Ratanachai Shipyard by Richard

The night before our scheduled 0800 haulout at Ratanachai Shipyard we anchor next to Taphao Yai Island. In the morning we catch the flood tide to ensure we will have deep enough water to enter the Phuket River. We motor up the river in line with several local fishing boats returning with their nights catch. We turn into the slipway where half a dozen boatyard workers center Moonshadow over a small rail car that has been submerged underneath the keel. We watch as a diver positions the support, then a cable slowly pulls us up and out of the water. It is an odd sensation to be on a boat moving on a railway. A group of young women, whom we later learn are from Myanmar (Burma), scrape small sea creatures and growth off Moonshadow's bottom. After a pressure wash Moonshadow is again moved on the railway to her space for the next two weeks, amongst large wooden fishing boats, a huge ferry and a few other yachts.

After making arrangements with the yard for a boatworker and getting Moonshadow set up for the following day, we catch a ride to our hotel. Anita doesn't deal well with high places or chemicals and dust so we found the lovely Crystal Inn, a small hotel in downtown Phuket, to stay at while Moonshadow is in the boatyard. Every morning Richard would ride his rented motorbike to the boatyard while Anita was in the hotel coffee shop sipping tea and reading the Bangkok Post.

The next two weeks were spent repainting Moonshadow's bottom, cleaning the prop, installing a new transducer and other jobs that are easier to do out of the water. After many years of using a hard epoxy based antifouling (paint that keeps barnacles from growing on the bottom of the boat) it had to be removed by grinding. This took a day and a half and we had red dust covering the entire boat. A Mr. Buong did the grinding and some other jobs for us. We paid the yard $21 per day for his services and they paid him $16 per day.

Evidently spirits like to inhabit boats so every evening a shipyard worker walked through the yard carrying a tray of burning incense to drive the spirts away. We also noticed an occasional large tray piled with fresh fruit, flowers and roast duck being taken to place on a fishing boat as an offering when the boat was re-launched. So on Moonshadow's launching day we requested a small offering of fruit to be purchased from the nearby village. We figure we need all the luck we can get. The offering was placed on the bow and just as Moonshadow went down into the water on the railway a boatyard worker lit the long string of firecrackers that had been attached to the bowsprit. This is to scare away any spirits that might try to leap aboard at the last minute. We headed out of the river and back to the anchorage, where we ate the offering.