With all the uncertainty in the world, and after last winter’s extensive work, I planned a quieter set of maintenance this year.

The Plan

The plans didn’t quite work out as intended. But here’s what I had been planning:

Cuddy

• Washboards storage: fit storage system – to prevent the washboards falling off the mattress when I tack etc.

External

• Filling a hole left after I moved the hand-held VHF radio holder to a different location
• Attend to various scratches and chips on the cockpit paintwork 

Engine bay

• Replace acoustic padding for engine compartment

Standard winter work

• Wash and polish topsides
• Anti-foul hull and centre plate

The Reality

It all started to go wrong when I tried to go sailing on New Year’s eve. It was a very frosty morning and the deck as coated in ice – so much so that I had a lot of difficulty standing on Serina to remove her cover.

When I tried to start the engine, lots of thick black smoke came out from the engine bay…  I made sure there was no fire, put the cover back on and went home.

As Serina was due to be taken out of the water on January 4th, the season was effectively over. Fortunately, I had the electric outboard to get me from the marina to the Haven Quay site where they forklift Serina onto her trailer. 

The engineer diagnosed a failed exhaust manifold gasket as well as one cylinder losing compression. The options were patching it up, rebuilding the engine or replacing it. As the engine was about 15 years old, and it was starting to get difficult to buy parts, I decided to replace it.