Waiting for bits and time/weather to do stuff

All we seem to be able to do at the moment is wait which is proving rather frustrating. We placed an order for the AIS transponder at the boatshow but are still waiting for it to arrive. The last we heard was that the order had been placed but that there was a 3 to 4 week waiting time for it. I will have to chase the supplier soon though.

Next we desperately need to be able to get going on applying the coppercoat now. Especially if we are going to meet the target of having her in the water for delivery to Plymouth over Easter. After consultation with various forums, the consensus on how to apply it to the places currently covered by chocks is to do the rest of the boat first and then get the yard to move her in the cradle a bit and do the other bits that could not currently be got at. That means at least two weekends of work. This necessarily requires non freezing temperatures such as we have had to date as the Coppercoat requires an ambient temperature of at least ten degrees.

Oh well, I have ordered myself a cheap camcorder from the usual online retailer with a view to making a video of our work and attempts generally at doing the AZAB so I should be able to start playing with that soon.

Happy sailing or at least dreaming of sailing.

Got the Cruising Chute

Woo Hoo. Acres of brightly coloured nylon in a white sock. It all looks nice and I can't wait to try it out now though we can pretty much be guaranteed headwinds all season now :-)

Unexpected job of work

One of the "joys" of owning a boat is that things keep coming up. The latest was when we found that the underside of one of the cockpit hatches was rotten. Sarah G has nice teak hatches in the cockpit but the teak is relatively thin and the bulk of the hatch is made up of plywood which, in one of them has rotted quite badly.

We need to chisel away the rotten plywood and fill it in with some suitable and epoxy glue. It will be very satisfying to be able to keep the matching teak hatches but it is a lot of work!

Further plans

The season is shaping up to be a good one. We had a charity "bash" after work last Friday where we had an auction in which a day sailing on Sarah G was one of the items up for grabs. It went for a tidy sum which helped towards a very successful evening fundraising for Action Medical. The guy who won is over the moon and we are looking forward to welcoming him and his family aboard in July. Other people have been invited down as well so we should be having a social season anyway.

On other news, I spoke to Paul at Symblast and we will be collecting the coppercoat sometime around the end of February and should be able to apply it sometime in March. The hope is to get her in the water the weekend before Easter to give us a bit of sailing before the delivery trip to the West.

We were down on Saturday and did a bit of sanding of toe rails which came up quite well. On the other hand though, we had a look at the hatch covers in the cockpit and one of them had fungus growing on the bottom and sure enough, there is a bit of rot in it. I am hoping to be able to chisel out the rotten wood and let new stuff in rather than having to replace it which would be both expensive and would not match the others which are in good condition. As a precaution we are going to have to treat all the hatches.

Finally, Harbour Chandlers have done a first class job on replacing the guard wires which are now in place and make a huge improvement on the old ones.

We are going to stay in a B&B this weekend as I really want to get the Deks Ojle on the toe rail as soon as possible.