One side undercoated

and topcoated under where the portholes go






and in the gas locker. Just look at the shine on that!

Liz has also done the front part of the hatch runners ready for the brass straps.

which I will be picking up tomorrow. Hope they get fitted before all the paint gets scraped off again.

I have removed the ports on the starboard side so Liz can crack on and undercoat the windy side. Although to be fair today was a lovely quiet day. Wind wise.

Paint and Tarpaulins

Yesterday Liz and I had an abortive attempt to cover the front of the boat but this was definitely 'experimenti no worki' so I dismantled it. Liz had taken this picture on her phone whilst we were still trying to get control.

Today Rob and I called in quickly at the boat so he could use his mouse to sand down the join on a couple of the ceiling boards. We took a picture of the first lot of undercoat on this side.

and as I had brought some tape we decided to patch up the holes in the tarpaulin.












Liz again caught this moment on her phone and emailed it to me with


'insert caption here'

So go on captions please!

More preparation

Now you see this is where I would have failed. I would be itching to start painting and the preparation work would have been severely skimped.



Still hopefully tomorrow Liz will be able to start undercoating. It got too damp today by 3pm apparently.


So the boat is naked for another day.


Liz will - once the undercoats have been done - be putting a bit of topcoat under the portholes so that once they are back in they do not have to be removed again. Phew.

I entertained myself by painting Plastidip inside my battery box. Got a bit intoxicated by the fumes.

It has survived another night and windy day

Just.

I hope it lasts a bit longer as Liz has taken all the portholes out down one side of the boat so I feel a little vulnerable.

It will be worse when she does the other side as that is the windy side. Still hopefully by the middle of next week the wind will have died down a tad.

Please keep all your fingers crossed over the weekend.

Thanks

It rained last night

So of course the tarpaulin over the frame was full of water when I did a quick recce on my way to work this morning. But it appeared to still be reasonably okay.


Got a message from Bryan to say that it wasn't okay, that it was full of water and leaking everywhere and I should come back and deal with it.


So after work I went back and it was very very full of water. I managed to get onto the roof of the boat and by lieing on my back was just able to move the water out of the pairs of gaps in the framework. Picture me if you will in my best work clothes inching my way from one end to the other on my back, pushing up with hands and feet. (The frame is only just over a foot above the roof of the boat.) In the middle the inevitable happened and where the two tarps cross over the water took the easy way out. On me.


Actually to be fair the middle wasn't as bad as the stern end.


I then had to try and get the HUGE amount of water now in the side panels up and over the edge. I didn't realise anyone had arrived so kept drenching them. They thought it was just the wind until I popped out one end to ask for assistance as the last panel was just SO heavy. Mel and I together struggled to manouvre the water up and over but we did manage it in the end. Would not have been able to do it on my own that's for sure. I was wet through and exhausted on the drive home and had to tuck into a bowl of cereal as soon as I got in the door or I would have passed out.


Andy will come back tomorrow and put some more lats in to make the frame squares smaller. Of course hopefully it won't rain quite like that again any time soon? The wind should keep normal rain drops from landing and staying put I hope.


Liz will have to hurry up and do her painting as I'm not sure with this wind how long the tarps will last.


Can't wait for the boat to be on the water and all this excitement to be behind me.

Frames R Us

Andy knocked this up by lunchtime.

And by 4pm we (Andy, small boy and me) had wrestled with the two tarpaulins (each 7m by 9m) and got them fixed down, at one point I thought I was going paragliding.

Now we have to see if it can withstand the gales that rush across that field. Unlike the other boats in the yard we have no protection from that side and of course that is where the prevailing winds like to come from. The field side is held down with 4 x 10kg gazebo weights which may double up later as ballast and/or mud weights. Plus 4 x very heavy duty marquee pegs. They should keep us securely tethered once on the canal!

On the way home small boy and I called in at the Leisure Centre to enquire about adult swimming lessons and guess what? They have a promotion - if you can put your name down for at least 6 sessions and bring a friend who can swim (that would be me then) they are free. So that is where I will be at 9pm tonight!!!

We then rushed around to Tesco's to get small boy a swimming costume and there they were half price £3.00. Bargain.

At least now he has the incentive to learn that he didn't as a smaller boy. He needs it to get into the RAF Regiment.

With witnesses around I may not be able to drown him.

The downside of ...

Of laying the galley tiles is that we had to cut the legs off all the galley units!

Rob and I did the 12 on the starboard side on Monday and on Tuesday I dragged small boy out of bed to help me do the 12 on the port side. Not only did we have to cut a cm off the bottom we also had to file them all around the top so that the cup feet would agree to go up that extra cm!

Bryan lent us his tools.

Hopefully he will now be able to join them all back together put the Corian back on top and slide them under the gunwales again.

Bryan has nearly finished doing the wooden surrounds for the double glazing units in the pigeon boxes. This has kept him busy quietly in his workshop whilst chaos reigned on the boat!