Bringing AYO ashore

After we ovrpassed AYO to Lesum last weekend a lot has happened. On Sunday John and Ulrike came by and helped taking down the sails, boom and prepare the rig to be taken down. The sails were so stiff, that is was realy hard to fold then into packets and store the under John ship “SULAIR”. The stiffness is showing that these sails have not been used since they have been renewed on our boat in 2019. New sails, check 😀

On sunday we also talked to the owner of the shipyard, Annegret. She is a very nice lady that is managing the shipyard now for quite some time and does a great job in doing so! Thank you Annegret!!! We signed our contract with Annegret for the winter dry berth in one of the halls on the shipyard. We also found out, that our slipping appointment will be two days later on tuesday evening. This appointment in mind we had to hurry up with the preparations for getting AYO out of the water.

We needed to get some antifreeze liquid for the engine, remove all unnecessary stays and ropes and prepare some other things before Tuesday evening.

On tuesday we arrived early at Reiners shipyard to do the last preparations and also Aleksandra used the last sunlight for thinking up the color concept for AYO‘s interiors. The time rushed and the tide was high enough. Annegret from the shipyard told us to get going and dock close to the slipping rails.

After we docked,the mast had to be taken down. Since we had no idea how this is done we were very curious about the steps to do so. Ralf was lifted up into the mast to attach the ropes to lift it up.

Without the mast and sails our AYO looks kind of weired doesn’t she?

Then Annegret and Ralf did an awesome job taking AYO out of the water over the slipping ramp. The hydraulic car just lifted AYO up and the „Manitou“ pulled everything out of the water.

With AYO ashore, it was time to clean the hull with a high pressure watergun. By then it was already dark and we couldn’t see much on the hull. So we decided to leave AYO right there on the slipping rails and come back the next afternoon to finish up the last things on the hull and mast. So AYO is now dry and save in the hall and waits to be polished and beautified during this winter season.

---