Port rot had almost set in by the time the skipper weighed anchor, but a fresh, seven-day voyage across Australia's northern coastline has cured all that.
Sailing a scrubbed and seasoned hull, the Sail Chernobyl crew is back at sea again after its mid-trip break.
Well, almost at sea. Two days ago the 51ft ketch, Golden Apple, berthed in Darwin, the final Australian landfall before leaving on a 950-mile leg for Bali in Indonesia.
"A little hairy at times," is how the skipper, Rory Coveney, described the passage from Cairns through the Great Barrier reef. He was speaking by satellite phone.
"Having a chart that was a bit old didn't really help," he admitted. "We came across about six navigational marks that weren't on it, but fortunately conditions were quite calm."
Accompanying the Coveney family on this leg is a temporary crew
member, Owen Kiely, a friend of the skipper's from Cork, and a 20 lb wahoo which has been sustaining the ship's complement for the last few days. It is the largest fish landed on the deck to date, and almost broke the rod held by twin, Tony. As a student in hotel management in Galway/Mayo Institute of Technology, he is also the ship's chef.
After nearly five weeks in Cairns, the halfway mark on the 26,000-mile global circumnavigation in aid of the Chernobyl Children's Project, the family was glad to get back on board.
Three days before sailing, they hosted a fund-raising concert for the Sail Chernobyl coffers, which raised nearly £1,000. The ketch was also lifted out, scrubbed, repaired and anti-fouled during the month, the first hull treatment against barnacles and other marine organisms in 14,000 miles.
There had been some apprehension about the Torres Straits, given that this is where the Pacific and Indian oceans meet in a mile-wide confluence between northern Australia and New Guinea. Fortunately there were no close encounters with 10,000-tonne tankers, or with the many reefs and rocks, although there were several days of bad weather.
Approaching Darwin, with strong currents and a tide range of eight metres, some of the crew took to the water.
They were back on board for about 20 seconds when a hammerhead shark took a cruise under the vessel's hull.
The landfall was marked by a chocolate cake, complete with candles, to celebrate Rebecca Coveney's birthday. She is 20 years old.