Back in the Water

With only four weeks left before we were booked to go to Durban for the Fireball World championships, Jon wanted to get Camelot back into the water. The generator had been fixed. The new bowsprit was installed. We had no battery power but all the brass paraffin lamps worked below decks. We applied Trinidad red anti fouling up to the waterline. The topsides had been painted white, but we wanted to paint the hull black.

While Jon and I painted the main hull, Jethro was pretend-painting the upturned hull of Guinevere with water and a paintbrush. We also rigged up a swing for him from the davits, using the bosun’s chair.

Jethro made more new friends. Nathan was the six year old son of a cockney bloke who had recently bought the motor sailer Blue Chip, now in one of the slips. His father Gordon was very knowledgable about mechanics and had sound words of advice about removing and replacing the corroded fuel tanks.

Another friend was five year old Jamie whose father was the Texan dredger driver hard at work just inside the bridge between the mainland and Nanny Cay. All the spoil dredged from the inner harbour was carried across the yard in an elaborate conveyor system and deposited to seaward to create future expansion land.

Jon had freed all the seized-up sea cocks. He fixed new heavy-duty Jubilee clubs to replace the corroded ones. At least the hull should now be watertight. The electrical problem was the next to be addressed. On a trimaran in one of the slips were a young American couple expecting their first child within weeks. Lee was an electrician. He could re-wire the boat for us but was not allowed to work in the yard there as he did not have a work permit. That job would have to wait until we could sail over to Coral Harbour on the south coast of St John in the USVI a few miles away where Lee could work legally.

Jon went over to St Thomas on the ferry from West End to purchase a few things we could not locate in Tortola. He found a two burner propane cooker with a grill in Woolworths, along with goodies from Lockhart Lumber and other chandleries.

Whilst he was gone for the day, Jethro and I drove over Zion Hill to Cane Garden Bay where he played with half a dozen local children building a sandcastle with paper cups, and they dug a stream right down to the waters edge. He found a small hermit crab and wanted to keep it as pet and call it Winston. The hired VW stalled on one of the steep hairpin bends when I was trying to double de-clutch into first gear on the way back. You really needed a four wheeled drive vehicle for these roads.

I painted all the inside bulkheads with flat white paint we found at Drakes chandlery. Working from the forward locker, now empty of chain I did all the insides of the cupboards and bulkheads through to the aft cabin. What an improvement. We were ready to be launched. We would take it in turns to amuse Jethro whilst the other one worked. Jon always took him out in Guinevere and was teaching him to row to the amusement of passers by. We had found a skull and crossbones black flag and mounted it on a stick that could be fitted into the rudder pintels.

“Hey just look at that tiny kid rowing backwards!” Yelled one American.

Monday 28th April saw the travel hoist came at half past eight in the morning. As soon as the slings were taking her weight, Jon painted the Trinidad Red anti fouling and I did the black topsides in the patches where the chocks had been. Bill Mackay and a few others were taking photographs.

An American friend called Rich living on his boat Seduction helped us towing and manoeuvring from the lift back into the same slip she had come from nearly five weeks earlier. He also promised to take us to St Thomas to purchase new batteries and a propane fridge when we were ready.

To celebrate we had a drinks party on board from 6pm. There was plenty of room for twelve guests on the aft deck and seated in the central cockpit.

The next couple of days were spent readying Camelot to be left whilst we returned to England. Bill Mackay as well as Gordon and Rich would keep an eye on her for us. The automatic bilge pump would have to be fired up by the generator to rid the bilges of rainwater.

We fixed up the overall awning again tied as low to the lifelines as possible. All the fenders were secure. In terms of getting Camelot ready to sail away we still had a lot of work to do, but it was a good start. We were back in Norfolk just under two months since we left.