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Website started 24th February 2000

Starboard Deck ply Inserts completed. Redundancy Strikes. December 1992.

3/12/92

We decided money needed to be spent on another router. It is bugging us the starboard side deck, because the grooves for the deck ply inserts were having to be done near enough by hand as the router would not get close enough to the cabin sides. Had looked around and found a ELU 96E router with a flat edge on the base. Went out and bought one and later it was to prove £160 well spent.

4/12/92

Came down last night. Cover's on the shed side had got ripped during the week and needed repairing. First job to be done. Sikaflex plus Epoxy put onto a hot water bottle to warm them up - ready for what ever. We put up our small christmas tree in the van, then situated it on the after deck. It all adds to the christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas on Board	Routering starboard deck beams for ply inserts. Note the new router gets close enough to Main Cabin side	Starboard deck ply inserts were done in no time with the new router

The starboard side decking beams were routered with our new router. which worked well, and the new router bit should, all being well take most of the surplus edge of the inner cabin-side lower edge, in the main cabin. Temperature not above 10degrees in the boat. Fire on all day. By mid-afternoon dropping to 0degrees outside. Even the radio is temperamental until it gets warmed up, just like us. By 17:00pm we had selected and cut and fitted all but the two starboard ply inserts. They were now ready for fixing. Both of us numb in the fingers - not to mention what else. Put a piece of hardboard over the main saloon door and covered the hatchway with a sheet of ply. Sat inside the main cabin the draught now is coming around the bulkhead that is not yet epoxied in. Got a Chinese and then fell asleep for two hours - then as no money for beers, sat in the boat awhile, coats on by now, thermometer showing Zero degrees. If only jobs would do themselves. Back in the van to warm up, and by about 4:00am in the morning managed to get some shuteye. Up at 9:00am though, to see the first frost of the year, and van windows frozen on the inside!.

5/12/92

Slowly woke up and thawed out. Outside white all around. Started work on the remaining two 'heads' knees. Tried further scraping off of the excess sikaflex on the coachroof underside. This morning the whole deck was wet. Condensation from the fire was dripping from the asbestos roof, with the morning sun-shine. Ruth mopped up the surplus from the roof, and ragged down the deck. One ply insert we had cut last night, water had gone down the edge and got underneath. Cannot stick them down yet - - they are all wet. Problems, problems. Life is one big problem. All this to get away from the rat race. By about 16:00pm gas running out. Oh no ! - we have left the bottle spanner at home. Shook the bottle to use up every bit if gas, then drove down to Hardware shop for new bottle. They kindly undid the bottle fitting for us, and refitted it. Got back 16:30pm and sun having gone in, temperature was plunging, we managed to persevere the cold and screwed up one of the knee's we had shaped up earlier. It will need gluing tomorrow. Too cold now to carry on . 18:30pm.

Making up a centre knee for Heads starboard	Fitted brass strip to centre knee in portside cupboard

6/12/92

Not so cold last night but biting icy wind today.  By 12:00noon made a start but again there was condensation on the deck. Dried out all the starboard boards etc., and re-sanded the underside to remove water stains. Going to fit them in now to prevent further staining on the underside. Being marine ply it should resist certain amount of water anyway. By 14:00pm it was pouring down. Shut the sheet doorways to keep out the gales. All ply inserts fixed in up to heads area. Sikaflex will not adhere to fibreglass/asbestos therefore cannot plug roof holes with it, in the shed. Later  tried out the new router bit and levelled off the lower edge of the cabin sides ,inside the main cabin. Saved a heck of a lot of manual / orbital sanding and I mean saved hours of work. So much rain today - we hardly noticed - but the field is very boggy. We are packing up now - let's hope we can get out with the van OK.

10/12/92

The last thing we really needed. This week Ruth was made redundant from her Job. !

11/12/92

Should have been down at the boat - but after a celebratory drink last night followed by an Indian meal - spent today writing up Ruth's CV's and making phonecalls. Need to get ball rolling now with job applications.

12/12/92

Stirred late this morning after driving down last night. We were still somewhat dumb struck as to why Ruth was made redundant in the manner done. Conspiracy & evaluation of all angles of possible outcome was all we could talk about. Ordered the local paper's to be kept aside each week. By evening had managed to finish off  screwing into place the portside knee in the cupboard area. By 17:00pm the temperature drops rapidly, and it is too cold to work.

13/12/92

Again enthusiasm was dwindling, the initiative to do some work was there, but the drive was frozen.  Started cleaning up the latest knee, and then fitted the last knee, on the starboard side in the heads. By evening had epoxied it into place, having had to warm up the Epoxy first. More of surplus Sikaflex cleaned up in the cabin.

14/12/92

Finished screwing into place the last knee, plus the last of the brass bands. Used the router with the new bit, and levelled off as much as possible off the lower edge of the inner cabin sides forward of the main cabin. Tidied up, including the workshop, Called in at Wessex Resins, to replace the book with the blank pages in it, then stopped off at Power Propellers to put forward what was not quite right with the shaft. Left with him the shaft, propeller, 1 pin and the tapered coupling. If new shaft to be made, then it is to be overall length of boss, but, to face of coupling, inner face. This being 700mm. 

20/12/92

Having wasted Friday waiting for delivery of our lounge carpet - too late now to travel to the boat, therefore waited Saturday morning , and the carpet had been put onto wrong delivery therefore would not arrive until Monday/Tuesday. Not going to get much done this weekend anyway, just need to pick up newspapers and the Propeller and shaft.

Set off approx. 13:30pm arrived about 16:00pm. Main sheet had come unhooked in two places at the top of centre of the sheet , and a small section of corrugated sheeting had come away from the bottom left of shed front. More repairs to do.

21/12/92

Filmed the boat with the wide-angle lens recently purchased. Fantastic difference - can view port and starboard sides in one frame. It really transforms the filming.

Wide Angle photo of the Deck looking aft	Wide Angle photo of Coachroof from inside the Main Cabin. Lighting is more of a problem now	Wide Angle photo of Deck looking forward

Sped off approx. 9:30am to Power Propellers. New shaft had been made up. No cost - so we accepted it. They reckoned marine engineering not needed to precision as in aircraft.!! We just hope the key-pins are not brass. Upon studying the shaft at home later, the slots for the keypins were again off centre, the finale length between the boss faces was 675mm - should be 700mm !. From here tried a engineers for some grub screws. They only had metric. He suggested drilling new holes and tap and dyeing them. A holy cutlass flange it would be then.  We then went looking for a nyloc nut for the tapered end of the shaft. Power Propellers gave us a mild steel nut!. Found a place but they had no nyloc for BSF thread. Another black mark for Power Propellers. All they could provide was a Stainless Steel nut, and internal shakeproof washers. Socket Setscrews , grubscrews, were obtainable, but only in length longer than we needed. Purchased three anyway, until better could be found. On spur off moment decided to drop into a mast makers place. They seemed pleasant. Left the mast plans, plus our requirements with them for a quotation to be drafted up. Sped back home then, our carpet had arrived. We fitted it and then fell asleep, plum tuckered out.

The marks the end of 1992 here - who knows what 1993 will bring....

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