It's been a couple of weeks since our last update but with 6 months to go - and me going back to work this week - we put in a big final week of ticking jobs off the list.

First up was sorting out some mildew under the aft cabin bed. This has been caused by a combination of the colder weather and there being no airflow holes in the bed base. Cue a morning with the holesaw and drill, and thirty holes later, the problem seems fixed. I'm not too worried, as after this winter, we don't plan on being anywhere too cold for quite some time....

Next, the foam arrived for the forward cabin. Those lucky folk who come visit or crew for us will get this cabin - it's pretty comfy if I do say so myself. Anyways, foam cut out and now just needs covering.

The Mikuni diesel heater has been quite useful this year but wasn't heating the salon too well (where we spend most of our time). Anyway, I removed the wheelhouse outlet and now the rest of the boat is much warmer, with the wheelhouse warming up a bit slower as the warm air rises there.

A replacement battery monitor was next. We spent a lot of money on a whizz-bang Merlin setup - frankly, it's been pretty average and the battery monitor was pretty pathetic. Onto ebay it went and we picked up and fitted a new Victron unit, which gives us a lot more info (% total, % remaining, watts and amps being used, amps used since last recharge). Plus it's blue. Awesome.

We've decided not to use the davits (courtesy of the Aries wind vane) so the dinghy needed a new home on the foredeck. To fit though, it needed to be 2ft shorter so a week or so later with the angle grinder and it's now all done and ready to go.

We then had a drizzly day so I cracked on with some wiring. With the wind gen's both now removed (DO NOT buy an Istabreeze - they are rubbish), we needed to clean up the wiring area and also wire in the watermaker - both of which are now done. The watermaker now just needs to be plumbed in; a perfect job for a drizzly winter day.

On that same drizzly day, we pulled apart one of the forward cupboards and removed the diesel day tank that was installed to supply the Dickinson (another useless item). This now cleans up another space for food storage - likely baking items due to the location.

Same drizzly day - I fitted some hatch surrounds. This has been a job that I've needed to do for AGES and finally ordered in some thin ply to get it done.

The sun then came out so the forward genoa supporting line was replaced with 7x19 wire instead (much less likely to wear through).

Last up, we worked on the aft helm - the steering cables were binding on the autopilot sensor support, so we flipped it around and upside down, and it now works (and clears the cables). I made a quick visit to our local wood yard and grabbed a bargain on some hardwood to build the Morse control base for the external helm. This will make Chandlery Rob happy, as he sourced some throttle and gearbox cables for us, and I need to hurry up and see if they fit. Best be keeping our chandlery man happy....

Our courtesy flags also arrived this week - all 58 of them to cover our trip around the world.

We also ordered a few bits - both rope cutters (to be fitted at the haulout) and.... the wood and steel for our swim platform. I'm planning on fitting it over the next two weekends and hopefully, we'll be able to fit our kayaks on it.

So that's about it really. 25 weeks to go (17 weeks 'til haul out) and whilst we still have quite a few jobs to tick off the list, progress is coming along very well. Back to the office tomorrow though so the next update should cover off the watermaker....

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Another big week of boat progress, but unfortunately not a real photogenic one.

The week started with me having enough of all the bits in the forward cabin - basically, it had become our unofficial dumping ground, so I rather unceremoniously emptied everything into the salon. As luck would have it, the very next day typically would have been a cracker for a sail, so we set ourselves a one week goal to get everything installed / tweaked, and that with only 4.5 months 'til haul out, we'll sail whenever the weather allows.

Cue much running around and completing of jobs I've been putting off.

Up first was a visit to Chandlery Rob (don't worry Rob, nobody knows who you are), to have a good ol' gripe about the current state of chandlery prices, and to obtain some latches and locks for the cabin doors we recently fitted.

Next (and between rain showers) was cutting up all the remaining engine bay foam and fitting it in the engine bay. I coincided this with our monthly engine run up to keep things a little warmer, given how chilly it's been recently.

I also had some reservations about mounting the watermaker pump in one of the wheelhouse alcoves, so fitted some extra foam to the back of the access panels to keep things quiet.

The huge pile of wood from up forward needed cutting up next, so between rain we duly got it done, fitted and painted. Part of that was fitting a couple of book shelves to the aft cabin - many thanks to Ikea for providing all the parts.

 

The steering has always had a bit of slop in it, so I attacked a piece of bronze with a file and hacksaw, and bashed it in place with a club hammer (it ain't moving now). The great news is there's no more slop at the rudder / quadrant end (which means the aft helm will be perfectly precise). The not so great news is our internal steering still has a bit of slop but given the steering box costs £5k to rebuild, I can live with that. On that note, I also rather liberally coated the aft helm in a spray lubricant to make it spin easier. It must've sat for a while as it was rather gunged up but after an afternoon of elbow grease, we're making some good progress and I'll be connecting the steering cables tomorrow.

Here's the cables connected at the rudder stock end:

And lastly, we helped a friend take their 60t trawler for a brief motor to fuel up and back, and had a crack at the helm. Given the size, it was a case of turn the wheel and wait for the boat to respond, something akin to flying a 747 when you're used to Cessnas. Hey ho, was good fun and allowed us to get some profile shots of our boat to see how the aft deck boxes and helm look.

So that's it for this week. I'm back to London for the night to crack on with my welding course then with work so slow, back to crack on for another week of tweaking and maybe a test sail.

4.5 months 'til haul out....

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A bit short on photos this week (the rain stopped us from taking them yesterday) but some good progress. The rain has been shortlived tho - we had the hottest Halloween on record last week which has allowed us to really crack on.

I've never been too happy with the running rigging - undersized and too difficult to use. The Day Skip course highlighted some potential changes we could make so after ordering a few blocks from the chandlery (and scrounging some spare 10mm line from our rope locker), both mainsheets now run through a 3:1 tackle and each boom also has a kicker strap. This won't meant a lot to the non-boaties out there so basically, it means we can control the sails better.

I also managed to run all the lines to the aft helm without too much fuss - just a couple of bullseyes to fit tomorrow and we're done.

Next on the hit list was adjusting the dinghy. Since fitting the Aries we can no longer use the davits, so the dinghy either had to go or shrink. It's almost done now - just needing some sealant and the adjusted piece re-riveted.

After that, it was time to fit the pulleys and run the steering cables to the rudder stock. Some blood, swearing and adjusting later, they're now ready to connect.

Anyway, hoping to take the the boat out tomorrow for another test (first time since the Channel Islands..) and finish fitting the final pieces of internal wood...

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