Feeling good

The first time I've been to Robinetta since the autumn to put something together rather than taking something apart. The port cockpit cap rail is now repaired and back in situ. With Paul's great work rebuilding the locker there is now some hope of getting back in the water. Less than three weeks now and after 4 years we will cease to be immigrants and become vagrants! I must say, the natives of Mersea are very kind to foreigners, it has been a real pleasure. Perhaps we will come back to stay one day. I'm sure we will visit often.

Sea cocks

Robinetta has three fine old bronze cone-style sea cocks. One in the galley to drain the sink, an inlet for the heads and the waste outlet for the heads. Compass Marine in Maine has a fine guide to servicing these and ours were in dire need.Not being any kind of a mechanic I needed some advice as to what to use and after looking at products on the web I emailed Chemico in Solihull. Kathy Escott at Chemico came back with a brilliantly complete answer to my questions and a very reasonable mail order price. She recommended either their fine or very fine grinding paste. I felt like a valued customer at Chemico, although I was only spending a few pounds.



The inlet sea cock for the heads was very corroded. Space is quite confined and I could only turn the cone 1/4 turn without replacing the spanner.

After some time following the instructions to make full turns I went for a 1/4 turn back and forwards motion which allowed a lot more force to be applied. I rotated by a 1/4 turn frequently to try to keep the overall process rotationally symmetric and not distort the cone or the cylinder.

It went rather well.


























The outlet for the heads is much larger. When I was done, it didn't seem like the cone sat as deeply  in the cylinder as it used to. This means that it is easier to get a tight fit on the nut, but it doesn't turn as easily as the inlet valve.

All this nice patina has to go

Part-way through and there is still a lot of verdigris

The galley sea cock was out of use since we bought the boat until last summer. I tried to get it working then but not very successfully. The cone is too pitted really but the cylinder cleaned up lovely.

Another beautiful weekend

Another weekend working on the boat. Julian came with me on Saturday, and Alex on Sunday.

Julian ordered our new cooker last week, an Orego two burner spirit stove. It arrived on Thursday, so our first task was to have a look at how to fit it into the galley. We've worked out how to do it, but at some point I'll have to properly redesign the galley...

I spent most of my time rebuilding the anchor locker and sail locker in the forepeak, with occasional forays outside to help with bits of painting and varnishing.

Julian put the trim back round the bits and took apart the thru-hulls. He's going to try to get some polishing grit to make them work more smoothly. Bronze tapering cone thru-hulls need more maintenance that we've been giving them. He also took the trim off the top edge of the cabin facing into the foredeck. Alex stripped and varnished it the last year we were at Shotley, but the Epifanes has not fared well and had peeled off in many places.

When Julian was stripping the varnish he discovered that the trim was loose, so he took it off to check for rot. It  was sound, as was the wood beneath, so he cleaned it up, and screwed it back, bedded in new mastic. I put a fresh coat of epifanes on on Sunday, and will have to do the same every visit for the next five! I also started varnishing the cap rails in the foredeck.

I'm doing an experiment with Blakes Woodskin as a possible replacement for the varnol that I can't get any more, so I put a layer on the bits and their trim. I'll see how it looks next weekend.

Alex painted the topsides with a second layer of toplac, put Pre-Kote on the grey metallic primer on the bulwarks, and put a first layer of anti-foul on the rudder and a second on the hull. The weather was almost perfect for painting, just a touch too windy!

Paul has started rebuilding the cockpit, so everything looks on target thanks to the good weather. Only outstanding job that needs doing ASAP is the mast. I've got to get the yard to move it so we can fettle and dress it before launch date!

A productive weekend

A great couple of days working on Robinetta. Alex and I went on Saturday, and he prepared the hull above the water line for a coat of Toplac, while I took the winter covers off, put a coat of undercoat on in the forepeak, and grey metallic on the caulking Paul did on the foredeck. Julian stayed home and took off Worm's gunwales in between doing stuff for his OU course.

On Sunday Alex painted the hull, so Robinetta is now a beautiful blue all over her topsides again. The weather was perfect for it, sunny and warm so the paint dried well, but not so hot that it went off too quickly. Julian fitted the repaired cap-rail back to the cockpit and fully disassembled the rotten cockpit locker so Paul will have an easier time when he rebuilds it. I finished painting the forepeak, so it bright and white above the shelves and clean grey beneath. I hope to be able to rebuild the anchor and sail lockers next weekend.

The main activity of the day, and the reason all three of us went, was to re-hang the rudder. It went back easily, so that is a milestone passed in the winter work!

Gift of a Day

Last week was half term, but I only managed to get to Robinetta twice since I had other things to do and the weather was not up to much. I took Alex both times though, and he managed to get two coats of underwater primer on while I cleaned up the cockpit some more and washed down the forepeak. I was pretty sure it would be weekend working only until April, but then I heard the school I work at on Wednesday had cancelled for this week. I checked the weather and it was forecast to be sunny.

I headed for West Mersea as soon as I had put a layer of varnish on the gaff and rudder (which are at home), and got there at 0950. The weather was perfect, so as soon as I masked up the waterline I got out the roller and anti fouled the hull. At 10C it dried quickly in the sun and breeze, and it was soon touch dry. That took the morning, then after lunch I sanded down the grey metallic primer on the bulwarks to key it in for the next coat. That makes two, so I think I'll move on to primer undercoat next time...

After that it was into the forepeak to sand down the flaking paint (mask on of course, I have no idea what paint I'm dealing with here!). I'd remembered the vacuum cleaner so I hoovered the dust up then gave the bare wood a coat of grey metallic. The problem with painting is there are so many layers to go on if you want the job to last!

I've booked Robinetta's launching slot at the end of the first week of April. Fingers crossed we're ready by then....

Dry and Sunny!

Every fine day means we should head to the boat to get what we can done, so on Sunday Julian and I drove to West Mersea hoping to get a layer of underwater primer on the hull. Julian had a look at the putty that Paul had put over the bolt heads from when he redid the floors at the bow, and decided that he was unhappy with the slight drip he got when he pressed it. The putty is still very soft. He wanted Paul to check it before he painted it over, so I got him to sand down the cabin sides that continue the white stripe of the bulwalks. The paint there has been flaking off again, so needs redoing.

The bilge pump worked as soon as I tried it, most mysterious, so I did not need to dry the bilges, and since Julian was getting on with what I had intended to do I started rubbing down the bright work in the cockpit ready for re-varnolling. I'd done about half by lunch time. Unfortunately when I went to Marinestore to buy the Varnol they told me they had discontinued it. I'll have to rethink! That left me at a bit of a loose end, since I did not want to take off any more Varnol until I'd decided what to replace it with.

While brushing down the cockpit so my sanded off varnol did not blow onto the grey metallic paint Julian was putting on the bulwark I noticed that the fibreglass sheathing that butts against the cabin edge was pulling away a bit. That led me to tap at it, and my heart sank. An area the size of a side plate on the port side of the cockpit top sounded hollow. I felt around underneath it, and pulled out a lump of fungus that seemed like a fruiting body of some sort.

When Julian drilled into the cockpit top to fit the GPS mount back in April 2009 he reported that the wood seemed a bit soft, but that was on the starboard side, and that all still sounds fine (with no ominous fungus) beneath.

I called Julian, and we decided that we had to find out what was going on, so that meant taking off the locker seat and dismantling the port side of the cockpit.
 
The ply beneath the hollow fibreglass crumbled like wet fibre board when we exposed it, and the support strut for the locker seat also lacked strength. We worked back, and the support strut at the stern of the locker seat was also rotted, with crumbling ply above it. The ply was fine further back though, so it seems that the problem lies with the locker supports.

I got Paul to take a look at it today, and he'll rebuild it for us before we relaunch. I've also asked him to refinish the mast, as we really don't have time to do it with the uncertainties of the weather. He saw no problems with the softness of the putty, so Alex washed the salt off the hull and painted a layer of underwater primer. It will take a while to go off, but the next dry day we get it will be back to Robinetta for more painting.

Windy

It seems like ages since we've been to the boat. It was supposed to be dry in the afternoon but windy. It rained hard on the way but the sun came out as we crossed the Strood and it was lovely when we got to the yard. The boat seemed quite dry but not dry enough to put a coat of undercoat on the hull. We decided to have lunch first and I snapped a few atmospheric shots from the yard and then we walked to the Company Shed. This is the view from the southern end of the yard near the house boats looking south.

The wind was incredibly strong. It blew us all the way to the Shed. We started lunch with a 1/2 dozen native oysters. Lovely. Then Alison had the lobster soup and I had mussels and we shared a salad. For once we were organised and had brought some bread and wine. A truly sumptuous lunch.

We popped in to Wyatts on the way back and bought some paint and bits and pieces. Then Alison go to work bailing out the boat. The bilge pump had blown a fuse at some point and the boat was full of water - right up to the floorboards. At least that means that Paul's caulking is working - there wasn't any running out of the hull! I got to work sanding the bulwark cap-rails in the bow. Once she was dry Alison did some cleaning and preparation in the fore-peak and then we put the covers on and came home. I took this picture of the bolts Paul replaced in the floors in the bow - the ones we didn't get done when we first bought the boat. We had them done just in time!

It was really windy all day - nothing like they are getting in the south west but it howled in the rigging of the boats around us. As the afternoon drew on it got stronger and stronger. On the way home in the car there was one gust on the A120 that nearly pushed us into the crash barrier.