Wet and Dry

The weather has been a bit wet. At this time of the year it should be looking nice and brown like the top pic.

Both photographs were taken about the same time of year, but 1 year apart..

The top view is only about 4km up the road from our house, it's now back to having to cut the lawns once a week!.

Painting

The boat is starting to look a lot 'crisper' with it's new blue stripe and white epoxy bottom, only annother 3 coats of epoxy to go to get it to the required thickness.

Probably don't need the extra coats but I've come this far, it might as well be the full 65micron thickness (.065mm) that's a little over 1/4 a millimeter.
Please excuse the pending bonfire.

The End of the Big Scrape

At last the scrapping has finished, probably one of the worst boat job that I have had to do but now it's done, it's only a bit of sanding now, so we get a good key for the new sealing coats.
I had to give up for the last 2 days as it rained solidly (it is the Xmas holiday after-all) but before that, I proved that you must not use power tools in a wet environment, the little sander that I was trying to use, decided to let me know in no uncertain terms that it was very unhappy.
The little red light flickered on and the device started to go very slow and emit a strong smell of ozone, at this point commonsense kicked in and I gave up and went inside and started the challenge of downloading a book onto my eBook that I had got for Xmas.
I won't bore you with the the little challenges it presented and the words I called it, I think threatening it with flying lesson's fixed it but I finally did it, very easy when you know how.

Sails and Sand!

The moment of truth has arrived, I finally opened the sail bags to check on the condition of the sails that were on board when I bought the boat at auction over a year ago. The sails had been perfectly packed, a good start...
I had been putting off the moment, I didn't want anymore nasty surprises, the MPS (multiple purpose spinnaker) didn't look too bad, only a couple of small patches.

The Genoa was in good condition but on the other hand the Main looked very baggy and had lost it's battens, but it will do in the meantime.
The one thing that was a bit stange was that there was no sail identification numbers.
I will get one of the local sail-makers to make some replacement battens plus give us a price for a new sail.
All that was left was to re-flake the sail collection and put them back in their bags, the family suddenly decided to go shopping and I was left with the refolding 1 handed, the dog wasn't much help, not such a perfect job this time, so the sail-bags looked very full!

Sanding seems to be a never ending job - I think in retrospect it has been the worst, dirtiest and most uncomfortable job I have ever had to do.
This was made doubly bad, by finding that the hull was in great condition and didn't need such a radical clean, still with the paint system I'm using, this will not need to be re-done for at least another 20 years with the exception of the annual anti fouling and water blast cleans.

Another Step on the Way

The offending bearing is now out, I had to revert to using a hacksaw to ease the removal, now all I need to do is install a new one...

The new grab rails have been fitted and look quite good, when you do these apparently simple little jobs you understand why boat-building is so expensive. (lucky I no one told me that I couldn't do this stuff, probably wouldn't have listened anyway)

Cutless Bearing!!!!

I have been battling with the cutless bearing which refuses to move, I've tried, heat, hitting with hammer and made a puller out of pipe and steel rod but it's still stuck.
It has been left under pressure for 12 hours so 'maybe' it may have moved - I believe in father Christmas as well.
My next option is to start cutting the bearing out of the stern leg.

The work on the inside has almost come to an end with the new upholstery being made and fitted by Mrs DIY, it's all starting to look really good, only 2 more squabs to go.
I have had quotes for moving the boat over the hill to Seaview Marina for the fitting of the new engine and re-stepping the mast, then it's the "Grand Relaunch" of Thursdays Child, back into the water...This is planed for about mid January 2012.
One thing that we need to think about is the name, I believe it's time for a name change.

The Galley

The galley is now completed with only the oven to be installed, the next thing is to fit the grab rails to the cabin ceiling, a job that I will need the help of Mrs DIY.

Dumb & Dummer Footnote

Now the NZ elections are over John Banks (ACT) has been offered a ministerial post by John Key in the "new" National Government and Don Brash has resigned. (See 16/11/11 post)

The Weather!!!!!

Today

Monday 21

Rain about the western ranges, with heavy falls until evening, and periods of rain elsewhere. Northwest gales, gusting 130 km/h in exposed places, changing to cooler south-westerlies early evening with showers. Showers clearing tonight.

(a copy of the current weather-report)

Porthole Replacement

The replacement porthole solution that caused a bit of discussion on how to replace the damaged units plus get a reasonable finish to the inside of the cabin.
I bolted new Plexiglas directly through the fibreglass cabin roof and used the damage units which I had powder-coated on the inside.

I had planed to use only the original ones but the chances of leaks was too much of a risk