The club’s first two ‘crane in’ days are 27th & 28th March and my position in the yard makes it likely that Rathenice will go back in the water on one or other of those dates. There is less than 3 months remaining to achieve my two page “To do” list and the weather will continue to be against me for at least some of that period.
Thursday 2nd January 2025 Originally I had been going to take a look at a boat belonging to another member because I was talking to him at the club’s New Year party and he is intending to do some work on the electrical system. He is not confident in what needs doing to re-wire the existing installation and will also possibly replace his depth sounder. He has a Seafarer model just like my original one and has been running this via wires straight to the battery but found it to be unreliable. It turns out that the sunshine today has persuaded him to go to his mother’s house to take her out.
It is much too cold today for me to do the fiberglass work associated with the headlining attachment blocks but I have done the roughening up that is needed as preparation and also glued the wooden block in place for the fore hatch latch mounting. Suitable woven glass tape pieces have been cut so I am ready to do the next steps once the current cold snap has passed (temperature according to the car was 4.5 or 5 degrees Centigrade).
There are a few bits of the cabin roof that are still not insulated and those were obviously causing condensation but the double insulated areas did not have any detectable condensation on them. After I have properly attached the wooden blocks, the next job will be to extend the insulation to cover the whole of the ceiling that is behind the headlining.
Monday 6th At around 2:00 I went to the sailing club for the afternoon and have done a lot more preparation ready to fibreglass. Helen’s phone forecast suggested it might briefly get warm enough to actually do the work with the resin but I was not convinced it was warm enough to start or likely to stay warm enough for the resin to cure.
Instead I glued two layers of insulation on the underside of the sliding hatch. The next part of that job will be to cut and glue on a piece of headlining fabric so it matches the rest of the ceiling. Once this is finished it should help keep things warmer for rallies next year although there will still be quite a bit of ventilation around the hatch because these layers do not completely fill the gap between the roof and the hatch.
Tuesday 14th Today’s forecast is for early afternoon temperatures slightly above 10 degrees C which is sufficient for fiberglass work. The fibreglass resin will be at around 16 degrees because it has been in the kitchen all morning while I was working on the extension and the car reckons the temperature is 11 degrees so the hull shouldn’t cool the resin too much and I can expect everything to set OK.
I set off to the boat at about 1pm and mixed a small batch of resin, just enough to do all of the pre-cut pieces of fibreglass tape with a little to spare. By the time I left at 2:30 the left over resin was gelling nicely. Providing everything continues to cure nicely before the temperature drops too much, that will be 5 headlining blocks and the fore hatch lock mounting firmly attached.
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Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to add the remaining insulation on the ceiling and re-attach the headlining. If I remember to take the spare piece of fabric I will also glue the headlining layer onto the sliding hatch.
Friday 17th After lunch I went to the boat First I checked on the fibreglass which was still sticky on the surface of most of the blocks and only slightly cured on others. This may resolve itself when we get some slightly more consistent warm weather or I may have to paint on some fresh resin with catalyst to trigger better curing on the problem layups.
I then spent roughly an hour and a half gluing the pre-cut pieces of insulation on the rest of the ceiling and also on the sliding hatch.
The last job for the day was to start cutting out a piece of the headlining vinyl to glue onto the inside of the hatch. This would need to attach to a piece of insulation that I had recently added so I am leaving that to set properly before I add any more stress to the new bonding.
Wednesday 29th After a series of lost days due to the next bout of named storms and trying to make progress with the house extension, we decided to go to LSC this morning. I will do some work on the boat while Helen takes Willow for a walk to the local coffee shop.
Despite the seriesof rather cool days, the resin has now cured properly which meant I got to do a series of fairly small jobs that add up to significant progress inside the main cabin.
- Position the separate GPS antenna between the insulation foil and the underside of the cabin roof. Important as the metal foil in the insulation can potentially screen out the satellite signals over about half of the sky.
- Trim the foil that I glued on the underside of the port headlining sheet and add the final piece to make it cover the whole area.
Re-attached the port headlining including adding the screws into the new mounting blocks. (Note to self – Need to swap a few of the 4 mm screws to 6mm x 30 mm as the holes in the ceiling blocks are a little marginal).- Glued on the remaining pieces of insulation on the starboard side of the cabin roof. I would have added the whole sheet on the headlining but I have rather little glue left.
I removed the faulty switch from the starboard side electrical panel and replaced it with a new (non-illuminated) one. – Actually for the longer term I need to revise this to put the new one as the first in the row. The terminals are the wrong way round for the rocker function markings and the brass LED return strip will need partially removing before I can swap switch alignments (As the first switch is the anchor / motoring light that one doesn’t really need the LED indication anyway).- I powered up the bilge draining pump system as there was about an inch of water in the engine compartment.
Helen came back at around 12:45 so I packed up and we set off home again. I need to take some more impact adhesive next time so I can finish off the insulation on the starboard side and attach the headlining on the inside of the hatch.
First published 2/1/25 Updated 6th, 14th, 17th & 29th.