Marc

Back at work today after a lovely 3 weeks off much of which was spent working on Merganser with a few nice sails in assorted other vessels, the big news is that we’ve decided to go with the extra work involved in putting a vberth in the bow, the last picture is similar to what I have in mind, this involves moving the front bulkhead about 3ft back,…[Read more]

Sigh, the lovely epoxy barrier coat that was the one thing I wasn’t going to touch… Was put on over a whole world of doom! 2 of the bronze seacocks were quite literally held in by the paint so now I’m pulling all the seacocks and they’re all beyond repair… Glad I checked before splashing the hull!

So hot today so no work inside the boat but an excellent opportunity to start repairing the holes I drilled to drain the water out. also spent a few hours to jack the boat up another 4 inches and distribute the weight to make sure the keel is as settled as possible for the epoxy patches. This evening we took advantage of the bonfire to burn some…[Read more]

Very productive day, sorted the mooring for the tempest out, discovered critters ate my dinghy, and got the second keel weight moved on Merganser, now time for a cuppa.

Operation dust extraction has suffered a casualty, apparently, someone forgot that you need to allow air in when pulling a vacuum or the plexiglass will break, the investigation is underway and those involved will be retaking GCSE physics.

I’ve spent this afternoon making a new jackstand for the yacht cradle as the old one had seized, thoroughly happy with my new toy… A Clarke 160en MIG welder, weld all the things!!!

Here’s a few pics that didnt really fit in to the last update, Christopher has been doing RYA dinghy training and we arrived to pick him up just as he was doing capsize drills! In other pics you can see Elizabeth and I having a play with some templates to get an idea of the new storage area and how it’s going to work. We also have Chris’s…[Read more]

Hurray! The first of the keel weights has been lifted out, what a faff! Had to use the 2t jack to break them free and then the keel lifter for the tempest did a splendid job of the main lift. Elizabeth operated the winch expertly! This is such a relief as I was running scenarios involving cutting the side of the keel off. So to the results… I’m…[Read more]

I noticed it’s been a while since my last update, I have been getting stuff done but not documenting that much, we’ll start with the major job, the encapsulated keel has separated from the concrete that encases the ballast so that’s currently being dug out as its been full of water (pic of 2 holes is the bottom of the keel to drain it out) so…[Read more]

Update time! I bought some new tools to help things along, I had absolutely no idea that roller sanders existed and now it’s my new favourite sanding tool, it fills the gap between the aggressiveness of the angle grinder with a flappy sanding disc and the orbital sander that whilst excellent for finishing isn’t great for heavy removal. I’ve also…[Read more]

Since time for my restoration is ticking away in what seems like an un relativistic manner, I’ve added a few new toys to the workshop, I’ve wanted one of these for absolutely ages and finally used the excuse of needing to do a full rebuild on the engine to get one, it’s a media blasting cabinet and it’ll make prepping things for paint much much…[Read more]

Update time! The project took a few steps backwards today, annoyingly one of the issues I caused by over enthusiasm with a pry bar, I might have accidentally put a hole through the deck skin.. oops! It seems the leak that’s causing me grief is a little worse than I thought, I need to replace the entire starboard side deck, it’s not an end game but…[Read more]

Happy Monday folks! The leaking from a poorly installed through deck fitting has caused significantly more damage than I had anticipated, I now need to replace about 10ft of extremely wet deck core, it’s not the end of the world and I knew there would be some damage but hoped it wouldn’t be this bad and awkward to fix, that’ll teach me to be…[Read more]

I’m very happy to report that things have started to be added to the boat instead of the usual ripping stuff out! The first layer of re-enforcement has gone in to the strb quaterberth!

As I sit here whilst my laser engraver earns me some cash for the refit I came across this and enjoyed the mental reminder that it could always be worse!

I’m spending a few hours this evening sketching out my ideas for the new interior, the cad isn’t 100% accurate but it gives me a rough idea of if it’ll fit, I really want a table area I can work and we can play games, I did consider keeping the 1 big sofa / bed but as for the long distances it’ll just be the 2 of us I’d prefer the practicality,…[Read more]

Have discovered something worse than grinding the hull, grinding the hull in a confined poorly ventilated space! But there it is ready for the re-enforcement patch, there was some unbonded glass from manufacturing so I dug all that out and filled it with epoxy filler, other than that bit of a tidy up and measuring up for the new fresh water and…[Read more]

Exciting day today! Christopher did some fantastic contortionist moves and got the exhaust and muffler out of the lazerette, Elizabeth did a stellar job of reconditioning the tiller which has given me new hope that the wood under all that algae is inherently sound. The leaky deck fitting was unceremoniously removed and paved the way to the first…[Read more]