Our Hull Wasn’t Supposed to Do This | S6 E08

After crossing the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, Kris and Shona Fothergill brought their 2012 Leopard 46 catamaran, Happy Days, into the travel lift at Spice Island Marine in Prickly Bay, Grenada. Documenting their voyage as Sailing with six alongside their four children—Bella, Finn, Archie, and Pippi—the crew scheduled three days on the hard for bottom work, saildrive servicing, transducer replacement, and running gear protection.

The haul-out was the fourth of their circumnavigation and their first view of the hulls since Rebak, Langkawi, Malaysia. While the bottom paint had held up across two oceans without barnacles, routine sanding soon uncovered an unexpected defect along the fiberglass centerline.

Hauling Out at Spice Island Marine

Spice Island Marine sits in the northwest corner of Prickly Bay across from their anchorage. As a full-service yard with a large travel lift and an on-site chandlery, the facility allowed the crew to source supplies on site. Maneuvering the 46-foot catamaran into the slings required careful alignment, as the slip clearance was exceptionally tight.

Lines were secured port and starboard before releasing the topping lift so the webbing could clear. As the lift hoisted Happy Days, Kris inspected the hulls, noting that the bottom was free of hard growth: “This is the first time we’ve seen the bottom of the boat since Malaysia.”

While most of the yard had gravel, the ground beneath their bay was sandy, requiring care during painting to keep grit off wet coatings.

Bottom Sanding and Running Gear Servicing

Work on the hard began with scraping accumulated slime using a scow scraper before switching to wet sanding with 60 grit paper. The coarse paper removed spent paint while profiling the surface for primer.

Under the hulls, yard technician Julian dismantled the saildrive lower units to replace worn seals. Julian inspected the dual lip seals and fitted new O-rings to guard against seawater intrusion. The crew also examined the sacrificial anodes, noting heavy wear on the old units before installing replacements.

The running gear was cleaned to prepare the propellers and shafts for Propspeed. Metal surfaces were scraped clean of growth and given a light keying. Above decks, Shona stripped degraded Sikaflex from bathroom joints to eliminate mold before prepping for fresh caulking, while Pippi helped scrub the exterior rub rails.

Transducer Replacement and Ladder Repairs

Underway, their through-hull transducer had lost water temperature reporting and gave inaccurate speed through water readings. Attempts to fix it at sea had failed, requiring replacement while hauled out.

Technicians chipped away antifouling and freed the stuck housing from the hull. The crew aligned the new sensor with its arrow facing forward, tightened the locking ring, and connected it to the vessel NMEA cable. Meanwhile, Archie removed fastening hardware from the helm seat ladder, clearing five bolts so the ladder could be rebuilt.

Centerline Hull Defect and G Flex Repair

While inspecting the hull near the keels, Kris found soft spots along the centerline seam: “Keep in mind last we were out we went back to gelcoat. And I’ve just dug a hole in our hull with a butter knife and that should not happen.”

During their prior haul-out in Rebak, Malaysia, they had sanded the hull back to gelcoat to inspect construction seams and check for osmosis. Probing the seam in Grenada revealed that non-epoxy filler had been applied at that time: “The issue is that the grade of filler that was used at our last haul out was not epoxy”.

Below the waterline, epoxy filler is essential to bond with fiberglass and exclude water. Yard professionals ground back the failing filler along the centerline and filled the seam with G Flex epoxy to restore a solid bond.

Barrier Coating and Antifouling Application

Once the epoxy cured and was sanded fair, Pippi wiped down the keels for paint. The plan required rolling a full coat of epoxy primer across both hulls to serve as a barrier and bonding coat. Working under tropical heat, the crew coated the vessel quickly.

Kris noted the rapid progress: “Took us about an hour and 20 minutes to roll the whole vessel.” After a hydration break, the team resumed under torchlight into the evening. They completed the second antifouling coat on starboard before moving to port, finishing before stopping for pizza from the yard restaurant.

Resolving Windlass Skipping with New Chain

The final task addressed an anchor rode issue dating back to purchasing the boat in Mexico. The chain had repeatedly skipped in the windlass gypsy. Over several years, the crew had tried flipping ends, deep-water drops to untwist it, a swivel, a new gypsy, and a new windlass motor without resolving the slippage.

With a new drum of chain on site, comparing links revealed that the old rode had stretched. Over nine links, the chain had lengthened by half a link. Kris noted: “new chain, the right pitch, not stretched, equals no scuffing windlass.”

Archie climbed into the anchor locker to tie off the bitter end. Finn and Kris untwisted the new chain as it fed into the gypsy. The D-shackle was secured to the anchor using threadlocker and seized with mousing wire, and tests confirmed smooth retrieval without skipping.

Relaunch and Haul-Out Summary

On the third morning, the travel lift lifted Happy Days off the stands. The crew sanded, primed, and antifouled the pad patches under the keels and hull. Once accounts were settled, the boat was splashed, checks confirmed watertight integrity, and the engines were started.

Dropping the hook in Prickly Bay proved the new chain seated properly in the gypsy pockets, resolving years of skipping and readying the catamaran for their passage to Aruba.

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