I contacted Tim Loftus about coming up to Ullapool, as we needed to take the ropes and blocks off the mast for renewing. Tim said he would not be there, as he was helping deliver Swan back to her home in Shetland with new masts that he had been working on, but he arranged for a plank to be secured for Julian to walk on, and made sure a ladder would be left so we could reach the mast where it was stowed. He also told me that he had not actually started work on Robinetta, and would not be able to until after Christmas.
While this might sound like a bad thing, in reality it just means that Robinetta will be under cover for the majority of the winter. Tim had put Robinetta in his canvas on frame workshop, (the only "boatshed" on site) and since she is small he still had room to build a dinghy that had been commissioned for Christmas.
When Julian and I headed to Ullapool on Saturday the forecast was for heavy rain and a temperature just above freezing. The rain did not start until we were approaching the yard, but while working we could hear the rain thundering down on the canvas above. It did not worry us: we were in shelter, and wearing the right clothes. There was hail mixed in with the rain, and when Julian went outside to fetch water to boil up for our lunchtime pot noodles he said it had turned into graupel. We had encountered this in March 2013 (while trying to paint Robinetta outside at West Mersea) and it had stopped work. This day it just made me very glad we were inside.
It is a five hour drive to Ullapool from home, so we had a nice dinner out and stayed overnight (in a hotel not camped out in Robinetta) before heading home on Sunday morning. I am not sure when we will be back next. Probably not until Tim tells us Robinetta is ready to come out of the shed.
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