Another weekend, another few projects ticked off the list.

First up, gas! I finished plumbing in the gas cooker on Thursday eve, switched it on, and reveled in the joys of being able to heat something up without waiting 45 minutes. Brilliant. In the end I skipped on fitting the 12V remote shut off; this is partly down to how easy it is to access the bottles and shut them off, and we also have four gas sensors fitted plus nose mk 1. 

Next up was building a box to go beneath the stubby steering pedestal. I had considered having the pedestal extended, but then fitting a set of morse controls to it would have been painful..... Anyway, having raided the local ally boat builder's scrap area, we built a rather sturdy box and whacked a couple of coats of primer on it. All going to plan, we'll fit it this coming weekend.

What else.... the entrance area needed some wood trim and epoxy primer, so we knocked that off this weekend as well.

Final bit of panelling was added to the top of the aft deck boxes.

And the clutches attached to the aft of the wheelhouse roof. Winches to be added this weekend.

And one of the wind gens was removed as frankly, two was overkill and I had a buyer for the second one.

Anyway, I'm spending the next few weeks crunching through some big projects - fitting the watermaker, Aries, cleaning the bottom and putting on a coat of anti-foul to see us through the winter, etc etc. After that, it's off to spend two weekends doing my Day Skip (to then get the newly required ICC...) and I believe a November trip to either Lymington or Brighton is in the offing. Will be good to head out again.

31 weeks to go....

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So this past weekend wasn't strictly a boat one, as we were out & about for Lauren's birthday,  but our external helm parts arrived from NY and like a kid at Christmas, I couldn't resist tearing it all apart and seeing what we've got.

Essentially, what's arrived is the pedestal (need lengthening), the sheaves for guiding the steering cable to the rudder, and a stainless rail for hanging onto when things get a bit rough.

Typically, our stainless wheel isn't going to fit so we need to also have the guy ship another wheel from NY, but that'll give me time to get everything installed before I fit the wheel and want to go out testing.

That's about it for this week - another three day weekend is coming up and we have a rather large list of items to get done before the cold weather hits (7 degrees this morning! SEVEN!)

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I know, I know - another blog post about boxes. Trust me, if I could write about days of blissful sailing instead, I would.

Anyways, the boxes. Let's see.... I was looking for a use for the old engine bay covers that were a lovely 1" thick panel of teak with a heavy duty mild steel frame beneath. The boxes needed lids so a bit of cutting and adjusting later, the old engine bay covers now have a second life. We've added a small ally lip to them to keep the rain out, and started clearing the deck and stowing everything away.

The propane / gas connection is now also almost ready to go - just waiting on two hose tails and that'll be up and running in two weeks time.

That was pretty much it for the weekend as we spent Saturday at the Southampton Boat Show to do some research on bluewater boat bits - life rafts, epirbs, plbs - all that fun stuff. So our final shopping list is all sorted and we'll finish purchasing those items right before we head off.

This coming weekend we're off camping for Lauren's birthday, then it'll be back down south for another three days of boat shenanigans. The new aft helm should be arriving from the 'States in the next week or so, so the plan is to get that fitted and get out again for another sail in November. We also need to get the gas connection completed, work out how to fit the watermaker filters, finish fairing the deck with epoxy filler before winter hits, and fit the SSB antenna & higher rating circuit breaker, so we can test that over the winter. So just a few jobs then.

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Another week, more progress.

First up was replacing a check valve from the forward shower drain sump. This failed last week meaning the sump was continually back flooding, all due to a £2 part. The replacements arrived and were popped in relatively easily - possibly the worst part of the job though was the smell. This sump is also our galley sink drain, and no matter how hard we try, there's always one or two bits of food that goes down the sink. Add to that warm temperatures in the boat, constant sloshing around whilst sailing and the sump only being opened once a year, and I'm sure you can imagine what awaited us. Anyways, that little project is now done for another few years.

(Since the sump made for a terrible picture, he's a nice sunrise instead).

Next up was building the new storage lockers / seats on the aft deck. The original plan was to frame them out of aluminium, then cover with ally sheet. That idea was binned within about five minutes due to the pain of bending ally angle, so instead we got ourselves some structural ply sheet and used that for the facing, along with some ally angle for framing. Four tubes of 5200 later, we were in business.

I needed a break after all that fun so we ran the new gas hose through 10m of hydraulic sheathing and connected it to the back of the cooker. Next it was run through the hull and up to where it'll connect to the outside locker - that's a project we should get done this coming weekend.

Last up was painting the boxes with primer. Two coats later and I have some sanding and fairing to do this coming weekend, as well as building the lids and repainting them white, but for all intents and purposes they're "built".

So not much progress this weekend as the boxes were so time consuming to put together, but there's another three day weekend ahead and coupled with going to the boat show (and hopefully some renewed enthusiasm), next week's update should be much more interesting....

34 weeks to go.

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Another weekend, more progress.

Following on from last week's post, I finished fitting the 12V panel in it's new location, as well as installing one of the twin gas alarms in the same area.

Next up on the list this week, the SSB install. Slightly painful, but we got almost everything fitted in a day and a half, with just the backstay antenna and connection to the tuner to go. This will mean we can send basic emails and check weather from effectively anywhere (anchorage or whilst underway). That and I'm looking forward to tuning into Radio Antarctica to see what they're all getting up to.....

The galley then needed some attention so we built the new location for the 12V freezer before wiring it up, along with the other gas alarm and the cooker. The shelf for the freezer still needs a bit of work but it's fundamentally in and can't come flying out. Perfect.

So that's about it for this week - doesn't seem like much, but sure kept us busy for a couple of days. This weekend coming we'll be moving the Mikuni diesel heater to the engine bay (a lot quieter down there) as well as building the frames for the aft deck seating. I'm pretty confident we now have the aft helm all planned out as well so we'll make a dent in that at the same time. With winter coming I want to try and get 99% of the external work done as it'll be 6 long months 'til it's nice to work outside again, and by then we'll be just a month or so off departing.

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