pretty in pink

An adventure he said … that’s one way of looking at it.

The Bossa is back on the water after an extended slip yard stay. The big jobs? Our saloon windows have been replaced after the originals started delaminating (a Fusion curse) and we have two smooth bottoms after 12 years of anti-foul was removed. Two very BIG jobs DONE!

My last post in November showed our venture in to the unknown, Fusion HQ in Maryborough. The Bossa has been in ‘storage’ since then. 

During our 14 day ‘welfare’ visit to Maryborough in May the Captain and I removed our old windows, helped fit the new ones and along with a few other maintenance tasks, we set ourselves up for a final visit to launch our 2026 season.

The windows. Our task was to remove the old delaminated glass windows so Ian could install new ones … a brutal job! They were well and truly stuck. Not only were the windows difficult to remove (the last two were bashed out with a hammer), the aftermath was also horrendous to remove. Chisels, scrapers, Stanley knives and multi-tools were all used to pry the black sika off and of course there was often broken glass to attend to, inside and out, and plastic to tape up the window openings in case it rained. A once-only job, never again.

Strangely enough I didn’t take many photos of this exhausting process (I think I’ve answered my own question). Our friends on Waterfront headed us in the queue for replacement windows, so maybe well planned by us, as Waterfront’s guidance was very much appreciated.

The next major job was removing numerous layers of anti-foul … but … not by us.

This started the day we returned home. It was quickly established that dry sanding these layers was going to take forever (ka-ching ka-ching) so we agreed to try a chemical remover called Peak Max. Ian and his crew did a great job as it was not a job the Captain and I wanted to take on. After several days of applying the chemical, followed by high pressure washing and sanding, the hulls were back to the blue epoxy layer. 

Our job to complete the process was to fill the dents here and there, sand and then reapply a new coat of epoxy before anti-fouling. 

Hence, the pretty in pink! We tinted the epoxy barrier.

It has been a full-on 10 days. These outside jobs require fine weather so with several days of showers it was extra challenging. We had an epoxy layer and two coats of anti-foul to apply. Where was the sun??!!  And with rain comes mud. Squelching around in the mud oozing through our toes, was relentless. Our toenails were constantly black.  Eeek!! Even the frogs jumped on board to avoid it (they found so many in hidey holes, some even tucked up in to our cosy drainage holes). Then there was the cleaning. Ooh la la!

Launching The Bossa at Fusion HQ is dictated by the Mary River tide. We were lowered down the ramp at low tide, positioned on our keels and then it was all about waiting for the tide to come in.  But there was still no rest as some very serious cleaning had to be completed. That mud was ingrained in our cockpit teak floor. We have really missed you Ben (our boat detailer)!

While there was serious hard yakka going on over these last 10 days there were also some laughs …

Left – Got it!! A 5-minute job of removing a pencil anode from one of our sail-drive legs? No, many hours of grief when the anode dropped down in to the leg.

Right – The Captain’s attempt to touch up the keel with anti-foul as The Bossa rolled down the ramp was a little too late. The Captain in his crocs (I do hate those things) skidded down the ramp in the Mary River mud!! Getting back up wasn’t so easy.

Bye bye Fusion HQ … the land of mud and slosh, frogs and kangaroos and hard bloody yakka! And the home of Warra Thai and The Old Syd Hotel. They were our sanctuary.

So here we are anchored in Hervey Bay, catching up on minor jobs, cooking, writing and feeling quite cosy inside, as the wind and rain batter us outside.  No, there’s still no sunshine, but we love being on The Bossa and was it all worth it? Yes.

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