Out of the water again

 Robinetta came out of the water today, and has had a winter's worth of weed washed off her hull. She is now in the lower yard in a cradle, waiting for her new engine and the other work to be done by the yard. Hopefully this will not take too long, as having a wooden boat out of the water at the height of the summer heat is not a great idea.

No pictures, as I was not there. Having everything done at a distance of over 300 miles is nerve wracking!

Robinetta is not being ignored!

 It feels like a long time since I did a blog post, but that is because of too many other things going on, not that Robinetta has become unimportant. She is still not sailing, but there are various reasons for that. 

The varnish on the mast had crazed horribly since she was relaunched last October, so we have had it taken out. Once we undressed the mast we realised that we needed new back-stays, as the galvanised iron was now rusty (the other stays and shrouds are stainless steel). We took the old ones to TS Rigging in Maldon, who made us some lovely new stainless ones. We have also bought a new peak halyard, as the old rope was not very good quality and kept twisting when it shouldn't. We need to buy a few new blocks and get the rest varnished; we did not touch them when the mast was out in Bristol so it is not surprising they need some TLC. There is a lot of serving to be done as well. Due to lack of time the yard have stripped and will varnish the mast. but I have managed to get the bowsprit looking smarter

The glass in one of Robinetta's nav lights was broken over the winter of 2019-20, and so far we have failed to get it replaced. Although Julian wants to keep the old lights, for the moment we have modern ones in new fittings which I put in place today.

One of our friends has taken out the old engine (it will be used for spares). We need to get the engine "compartment" cleaned up and painted before the new engine goes in, but with a leaking stern gland (again) this is impossible without taking Robinetta out of the water. I arranged this with the yard today. They were going to be taking her out to clean the hull and antifoul her anyway, but now she will be out for longer to let the engine area dry out enough to paint. At least this will means that if a new drive shaft is needed there will be no delay while she is hauled out. With any luck the engineer will be fitting the new engine in the third week of July. Fingers crossed!