two boats that were in the package with us. In no time the boats were moved and one Marinero said to me we can start. Oops, I thought, this was the shortest hour I had ever experienced in my life, but as Einstein said, "time is relative". So I started the engine and we made a loop to the crane. The next morning punctually at 8:00 o'clock we hung at the crane. The whole procedure lasted until the early afternoon, because we didn't fit our catamaran on a standard jack and the jacking up turned out to be a bit tricky. The car that transported us to our dry place is particularly flat but has a small superstructure at the engine that has to be bridged by the installation height. Unfortunately the marineros misjudged each other 3 times, so that the procedure started again and again from the beginning until the car could finally be driven away under the boat. In the end we are now standing almost as high as a mono, which makes it much easier for us, as we now have an appealing working height.



Well! The days of putting a quiet bullet were definitely over. The next morning Gaby started cleaning our propellers and I started scraping off the old antifouling. People who haven't done this before can't imagine what a " poor " job it is. You pull a sharp blade, which is attached to a 30 cm long style with a handle, over the paint and scrape the individual layers of paint off the ship's side. In our case these are two antifouling layers plus one primer layer. This makes the sound of you scratching a concrete wall with your fingernails, just terrible. Not to mention that a not inconsiderable force has to be exerted when pulling. The headphone set of the mobile phone did a good job and at least I had the noise problem under control. Six days and nights I scratched off the "paint" on our Katinka. During the day it was real, but after the second day I could hardly put my hands over my head and at night I dreamed of scraping off without hearing protection, which I simply couldn't find anymore. After the fifth day I took a break.




It was Sunday and the last of the month. During our first visit to Rome, the Sistine Chapel was closed. On a board we read that on the last Sunday of the month the entrance was free. So we decided to take advantage of the hour and visit the chapel. Early in the morning we took the bus to Rome. Unfortunately we were not the only ones with this idea. The slightly ascending walkway on the outer wall to Vatican City, which we found deserted during our last visit, was now full of people. The footpath up there is about 1km long and bends at a right angle at the bottom. It winds about another 1km to another bend, which then leads directly to St. Peter's Square. So we drove with the bus that brought us to Rome until the first bend past the people, the queue did not break off. At the second bend, there was no queue to be recognized anymore but we saw a funnel-shaped crowd of people walking towards the bend and trying to get to the end of the queue. A visit was therefore hopeless and we disposed around. Gladiators and lions awakened fantasies in us and we went back to the time of the Romans. We aimed determinedly at the Colosseum. "Panem et circenses" bread and games a breath of this atmosphere we wanted to capture. But also here we were disappointed. An entrance ticket to the Colosseum costs 20€ and one stands again in the almost endless queue. To avoid this there are guide tours which use a separate entrance and thus are led past the queue of people. Costs 35€ per person of course. But this only includes the aboveground area of the Amphietheater. The underground area can only in addition be booked and costs then completely per person 45€. That was too much for us then nevertheless and thus it came that we explored Rome a second time on its own hand. Also this time we visited some sightseeings of Rome among other things the Pantheon, the Trajan markets, the Obelisk Quirinale and the terrace Gianicolo, to name only a few. Between the visit of all these sightseeings we also found time to visit Abbey Theatre, a rustic Irish pub and to knock at least a part of the saved 90€ on the head. Pretty tired we made our way home again with the feeling to have made the best of the day. We do not give up and will try to visit the Sistine Chapel again.

We'll tell you next time how it went on with our boat project on Monday and what else we did. Until then, as usual, fair winds and keep your ears stiff.