A good day

Sunday looked good for a day at the boat. I wasn't sure what I would do. I was feeling depressed with a headache from lack of sleep.

We loaded up the sails and seats and just about everything that was at home. If she's going in the water soon we need her loaded up, even if we still have stuff to do on the mooring.

I spent the morning re-chocking the mast and tightening the fore-stay and shrouds and we went and bought a bosun's chair and Alison went up the mast and succeeded in replacing the VHF antenna. It was a long process, made harder by the need to remove the old cable from the copper tube that acts as conduit between the mast head and the shrouds. The rig worked well. I hauled Alison up using the jib halyard as far as it would reach then shifted to the dynema we had put on the topsail sheave. The staysail halyard acted as a safety line. I used the winch on the dynema. Alison could stand on the hounds for some of it which helped a lot.

Pawl Springs

Here are the old port winch pawl springs. I'm guessing they are 18, 19 or 20 AWG bronze and they fit holes in the pawls that are about 6mm diameter.

So much to do

Had a good day on Thursday. Fitted the new transducer and made a new teak piece for the bow. Alison is getting on well with painting. Still the VHF antenna to do and so much else. Back to winter today so a day at home. Finally got around to looking at the defective winch. New springs esential I think. Filed the inside if the top to make a better purchase for the pawls in two of the notches.

Spring at last

Alison has been working on her most days but there still seems lots to do. We got the fore-stay chain plate fitted on Saturday. We had to wait until past high tide to get across the Strood. This spring tide is very high because the moon is at perigee - a 20 year earth-moon minimum. The sun was warm and there is blossom on the trees.

On Saturday evening we went to the East Coast dinner at the Royal Burnham. Sat opposite "Harry" who remembers working on Robinetta at Burnham in the 1960s. He said the Heriot's were a respected family with two boats being looked after by the yard, Robinetta and another, larger boat.

Got the new bulward primed on Sunday.

Progress

The new planking to replace the rotten bulwarks is finally in place. The rotten piece was not original, but I had to take of some of the original forward of the rotten piece to have somewhere to scarf the new wood in. Yesterday it looked pretty awful but I'm happy with it now.
The hole for the echo sounder is getting smaller, thanks to marine epoxy plastic padding. I can't see any decent alternative to epoxying in the transducer - the keel is just too deep to fit it in a removable manner.
Still lots to do - a plank on the port stern is trying to lift and some caulking needed around it too. The forestay chain plate is nearly ready to refit - the old holes have been filled with dowel and re-drilled. The new propeller is not fitted yet and I haven't been up the mast to fix the VHF antenna. It does feel a bit less daunting now.

New Prop

We now have a nice shiny new prop' made by Steel Developments. West Mersea Marine will fit it and do something better than we had for an anode. I'm sure the old anodes used to work but I'm equally sure the lost blade was due to galvanic problems. The yard told us back before the East Coast Race that it sounded broken but it worked all summer.

They used the old prop as a model for the shaft hole in the new one, but followed their own design for the blades.

Sunny days

Took advantage of a sunny day to continue putting Varnol on to the cockpit lockers. I stripped some of the Sadolin off on Sunday, and I can't leave bare wood untreated for too long. Luckily Varnol doesn't mind being put on when it's cold (although the finish will have to be redone since it's almost certain to be dulled by the overnight dew/frost before it dries).

I checked the area Julian cuprinoled on Sunday, and sanded it down a little, then put on the wood hardener. It should be ready for filling next time we go.

It was very wet yesterday, and I had to empty just as much water off the foredeck cover as Julian and I did on Sunday, and manually pump out/mop out the cabin again. It's a pain not having the batteries on board; I'd been taking the float switch operated electric pump for granted!