Sunday 1st February Today I have managed to do two coats of wood oil on the second side of the second door. I will need more oil before I can do the third door but I should have enough to do the first side tomorrow while I wait for the second tin.
2nd The plan is to replace the fire escape today. 8:30 start in dry weather although it turned out a little chilly later in the morning.
The first part of the job is to try to make sure the main steels form a rectangle, that requires us to reduce the gap between the beam that we will attach the stairs to and the wall. This has opened up by about an inch along it’s length and that will not be helped by leaning the sides of the stairs against it. We managed to halve the gap and then put up the step side that is furthest from the wall. This was relatively easy as there will be two bolts going into the upright – 2 holes drilled directly into the column using the magnetic drill and then tapped before the two galvanised bolts were put in.
The edge closest to the wall can only have one bolt and as it goes through a piece of channel, that bolt has a nut on the inside. This also required us to have the top step ijn place to ensure the right width. This edge had to be held in place using rope , a screwdriver to stop it slipping down and a G clamp to keep the bracket against the channel. Once that was done the rest of the steps were added. That took the four of us about another hour and was finished at about the same time that Jo had the lunchtime bacon sandwiches ready. (Photo credit – Robin Garside LSC)
After lunch we got the old crane barge ready to be inspected by a set of scrap merchants as we aim to get that removed sometime this week – Possibly by the same set of people who use a Hiab to lift the flooring panels onto the framework.
While Alex and Martin chiseled out the concrete block under the base of the steps and bolted it down, I went round all of the uprights against the wall drilling holes to take the threaded rods which will be epoxied in and act as the anchoring points. That was 20 holes into concrete all 18mm diameter and about 18 cm deep. A couple of these went into the void beneath the workshop steps so will be a little difficult when it comes to the epoxy stage and four of them had to be done in a pond carved out in the slope that leads to the storage alongside the clubhouse – That meant I had to make a drainage channel to remove about 5 cm of water before I could do the drilling. That set of rods will need to be epoxied in dry weather as the holes will fill with rain water and take some time to dry out.
The last job of the day was cutting out the notches where uprights and handrail supports need to go through the flooring panels. We also made the template for positioning the bolt holes that couple the panels side to side. The first panel has also been drilled ready to go up on the frame. In theory we will have the Hiab on site on Thursday so the other 9 panels will be notched and drilled then.
It is hard to believe that it is only 9 days since the original balcony was removed.
3rd Another morning spent at LSC. I started off by doing a bit more work on the insulation around the ‘ice box’ although I had not brought either the required sealant to attach the insulation or the saw that I need to do the trimming.
Eventually I became aware of noises that suggested Martin was moving some of the handrail steel so I wandered over to see what was happening. Basically tidying ready for the Hiab and then making one of the upright bases a little wider as the plate was a bit offset and closer than intended to the edge of the concrete block.
Several lengths of threaded rod were cut into pieces before adding a nut and washer to each piece. We did the 25 needed for the building side uprights and a few more. All the holes have been dried our as best we could with rags and a thinner piece of threaded rod.
As the outside temperature is about 5 degrees, we then went for a coffee break while the epoxy resin warmed up on a radiator. After the break we used up the cartridge of epoxy to position most of the rods. The last 4 are in the very wet position on the slope so we left them and two others rather than start a new cartridge and potentially waste around 2/3 of it. These rods are only preventing sideways movement so are not urgent.
5th Another productive morning at LSC. The Hiab arrived at 10:30 and various people had already been working on drilling bolt holes along the edges of the flooring modules. By the time we packed up due to rain starting, there were 8 flooring panels in place and bolted together on the edges. We had also fitted the hand rail at the end of the balcony.
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We still need to bolt the floor down onto the steel work and trim the last two modules to accommodate the angled end.
6th No pre-organised working party on the balcony today but I went to LSC anyway. I managed to stick the insulation onto two sides and the bottom of the cockpit locker’s ice box section. I also did a little tidying in the fuel locker which is rather wet and has algae growing in it.
Martin spent the afternoon fitting the remaining sections of the handrail onto the balcony.
After dinner we went back to the sailing club for film night.
7th Another day mostly spent at the sailing club. We have fitted the final two pieces of balcony flooring.
Helen spent the morning doing her contribution to the cooking for this evening’s dinghy supper. This included cooking the meat portion and chopping up the Pock Choy that needs adding to the slow cooker for the last part of the cooking time. That final stage of the cook is being handled by Jayne and Jo.
All that standing seems to have caused Helen’s right knee to become painful necessitating a visit to A&E. I attended the event while she was waiting and ended up leaving to take her home before going back to eat and watch the prize giving and a presentation about doing the Yachtmaster commercial qualification.
11th I went to finish off installing the insulation on the ice box. I also did a bit of cleaning and tidying in the cabin.
13th Most of today was spent at LSC because the weather was much better than the previous forecasts. The good conditions meant it made sense for Andy C and me to be working to assemble the various parts of the crane to progress from a barge to a working system. We also replaced the jib lifting cable during the build as the original was sufficiently rusty that it was likely to be seen as a problem if the barge was inspected for any reason.
We packed up at around 4pm with the barge in a working situation and only needing the addition of the protective planks along the side so that fenders would work with it and avoid damage to boats due to the leg mounting brackets.
14th Andy and a few other volunteers worked on the crane barge again today with the aim of adding the depth indicators we need for positioning the barge and sorting out the equipment that we will need when we come to take it out onto the mooring.
The LSC Cheese and Wine evening had a “Allo Allo” theme with a large group of us acting out a couple of scenes from “the Camembert Caper”. The cast was around half of those attending.
16th This morning Andy and I revised the depth markers for the crane barge, made a change to the shrouds to prevent the boom lift cable rubbing on one of them and also added two cleats. It was very windy but otherwise good enough weather to achieve what we needed.
I also managed to get a little more tidying done after the insulation fitting job on my boat.
20th Another of those days where I went to LSC to do a combination of work on my boat and some contribution to the overall balcony project. I arrived at around 11 expecting about an hour before anyone else arrived to contribute to todays announced task. Actually there were already two people moving hard core from the shoreline beyond the small pontoon into the foundation trench under the balcony. I pitched in with that as there was still some space and we moved another three barrows across. The trench is now packed with larger pieces and has the finer stuff spread on top. None of this is really load bearing and I suspect we will need to add more as time goes on because the current rain storms will inevitably wash the finer stuff into crevices between the big bits. As the project nears completion this will all be covered with tarmac and is non load bearing so the aim is to save contractors time and reduce the amount of tarmac to the practical necessity.
Meanwhile Karl was trying to mask off the balcony floor so he can paint on a line of sealant along each of the joints. This job was much more hampered by the rain and strong winds. Eventually both tasks were stopped by a heavy rain storm and retreated to the club house until the deluge subsided.
I managed to dismantle the outboard mounting bracket and took all of the detached parts home to make the extension pieces.
I am still failing to locate the case which contains the 10mm drill bit so needed to purchase a new set before I could start making the new struts. Drilling the bolt holes proved reasonably easy after clamping together the four new pieces of aluminium between two of the original ones. During the final re-assembly I will need to add some stainless steel washers to make up for the slightly thinner new pieces as well as a new M10 stainless nut to replace one that went missing during dismantling.
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Hopefully this arrangement will work although I now wonder whether the longer projection and slightly thinner struts might allow it to bend more than is ideal. If necessary I could strengthen it during the year either by adding packing pieces between the two pairs of struts or by changing up to thicker pieces.
21st 
I headed over to the sailing club at about 2:30. The extended engine bracket installed reasonably easily although it was a little fiddly putting in the extra stainless packing washers along with the plastic friction washers and packing pieces from the original installation. Everything tightened up nicely with nylock nuts instead of the original plain ones. I may need to adjust the friction once the outboard is installed and check whether I need to make the latch work as it currently looks like the longer radius might lower the engine more than I actually need.
The engine is staying in my shed at present as I need to check everything ready for the new season and would ideally fit a replacement set of spark plugs so the current ones can be cleaned up and go back aboard as spares.
Tonight is the joint RNLI & LSC quiz night with Fish & chips.
Monday 23rd This morning I finally took my Genoa to the sail repair company in Hamworthy. She currently works half days only but there is plenty of time to get it done as I have explained we are in France for the whole of April.
I spent the rest of the morning pulling cans of antifouling and undercoat out of the sheds and doing a very quick look at the outboard. Need two replacement spark plugs, fresh 2 stroke oil and new fuel in the tank before I can sensibly test run the engine and put it back on the mounting.
Helen had a phone appointment with the haematology nurse from Southampton in the afternoon which made a mockery of my plans to anti foul the boat hull during the better weather this week. We started with a trip to A&E at pool which took from 3pm to 2:30 am on Tuesday and created an urgent CT scan instead of the required MRI.
Tuesday 24th The imaging scan was at 10:30 (at Bournemouth) and was followed by an out patient appointment lasting until about 3pm and triggering an MRI scan at 10:45 on Wednesday.
My plan for today is now to collect the rudder from the boat and try to do the antifouling on that at home.
Wednesday 25th Helen has an appointment this morning for an MRI scan. As it is at 10:45 I got a chance to clean up the rudder blade, sand it smooth and paint the tie coat on both sides. It was still a little cloudy so I left it to dry on top of the scooter store with a large piece of Celotex above it.
The scan was done on time but results took a long time to come up on the system so we wasted the afternoon in the TIA/stroke clinic and only set off homewards at about 3:15. The trip home was via the mobility shop to collect a pair of replacement wheels for Helen’s scooter.
Eventually I headed back out into the garden to paint on a coat of antifouling on the rudder. Again the paint will dry under the cover of the Celotex board.
First published 2nd Feb. Updated 11th, 16th, 21st, 25th