Progress...

After our Channel Islands excursion, we took an enforced two week break from the boat (note: not from buying boat parts tho....) to have a think about what worked and what didn't, and then crack on. During the break, we visited Twickenham with Lauren's parents to see the World Sevens Tournament and did some testing of bread recipes in preparation for the big trip.

This weekend past then had a Bank Holiday attached to it so we cracked on with some of the bigger projects.

#1 - The engineer out to fix the port engine oil leak, change the starter motor, and give the starboard engine a brief check over to ensure it was ok after it's first 100 hours. All done.

#2 - Remove the diesel cooker. Lauren has the scars to prove how much of a pain in the a*se this job was, but it's now done. Once all the diesel was drained out of the day tank, we setup a hoist system to lift the cooker out of one of the salon hatches, onto the deck, then into a boat yard trolley. Turned into quite the palava that we were very glad to have the engineer there to help us out.

#3 - Build the gas cooker enclosure, and fit the gas cooker. Done. I never liked how all my previous cookers were so close to the surrounding walls, so we've left an approx. 4" gap. Added to that a 4" gap meant minimal fill work to take up the extra space of the Dickinson, and it all makes sense.... Next job is to plumb in the gas cooker, but we'll leave that for next weekend.

#4 - Move the 12V panel approx. 3ft to make it more accessible. 25 wires. I started the job at 1000 and finished at 1700 that same day. Another painful job that's now off the list.

While I was doing all this, Lauren cracked on with sanding the wheelhouse lip that has had more filler applied to it, so we're getting closer to the final re-paint of the topsides before we get going. We also had the forward shower sump start to back flood the bilges (failed non return valve) which will require some investigations next weekend...

So we didn't quite get everything done this weekend that I wanted to get done, but made a pretty big dent in the list. Next week is going to be plumbing in the gas cooker, wiring up the alarms, fitting the SSB and the freezer (phew!), then it's time to crack on with the outside before winter hits. Never a dull moment.