Friday 1st June Back to home in Doncaster at 10pm.
Saturday 4th Helen woke me up asking why I wasn’t getting on with things, then she realised it was quarter to 6 rather than quarter to 9. I ended up getting up anyway so was able to set off to the boat and make a little progress.
The last of the masthead bolts are tightened and there are connectors on the new radio antenna cable and the wind instrument cable. I need to install a socket for the instruments and take the cable back to the electronics near the radio – The main delay with that will be making the mounting pad and varnishing it. I still need to make the connecting cable to go between the antenna multiplexer and the radio but that can be done at home.
Matt called me at 9:30 and said he was getting up then leaving so I packed up at about 10 but he still didn’t arrive until about 12. The delay allowed me to use
the workbench at Ascot avenue create the six copper washers that I want to put between the hull and the zinc anode. They should ensure good electrical contact with the internal wiring and the link to the outside bearing mounting structure as well as spacing the anode away from the hull a little. That is another long term problem about to be resolved at least until the next time I need a new anode.
Monday The only boat progress today was cutting out a couple of pieces of butyl rubber to go between the Zinc anode and the hull. With any luck I can get them and the copper spacers installed tomorrow before I go to the house to continue kitchen prep. I will also try to take a stainless steel washer and some wood to the house so I can work on making a mounting pad for the wind instrument cable.
Tuesday Woken early again – not the dog this time but not sure what did it. 6:15 wasnt that unreasonable so breakfast, dog tablets etc and then out into the garage to load boat stuff into the car. I mainly took the boat cushions today which made quite a lot of difference at the back of the garage.
While re-organising stuff and installing the radio antenna cable I sawed off about an inch from the top of the removable backrest that slots into the battery cover area. It was overlapping the radio so would have been a potential problem in the event of needing to use it with any sort of urgency. It will need a few coats of varnish but I left it at the boat as now is not the best time for jobs like that.
The main job at the boat was attaching the Zinc anode. The square spacers needed their corners removing because the spacing of the mounting studs put them just into the curved sections at the end of the mounting slots. Fortunately the pipe clip crimping tool has reasonably sharp cutting edges and was just about up to clipping off a few millimetres at a time. Next time I need to take a 17 mm socket to properly tighten the anode mounting nuts and maybe also a star washer to ensure good electrical contact.
Wednesday Today started off with a visit to deliver the boom to the boat and properly tighten the mounting nuts on the anode.
Once at Ascott avenue I made a mounting plate for the wind instrument cable connector. It is a square one cut from stainless steel left over from an extractor fan cover. I also glued together two pieces of oak strip to eventually make a mounting block. It needs to be a little larger than any of the pieces of oak that I already have so now I need to be patient for a day or two while the oak epoxy glue sets.
Thursday I have a 9:30 appointment today at Tickhill Road hospital for the AAA screening. The good news is that I don’t have any signs of an aneurysm so am discharged from the screening process. After that I went to the boat to unload the sails and a few other items from the garage that belong on the boat (mainly rope).
Friday 9th Moving day – The plan for today is that Matt will collect the rented van and should be with us just after 10. We have Volodimir, Maria & Svetlana helping to load up as well as Matthew and I. Once we were loaded Matt set off back to Sheffield because we changed plans again – He is now staying with us overnight at the house rather than going to Sharon & Francis’ house so needs to collect his medicines.
Helen and I then went to Svetlana’s for a light lunch before setting off.
First problem of the journey occurred just before the Rotherham junction on the M18 – Apparently pedestrians on the motorway but the effect was to jam up both M18 and M1 so we, Matthew and Annabel were separately stuck in the same traffic snarl up.
Vaguely co-ordinated meet with Matthew for tea at the Cherwell Valley services on M40 (Bicester). Slightly different routings by the various sat-nav systems but we arrived within about 10 minutes of him.
Similarly discrepant routes to the house and Matt arrived first.
Everything unloaded and into either the house or garage by 10:00 pm when we had a “Just eat” delivery from the local Indian takeaway.
Saturday After a bit of organising Matt set out for home and I got the washing machine installed (including buying several items from the local Screwfix 1.1 miles away!), built beds, reorganised the garage etc. By lunchtime it was all looking something like a chaotic home. Second bedroom is still rather a dumping ground and will have to get more organised before both girls can sleep there on Tuesday night.
Our room still has three wardrobes as kits of parts. At least I managed to get Helen to label all the bits with a letter designating which wardrobe they should become. The contents will get much better once the girls have imposed some logic and organisation in the house.
I have built as much of the shelves as I can with the bits we brought – having 3 different versions doesn’t help as they are far from mutually compatible. The only cardboard boxes still in contact with the concrete garage floor are ones with framed pictures in them and the critical ones (photos and similar) are now under the tarp which should minimise the potential for things to get wet rather than exposed to humid air. I will need to re-scan all those photos fairly soon if they are staying outside.
In the afternoon we did a bit of shopping, collected the membership documents from the sailing club and took Lexie for a walk at Hengistbury Head.
Sunday 11th At least in theory I should be heading back to Doncaster in the afternoon having got the house as organised as I can.
Very early start for me in that there was a thunderstorm at midnight which woke me but nobody else. As we were not absolutely sure of the water-tightness of the garage I went out into the deluge to position the tarp in the most likely problem position. No actual evidence of leaking at that time but we will be watching it carefully.
Actually the change of plan on Friday meant we went to church in the morning then a quick Tesco shop on the way home. Now have the washing up bowl and a lifejacket for Lexie. After that we went back for lunch (pasta & chicken in white sauce) so I could leave reasonable early in the afternoon.
Satnav reckoned 4 hours 25 but that was not anticipating road works (closure of the A43 near oxford from Friday afternoon until today. Diversion in both directions via Oxford town centre and a 20 MPH zone), two (nearly 3) major thunder storms (with significant standing water on the A43 road) and other delays. I actually ended up with about an extra hour on the journey but was still slightly before the 8:00 estimated arrival time that I had given to Helen to pass on.
My journey was definitely better than at least one driver as I passed a car upside down among the bushes the other side of a very mangled piece of barrier near Leicester. 5 police cars and 1 ambulance present. There may have been other similar incidents as it looks as if the M1 was being diverted onto the A5 just after the A43 junction.
Dinner at Svetlana’s house then took Maria home when Svetlana got back from work.
Monday Awake at 5:00 despite no dog and no snoring from Helen. Got up and was at the house for 7:15 to cut out the mounting disk for the wind instrument socket. Then went to the boat to drill the deck and mounting holes. Plan for the evening is to get a coat of varnish on that and also on the door to the heads.
Tuesday 6:00 wake up so plenty of time to be ready to take Markian to school at 7:30 as part of my trip to the boat. Not taking the wind data mounting thing yet as the varnish on the bottom is still sticky and it needs at least one more coat. The varnishing for the heads door still hasn’t happened as it was too buried in garage stuff to get it out, sand it and varnish yesterday.
Main boat job for today was to collect two wheels and get them painted ready for fitting new tyres. From the side they look OK but there are cracks in the bottom of the tread pattern and I don’t trust them for a long journey (with no spare as I haven’t found any 5 hole wheels to use). Home at 9:20 after a mini-shop at Liddle for bread, milk etc.
The tyres are a bit of a mixture at present but I should be able to standardise on something with a suitable load capacity. Once that is done I will bring the boat home to work on the trailer welding some of which has failed.
Wednesday 14th Awake at 4:00 and don’t need a shower this morning so should be able to make some progress today before taking Markian to school at 7:30. Main boat jobs this morning were to attach the wind data socket on the cabin roof and start off the process of getting new tyres on the trailer. Before taking Markian to school I loaded the car boot with block paving “bricks”, a few normal bricks, a couple of concrete blocks and a few offcuts from the scaffolding planks. After the school run I set off to storage.
I eventually managed to get the wooden disk installed however the two halves have split along the epoxy glue line so there will need to be some attention to that in the medium term. I think superglue should work both from the structural perspective gluing the two halves together without having to take them off the boat again, and also from the waterproofing perspective s the crack provided direct access to the soldered connections.
After doing that piece of progress I took off the other two wheels so I can take all four to a tyre fitter at the same time. Fortunately I was still at the boat for about 10 minutes after removing the last wheel – Turned out the whole weight on the rear axle was being taken by the block & brick stack at the off side. This proved too much for the brick taking the weight from the edge of the girder and it cracked with a loud bang. That potentially catastrophic problem prompted a quick reorganise so the top layer of the two stacks was replaced with a couple of layers of wood in place of the bricks.
Took all four wheels to Quickfit – £80 per tyre so they are ordering 4 and I will do an exchange of wheels with them tomorrow when the first pair are ready. As I was concerned about the potential for more blocks to fail I then took the second pair of wheels back to storage and put them onto the trailer again.
Home for a quick sandwich lunch before rerverting to building work.
Thursday My plan for today rather depends on how early I get the call about the tyres. Ideally I will be able to collect the wheels with the new tyres, give them a quick coat of paint inside the hub and install them on the trailer in place of the other pair which I will then drop off at Quickfit to get the tyres on them. Cleaning up and painting the second set will not be as urgent as the front axle of the trailer has been on the axle stands for months already. I can take my time and do the hubs and wheels properly on those and only install them once the paint is properly dry.
This morning I woke up at 4:30 ready for the day. Weather still misty at 5:15 as I am eating my breakfast so the aim is to get to storage in about an hour’s time when I can get in. I want to wire brush the trailer’s front hubs and then use the black Hammerite paint that I found in the garage on the hubs and suspension units.
6:15 – arrived at storage. Left at 6:45 having done the necessary work on the two front hubs.
7:10 home and getting a jumper and another cup of tea having got a little chilly in a polo shirt with the fog. Seems to be clearing somewhat so the forecast of another warm day may turn out true.
At 11:18 I got the call that the tyres had arrived and the first two had been fitted. Matthew and I set off to collect the ones that were ready then took them to the boat and fitted them on the rear axle. Then took the others to get their new tyres and went to Costa to get Matt’s lunch and fill time while the tyres are fitted.
After 5pm I painted the second set of wheels using the original tins of trailer paint which I got out of the garage yesterday. Looking good already but they can have a second coat at or after 10:00 tomorrow morning and then go onto the trailer on Saturday morning. 
Friday 6pm After a cup of tea and writing this I am off to the boat to do the wheel swap – Yesterday’s efforts covered well with just a couple of missed spots so I am going to paint the other pair tonight and deal with touch-ups later when all the wheels are on the trailer.
The second pair of hubs were painted and the wheels swapped so I was home again and had finished painting them by 9:15. The paint wont be suitably dry much before mid morning tomorrow so they might get attached on Sunday.
Saturday 17th Woke at 4:50 so i have time to go to the boat and thread the wind data cable through to the electronics. I am taking a mains extension cable so I can also do the soldering that is needed to attach the lightening arrester on the antenna cable. All the planned stuff was completed by 10:00 when I set off for the house.
Sunday Awake early so I put some time into collecting stuff together in the lounge ready to load the car. Empty cupboard so I should have all Beth’s stuff as well as the bookcases from the bedrooms, items from the garden and all the stuff Helen wanted from the house.
I did the St Francis service tech desk stuff – Slightly strange experience as I was around 1/3 of the usual distance from the speakers so had to resist the temptation to turn everything down. All worked OK in the new location but I still need to work on the cafe internet and lighting control cables.
Maria & Volodimir had invited me to their house for dinner but I persuaded Svetlana to explain to them that I needed to be on my way ASAP. Maria was not feeling too god anyway so hopefully hasn’t caught the bug off the kids.
Managed to get the car full just after 1pm and on my way to new Milton via Hereford and the caravan at Dorchester . Subsequently turned out that I forgot one Item Beth was expecting (the shelf with drawers that used to be at Grace’s house), didn’t have room for the box of coat hangers which Helen rather wanted and also forgot to collect the dog beach shelter and drying up towels from the caravan.
Stage one – Doncaster to Beth’s house 153 miles in 3 and a bit hours. Unpacked everything and paused for a cold drink and a helping of lactose free Ginger & Rhubarb cheesecake that Beth had made but which hadn’t set quite as expected. Still very nice though.
Stage two – Beth’s house to the caravan. 136 miles via Wales and the Severn bridge taking 3 hours. This route came as a bit of a surprise as I expected to stay in England and go back to the M5 further north than Bristol but it turned out to be a good fast route with no complications.
Stage three – Caravan to the house 45 miles in just under an hour.
Total Journey time was almost 9 hours so I had a bit of supper and went to bed.
Monday I managed to get Carl’s advice on the mooring strops and have ordered 10M of 16mm Octoplait rope and stainless steel thimbles to make four strops (1 for the bow, a pair for the stern and a spare) but still need to sort out floating pickup buoys and the sinking line that goes under the keel. I will also need some plastic tube to act as chafe protection and some fairleads that are large enough to work with the tube. Obviously we need to get all of that organised and installed before the boat arrives.
He also suggested that I should do the travel lift launch at Salterns boat yard just around the corner from the club rather than across in Wareham.
Tuesday The day started off with waiting for the Argos delivery (Garden sweeping brush and paper shredder). Then we set off to the caravan to collect the dog shelter and drying up cloths but still forgot to capture the caravan number plate so I will have to have another try at that or get Helen to order another one to use on the boat trailer.
The rope for my mooring strops is on it’s way so maybe a Thursday delivery?
Wednesday 21st Awake at 4:15 so another early breakfast and off to the boat to correct the wiring on the wind instrumentation and test the data reception using the laptop and hopefully the tablet computer too.
There was quite a bit of water in the usual locations so I plugged in the arduino system to pump it all out.
Ended up at Ascot Ave at about 9:00 having achieved very little at the boat. None of the serial port monitoring software seems to want to install on the laptop – Plenty of error messages about missing paths though. Maybe it is just not liking Windows 7.
I may have a working serial port monitoring tool. At least it installs and runs on the desktop computer so I am about to test it on the laptop from a memory stick. — complete failure as it doesn’t detect the serial port. Also the help files don’t work despite using the format that would be expected for windows 7.
At least one bit of boat activity has worked today – My mooring rope has arrived so I can play with splicing the soft eyes that go over the cleats.
Now have both “Open CPN” and “VMH Navigator” potentially connected to the boat WIFI data stream. The latter has plenty of charts accessible and they should also show up on Open CPN but for some reason they have remained invisible. There are a variety of scales covering from the Faroe islands down to Brittany.
Thursday Woke at 4am but got back to sleep after a drink. Woke again after 7 so got up had breakfast and headed to the boat. Marked out the mooring strop rope so I can splice the soft eyes for the bow strop and one of the stern ones. Later in the day I got a message from Helen that the thimbles have turned up in Hampshire – Must have been sent as a large letter rather than a parcel so was subject to our forwarding.
Friday Started the day with a trip to B&Q to get superglue, suitable cord for whipping the octoplait and some tube to use as anti-chafe.
Went home from the building work at about 6:00. I then started to make the mooring strop. The tube is a fairly close fit on the rope so it had to be pulled through using some cord. Not easy as the thin wall tube tries to turn itself inside out and needs fixing about every couple of inches. The first piece of anti-chafe tubing helpfully removed my insulating tape marker so about an hour into the project I had to do a trip to the boat to check the soft eye size. There are two pieces of anti chafe – One on the eye itself to protect from movement on the cleat and the other roughly the same length aimed at protecting where the line will pass over the bow roller.
After two attempts at the splice I have achieved a good looking item although I cannot do the other end yet as the thimbles have gone to Hampshire rather than Yorkshire due to the postal redirection. It looks as if the same may be happening to the electrical cable to finish off the lightning protection as I had an email that it will be delivered today but it hasn’t shown up in Doncaster .
Saturday 24th Another 6:00 start to the day. Went to the boat first just to check yesterday’s splicing and that the planned position for the second splice will give me a large enough eye to fit over the cleat. Also did a little painting on the missed patches of the wheels and on the piece of angle that I used to fix the wobbly jockey wheel a few years ago. Only there about half an hour before heading for Ascot avenue.
In the evening I did the second soft eye splices in the octoplait rope. Quicker this time as I think I have got the hang of it now.
Sunday 25th June Awake before 6 so plenty of time to get ready before the service. I spent some of that time trying to sort out the laptop and the main computer by removing unwanted services and programs in the hope of getting back some performance.
Ater church and a bike pickup trip that may get on the Ukrainian Centre’s social media feed it was all three families plus myself for lunch so it was after 4:00 that I got home. After a quick change of clothes I spent the evening sorting out more of the garage. I am intending if possible to get a lot of the tools and equipment into the car and taken south on Thursday because we both need to go to the sailing club for a “new members” meeting on Saturday.
Matthew has managed to buy me an inflatable tender on e-bay. It will need collecting from Manchester later in the week so possibly will be another item to pack into the car on Thursday.
Monday 6:30 start to the day so done with breakfast before 7:30. None of the main tasks of the day can be done before 10am so I need to cut off an old 6.5mm drill shank to see if I can create a throttle cable fixing pin for the outboard) therefore heading towards doing more garage sorting.
I packed in early to have a shower before taking Volodomir & Maria to the airport on their way back to Ukraine for a while. Notionally a 1 hr 26 minute journey according to google maps and close to that in reality but the satnav initially thought 1 hour. I left them on their way into the security checks at about 6 so achieved the intended timing despite road works and traffic delays.
While I was doing the airport trip Matthew & Annabel went to Manchester and collected the dingy for me so Matt will bring it to Ascot tomorrow.
My one bit of boat work for today was to start making a throttle cable retaining pin for the outboard – 6.5 mm (or at least the shank of a drill of that diameter) turns out to be too big to fit but I do have a chrome plated steel pin among the random bits in the garage that is the right sort of diameter. The plan now is to make a retaining device for that. – I got the pre bent mild steel channel out of the middle of a drawer runner and have enlarged a hole a little so the pin is a loose fit. This will now be welded into position and the long channel piece made to fit into the regular attachment points for the remote control. If I can organise the other end right that should prevent the pin working it’s way out of the “hole” on the crank case.
There is a post on watsap tonight to say that the concrete for the LSC yard extension is being delivered at 12:00 on Thursday so I have texted Helen suggesting I will now go down on Wednesday evening and aim to help.
Tuesday Breakfast all done by 5:30 so my plan is to go to the boat and tidy up a few more small jobs there including getting the old marine toilet out of the boat if I can.
Took a few items from the garage that belong on the boat. Similarly I retrieved my stainless steel seizing wire to use on the mooring thimbles once I get to Hampshire and can retrieve them. Another order turned up there today so my other length of grounding cable is also waiting for me.
The toilet came apart unexpectedly easily – Seems the bowl was attached using stainless steel bolts and brass or bronze nuts so the corroded green mess undid very easily and both parts then came out through the hatch with no problems.
We also did the transfer of the dingy into my car.
Rest of the evening spent sorting out the tender. That included making the painter more secure (bowline plus a stopper knot rather then round turn & half hitches as they didn’t look secure) and properly stopping it fraying by doing a back splice (slight cheat in that I last tried to do a crown knot age 13 on my day boat course at Lymington – Had to cheat using the internet for the crown knot but at least I remembered what it was called!).
Wednesday Went to the boat first thing to deliver a few items there.
I went home from working on the house at 11:45, loaded up the car and grabbed a sandwich lunch before setting off on the drive to New Milton. By the time I had the concrete laying tools, Beth’s shelf, all the items Helen wanted and the caravan cover and similar items in the car there was not a lot of room for garage items. Most of what got moved was parts boxes as there was not enough space to seriously consider putting in tool boxes or other large items.
Journey worked out very close to the original estimate so I arrived about 5:20.
Thursday As the message said the concrete was due at 12 we aimed to get to LSC for 11:00 to allow time to get organised. They had also allowed some time as the real planned arrival is 1pm but that did mean I was involved in the planning and had seen what we were taking on before there were many others present.
Helen and Dawn met up around 1:00 and went with Jane to have coffee at the cafe associated with a marina just up the road.
We actually ended up with a very large team and far more tools than were needed. I was assigned to operating the vibrating poker that ensures good fill of the poured materials so my set didn’t get used. As that was a continuous task I ended up in a lot of the photos and definitely earned the sign off on my “provisional membership” sheet.
Set off back to New Milton around 4:00 having been among the first to arrive and there were only a couple of people still there when we left.