Transworld Yachts took delivery of Ngahue IV and stored her ashore for us and organised some urgent maintenance. Our bowprop had become very slow to the point of hardly being active through non-use in tropical waters. Our anodised anchor chain had been badly afflicted by rust and corrosion and risked breaking in a blowy anchorage. Upon closer inspection our toilet hoses were nearly fully blocked with crystalised deposits and the forward toilet outlet simply broke off when subjected to a stress test. You can just hear Goofy say "Gawsh..." it's called dezincification! Not good and requires immediate attention. For future stressless mooring, Laura acquired a pair of Sena headsets (usually used by motor-bikers) so that we can talk to each other when mooring the boat. We'll see how that packs out once we go sailing with the boat again and come back to our new berth at the VYN. It should be easy as the VYN staff have now given us an extremely "easy" U-shaped berth where Ngahue IV just fits into like a hand into a glove...

No fanfare - just a quiet sail in a 'tie-her-up' operation as Ngahue IV returns after nearly 4 years of travels... If boats could talk, she'd have a lot of stories to share with the neighbours! Just to make the point how elegant the past HR designs were, our neighbours are French 45 and 47-footers; but appear as bulky as our sleek and elegant 53 (in reality 54)-footer!!!

Having been in Tahiti for more than 9 months, then been transported all the way back to Southampton and kept on the hard there for three months, Ngahue IV was looking a pretty sorry sight. The next month and a half was spent cleaning her inside and out, repairing in excess of 60 deck dowels, and sorting out the many things we had kept on board for our circumnavigation. Charts needed to be updated; lists of where to find things adapted new situations; and sundry safety equipment checked and out-of-date elements replaced. Cabin-by-cabin the interior was cleaned up and transformed from a mess to reasonably tidy. With our neighbour cruising countries slowly opening up and with us getting our Covid jabs, we didn't lose too much on cruising time...

Hallberg-Rassy Parts sent us two parcels, one of which contained 10 metres of curtain material. In less than a week the boat was fitted out with a complete set of new curtains. The new HR material is several touches lighter than the previous material, so the effect is that our cabins and saloon look a lot lighter. HR Parts also supplied several new reading lights and we obtained a couple of new lamps for the saloon. It is all looking 'très chique'. More or less to the day, four years after we left Nieuwpoort for our circumnavigation departure, we took the boat out for a sail. It had been 15 months since we had properly sailed our boat, shock, horror. Having left an hour before low water, we were boxed in by the Smal Bank - some depths as little as 40cm. We must plan other sorties better, as with high water you can easily cross the 'Smal Bank' everywhere.

It really has been a quiet season for sailing this year. More time has been spent on 'refreshing' the boat, replacing things that had become too worn or replacing things that are more modern these days. A couple of pictures show what we got up to. In between some further short sorties, some single-handed, whereby no neighbours or pontoons (to quote from films where animals have been used) were harmed during docking activities... The only animals that quietly kept up their busy work were those little creatures that live in the water and attach themselves to your propeller, bowthruster, or log impeller. By the end of September our boat had become quite fouled this way so that our trip to Bruinisse in the Netherlands was slow and laborious. Above, the final three photos of Ngahue IV in Breskens, the Westerschelde and all alone in the Hansweert sluis to enter the canal through South Beveland.

Once in Bruinisse you can see how Ngahue IV was first moored near to Laurens van Swaay's work area; the boat with her mast removed and several bits and pieces that will get Van Swaay's careful attention. One strange matter was that a grounding plate had clearly dropped off the boat... The white part of the hull will be painted with primer and anti fouling and a new grounding plate fitted. Very strange... And once "inside" our usual winter rituals resumed whereby you visit the boat about once a week when the temperatures are clement and once a fortnight when they go down to zero degrees Celsius. Most of the "on deck" work is done in October/November and again in April. Interior work is best done in the cold months December to March. Having done a lot of refurbishment of the boat after she came back from the U.K., big work items were limited to modernising the water faucet (or tap) in the front heads (all taps are now new; replacing some ceiling lights that had "corroded" (to the extent that painted plastic can corrode - it certainly looks as if it has); and replacing some reading lamps in the saloon. Mostly, though, it was a matter of cleaning and/or replacing worn items. Our 'old girl' will look pretty and young again at the beginning of the 2022 sailing season, when we also get out our brand new EPEX mainsail.

Autumn weather in Zeeland this year has been very clement and allowed for most of the 'outside' jobs to be done in the comfort of the boat hall "inside". A lot of time went into looking after our teak deck which will be 27 years old when the boat ventures outside again for next season. Over a hundred new dowels have been put in place; a few meters of loose deck caulking removed (new caulking will be done next year when the temperatures are OK). The deck has been impregnated with Boracol, which can do its work over the winter period (the deck will be washed with soft green soap next spring). Caulking that stands too proud of the deck has been ut down to size using a special "Mozart" knife, and excessive grooves in the wood sanded down very lightly to avoid the grooves getting worse in future. Our neighbour is a pretty recent HR43 with glued deck; so of course we can't compare to him. But we're not doing too badly: 26 years of which 3-4 in the tropics...

Once the temperatures began to drop to 10°C and below, it was clearly time to move inside the boat and tackle the various jobs I'd set aside for the winter. Further improvements to our 'life on board' were made possible by Ludvig of HR Parts, who found the more exotic things we needed for our boat which will be a mere 27 years old next year! We now have clean and modern taps in both the forward and aft heads and we have installed the new reading lights that the Yard tends to use on its bigger boats have also been installed throughout on ours. All these little details light up our boat, although of course we'll never be able to compete with the modern boats with the much larger hatches and windows, light oak interior, and indirect LED lighting. To ensure that dust and spider droppings don't mess up the boat, Mr Van Swaay covers them in plastic, so we now have a gift-wrapped HR53. Surprisingly, we are still the biggest boat inside!