Monday 3rd 
After lunch I went to the boat to get a cartridge of sealant to use while installing the roof lantern on our extension. I have also bought some more impact adhesive for that project so, while I was there I glued the piece of headlining onto the sliding hatch. There is quite a large strip permanently inside the hatch cover where it wont be seen even when the hatch is closed. Hopefully that won’t cause any issues with dirt or water getting into the material.
Monday 17th The morning was taken up with the weekly shop followed by Helen having a medical appointment at Poole Hospital. After that I went to the boat to work on the electrical system and the starboard side headlining. –
The new and original switches are now swapped over so there is no light on the anchor / motoring light in the first position but there is one on the navigation light switch. This still needs the LED return connection soldering as I forgot to take the large soldering iron with me.
All the dodgy corners on the starboard cabin headlining have been glued down properly as has the edge of the ventilation opening.- I cut out the pieces of insulation for the second layer on the back of the headlining. I need the new tin of glue to finish this off.
The port side fore-hatch locking system is now working. I used brass screws to attach the bronze catch but will swap those at sometime in the future. Again the rubber seal for this hatch needs the impact adhesive so will be attached next time I am at the boat.
I also dropped off the roll of foam in Karl’s boat as he is working on replacing the plywood backing for part of his boat’s headlining.
Saturday 22nd Today is the first time I have been on the LSC rota for’yard work’. The weather was acceptable at 9:00 and there were no specific tasks for us to do so we did the basic default things – Clearing up the front car park (fallen pine needles), emptying the yard bins into the large one out in front, removing seaweed from the slipways, cleaning the pontoons, checking the launches and pumping out any bilge water. None of that required much effort or time because it had all been done repeatedly all winter and the recent relatively calm weather meant there was not much new debris to clear.. Having finished that and signed off in the book I got on with some boat work.
I glued on the second layer of insulation on the starboard side headlining board and have fixed it back onto the ceiling.
The second job was to work some epoxy wood glue into the split plywood edge of the lower washboard and clamp it together using a mole grip (I need to take the G clamps next time so I can continue with the proper tools. This was left to cure for a few hours with the boards propped open using a glue tin. Fortunately the forecast rain did not happen.
My attempt at soldering the lost wire onto the anemometer circuit board did not work – The 80W soldering iron didn’t stay hot enough after unplugging it to allow me to do the required joint so I removed the whole assembly and took it home to work on it under better conditions. Having good lighting, the circuit board handling ‘vice’ and controlled conditions meant I could clean out the circuit board holes, re-tin and neatly cut the ends of the wires so they went through the holes then solder on all four wires securely. I then re-assembled the sensor head ready to re-fix to the mast.
I went back to the sailing club at around 5pm to re-fit the anemometer.
Sunday 23rd The weather forecast was a steady 80% chance of rain for the whole afternoon which meant I was not going to even think seriously about making more progress with the work on the bungalow roof. Instead I went to the boat to see what I could achieve there. Mostly that was collecting the chart table for a sanding and re-varnishing at home and also bringing back the mooring strops and rudder for attention. We now have the timetable for the three lift in days next month and Rathenice is due back on the water sometime on the first day.
As it was raining fairly hard and quite windy I was able to identify one of the potential sources of water inside the boat – It seems to be coming in through the two air inlet openings. Obviously that might be dependent on currently being stern on to today’s wind but that can also happen with a fore & aft mooring that dries out at low tide. I will need to work out a way of keeping water out without compromising the ventilation and bilge drying water expulsion.
I tried to pump out the engine compartment as there was about an inch of water but the bilge drier doesn’t seem to be working today despite having full charge on the batteries. I will need to take the laptop with me next time to fully diagnose the problem but there seems to be no clicking every 10 minutes as should be happening when the timer turns on the sensors. If that is the case then it seems likely that the timer has lost it’s settings or the battery has gone flat.
Monday24th There’s another rainy forecast today so I decided to do ‘indoor’ boat jobs.
The first task was greasing the slides on the chart table then sanding both pieces of it and eventually adding a coat of International varnish. The first side was dry to the touch by 4:00 so these actually got both sides done today.
The second job was cleaning up the rudder blade ready for repairing the places where mooring strops have worn away bits of wood and the fibreglass sheathing. Once this has been repaired I will re-finish the painted area with antifouling.
The third Job was checking all the splices in the mooring strops . The stern one had it’s thimble rather loose and rotated which had caused damage to the eye splice. This one wasn’t wired to the rope and turned out a little loose both of which may have contributed to the problem. This eye splice has now been cut out and another one put in which in turn required moving the bowline towards the end of the rope, moving the anti chafe tubing along and also removing some from the eye end to free up some rope into which the splice was made. All looking serviceable now although I will need to obtain a couple more decent shackles when I go out to install them on the mooring riser chains.
After lunch and a dog walk I sanded the varnished area of the rudder and gave that another coat as well as doing the second sides of the two pieces of chart table.
First posted 3rd Feb. Updated 17th, 23rd, 24th.