Narrowboat Serafina: Serafina's Hull Gets a Spruce Up

'Earlish' Monday morning it was time to put Serafina into the dry dock ready for blacking. The dry dock was empty so first things first the dry dock was filled to match the water level of the marina pound. The dry dock takes a significant amount of water, probably around 250K litres or over 50K gallons so the pound dropped around 15cm or 6 inches. The pound in this situation included around 0.5 kilometres of canal plus the open space of the marina.

Once Serafina was in, it was time to empty the dry dock again. How do they do that? There's a large 'plug' that is pulled, draining the water back into the canal below the next lock, effectively no water is lost to the system. Keeping the boat in the centre of the dry dock she came to rest on four supports. A ramp was placed across and electricity connected and we were set for the work to be done while she was worked on for the week.

First the high pressure hose.

Next, the sanding.

Finally the blacking paint, like a liquid asphalt mix.

Having five days in the dry dock gave us time to do some work ourselves I managed to tidy up the tunnel bands on the stern of the boat, prepare the gunwales for painting later (the grey spots) and have some seats fabricated for the stern of the boat. So, after two coats of black, some work from Rachael and I and some fabrication work, the finished product looks like this.

I cleaned up the tunnel bands, some sanding and a few coats of paint.

And, the finished seats, I'll get some green paint on to the frame along the way but for now undercoat will do. The wood will get several extra coats of yacht varnish.