A great weekend thus far interspersed with periods of utter frustration.
First up, welded a piece of stainless rod onto the anchor. Our anchor catches the bowsprit cable every time we haul it in so the new piece of stainless should help the anchor slide along it and settle into it's holder ok. Hopefully.
Next, our plan was to keep the two kayaks on the swim platform while underway. I managed to squeak one on there, but the second is going to need to live [.....]
Another weekend closer to departure ticks by. This weekend I needed to change the ally angle that was supporting the steering cables for thicker mild steel, and also fitting the wood to the swim platform.
The mild steel angle fitted up amazingly quickly (for a boat job anyway), so it was time to crack on with the swim platform. We re-bolted the steel supports and sealed everything with a touch of 5200, then fitted the hardwood planking.
A light trim later and I'm relatively happy with [.....]
Another weekend, more progress on the boat.
First up was painting the forward and aft trim I fitted back in November. It's one of those jobs I've been meaning to do, and finally got around to actually getting it done.
Saturday morning dawned and I went off to collect our packages from the boat yard office. The swim platform steel had arrived, as had the new waste tank (and a whole lot of other little bits & pieces).
The steel arrived in five pieces, with [.....]
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 [.....]
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, [.....]
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 [.....]
Another week, more bits and pieces done.
First up, the forward cabin, storage area and aft head needed new doors so after borrowing a van and picking up some 18mm sheets of 8x4, we had them cut out and fitted relatively easily. Other than a light trim, locks and a lick of paint, they're ready to go.
Next, the boat jumble dorade vents needed fitting and after a bit of faffing around with locations and hole saws, we had them in and providing a breeze [.....]
Weekend update.
Quite a few jobs to get done before I head back to the office (and before winter sets in). First up was fitting the new steering wheel and connecting the Aries wind vane wheel drum.
After that, the steering cables needed to be run down into boat. This week we're set to build a box to house them, and I'll connect them up to the steering quadrant.
The Aries wheel drum then needed connecting to the Aries wind vane, which took a bit [.....]
Having headed up to London for the night for another week of the welding course, it was time to head back to the boat to crack on again.
We've been due some high tides for a while and this week didn't disappoint - the yard flooded for a couple of days which meant my wellies got a good workout.
We also had rain predicted for a few days so I cracked on with some indoor jobs. First up - reinforcing the wheelhouse table. We've had it [.....]
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