Weekend working...again

Deck tread finished under the dodger

This weekend away had been on the cards for a while but as the working week was drawing to a close I really couldn't be bothered going up to the boat and was opting to hang out with Emma for the one weekend she is getting off in weeks. But she said to go and get some things done, so dad and I loaded up the car Friday afternoon and were off a bit later than usual. We made really good time and were up in Havelock by 9:30pm, unload a few things from the car and head to bed ready to get going in the morning.

It was nice to wake up on Saturday in my own time, no alarms, no frantic rush to get ready for work or feel like I needed to be somewhere. The morning was overcast and I was ready to curse the weatherman for getting it wrong yet again but there was a glimpse of blue. I crawled out of bed and into some scummy clothes ready to get into it, and after feeling uninspired by the lack of breakfast things on the boat menu dad and I walked down to the bakery for a coffee and pastry to start the morning. We got back to the boat and into it, I drilled yet more holes in the deck, removed foam deck core material around the hole and filled the whole thing back in with thickened epoxy, now it was just time to wait for that to cure.

Dad was hard at work pounding on the mainsail furler drum trying to get it off the foil to get to what he believed was rusty bearings causing the issues relating to the mainsail requiring a lot of 'persuasion' to come out the mast. Finally the furler was apart and on closer inspection the two bearings were full of rust, rough to try turn and clearly not helping the situation so hopefully with some new bearings we will have a smooth operating sail.

Spliced double braind

Granny bars back on

Next I did the easy job of replacing the spinnaker/spare halyard while dad was on the lunch run. The halyard was replaced easily and instead of tying the snap shackle on with a bowline like last time I thought I would splice it on. After getting the book of knots from below I sat in the sun trying to make heads or tails of the pages of text and poorly drawn diagrams. I have done splices in double braid before and don't remember it being this complicated so with frustration at an all time high I went below and watched the YouTube tutorial I used last time and it made total sense and I was done relatively quickly. After lunch we painted some deck tread around the areas I had drilled holes and around the new mainsheet traveller. As soon as that was dry we reinstalled the 'granny bars' by the mast, this time through bolting with M6 bolts as opposed to the stupid idea of screwing them to the top layer of fibreglass like last time (I can't believe the ways we did some things in the past, things do take a lot longer when done correctly but the result is so much better and will last far longer. Do it once, do it right!. We also put on the new Lewmar deck organiser on the cabintop before calling it a day for outside work.

We had made a hell of a mess below and decided to put the headliners back on above the saloon table and also make a replacement piece where it was broken when the mast was re-stepped. By the time we had done this and had a good clean up it was near 8pm so we decided to head to the Slip Inn for dinner only to be seriously disappointed when we found them closed...we tried in town but it was a ghost town other than the scabby pub filled with rowdy locals watching the rugby. Back to the boat it was to see what we could dig up. A can of spaghetti for me and a can of soup for dad and that was one of the most boring dinners on record. The remaining night we spent chatting, planning the day tomorrow and having a clean out of the boxes of goodies strewn everywhere before heading to bed.

Some bits of timber glassed in place to help stop the tank from moving again

The crack in the welded joint - hopefully an easy fix

Sunday I awoke minutes before my 8am alarm, I was first up for a change and we were into it after a quick cup of tea. Now today was one of those days when nothing goes to plan and the truth of things on a boat take twice as long to finish. I headed up to Bow to Stern to buy some bolts we needed to get the traveller fixed down but they were not there...strange! those guys work all the time. So I walked back to the boat to help dad for a while, long story short we got to cleaning out the second water tank and found that a) it had shunted sideways 50mm and was not restrained at all and b) does in fact have a split about 150mm long along the weld closest to the hull, hence the fact it has been isolated. Now its in a very accessible location so why would they not just fix it? the mind boggles about the stupidity of some people. Anyhow we went about fiberglassing in blocks to prevent the tank from moving again and also removed all sorts of old wood against the hull no longer needed as we have turned the area into storage instead of a lift up bunk.

Naked Dulcinea without any lifelines

The rest of the day was pretty well done for, we removed all the life lines and made note of how much shorter to make them, worked out dimensions for the new trisail (or at least dimensions so the sailmaker could price and make something for us). We packed up our things, loaded the car and headed to Picton to collect a couple of second hand winches I had bought on trademe to handle the proposed trisail. Good weekend, lots completed and lots more projects to complete at home before heading up again. Will try keep this updated a bit more as things ramp up to getting out on the water for a couple of upcoming long weekends...