Thursday 1st Feb Another half day spent working on Grace’s kitchen in Norwich followed by me returning to New Milton for the band rehearsal.
Saturday 3rd I spent the morning working to attach the replacement forestay and reefing foil onto the mast. The rowing pivot managed to survive the trip out to the boat but that was just giving me false security as it broke again about half way back after the boat work was finished.
Getting the mast down was slightly more complicated using the A frame while afloat than it had been on the trailer. The tendency for the mast to move off the centre line was much greater and of course any roll of the hull off absolute level both causes and is caused by any non-alignment. I eventually found something of a sweet spot with working near the port side of the cockpit while the mast was slewed towards starboard. It also doesn’t help that I was in the cockpit and therefore among the rigging as it comes down or goes back up. Coming down with the double pulley tackle on the bow was reasonably easy as the line was easily controlled using the sheet cleats and I has a spare hand to guide the mast down reasonably centrally.
Getting the mast back up needed both manual lifting and the assistance of the port sheet winch. The combination of safety wires and spray dodger made anything more than a quarter turn of the handle impossible and needing to maintain tension in the tail was not particularly easy however that proved to be the only way of getting the mast past the 45 degree point on the way up. After that it was easier to pull down directly on the A frame from the foredeck. Then I had to re rig the mainsail, tidy up the cover and secure all the haliards & sheets.
Job finished by about 1pm so I went back ashore and packed the tender away again.
We were going back to the sailing club for the “Frog racing” evening so I only got a snack lunch and no dinner until after we were back at 11:30.
Sunday During my late-morning walk with Lexie it was very murky out at sea so you could just about see the Isle of Wight from Barton on Sea but no real detail visible.
After lunch I had another attempt at fixing the oar pivot on the tender – Another superglue job first and then drilling two holes through the plastic block and threading some of my stainless steel locking wire through to reinforce the repair. Maybe this time it will work or at least stay together so I can still row with the broken pivot.
The next week looked like a busy one with Medical appointments for Helen in Poole (Monday) and Sheffield (Thursday). That all ended up somewhat differently because the Monday appointment was the result of the local hospital accepting the same piece of care that was scheduled for Thursday so we no-longer needed to go to The Sheffield Hospital. Instead we ended up going to see family and staying longer than expected due to more than an inch of snow falling during the Thursday afternoon when we were due to be travelling South.
The week from Monday 12th through to the 15th was spent working all my daylight hours on the house in Doncaster to get us ready for a valuation on Monday 18th. After a weekend in New Milton I will be going back on the Sunday to finish off a few jobs. The remaining tasks are a mixture of decorating, installing the last couple of internal doors and tidying up so that project is heading towards the end. We still need contractors to move the electricity inlet and meter and re-connect the gas to the boiler but I should soon get some more weekdays to use the boat.
This page was initially published 6:46pm 4/2/2024. Most recent update 16/2/2024.