Kittiwake at Rajasaari
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Winter is coming, and in Helsinki it’s time to lift all the boats out of the water so they won’t get damaged by the ice. On Saturday we lifted out Kittiwake (more precisely, a large crane-lorry lifted her out), and she’s now sitting on her metal frame waiting for next year. We still have to build a wooden frame along her deck to support the plastic sheet which will keep off the snow.

The bottom looks so scruffy because it has been cleaned professionally with a pressure-hose. It was a very impressive device with its own petrol engine, and it stripped off the season’s small barnacles with ease. It also took off all the loose bottom paint, revealing several different colours from previous seasons. The light blue paint this year was totally unsuited to the boat’s above-water colour scheme, and next year we’ll be using red paint (like the much bigger boat behind Kittiwake).