This one is the first of my “As we go” blog entries. I really should also put in the retrospective bit to explain how I come to be able to progress with my boat restoration when, like everyone else in the country, I am supposed to be on what has been termed ‘lockdown’ in response to the Covid-19 virus. If you haven’t read that bit, go back and read it some time and just for now accept that the boat is also locked down because we are not allowed to do any un-necessary traveling as would be required to return her to the storage site where she was previously languishing. If you have read from there you will know that I have made use of that problem by making a lot of progress while she is so close to home.
This long weekend’s progress started with sanding the last major part of the cabin interior. Up to now the area around the table has been doubling up as a work area and dumping ground for all the tools and other items that have to be moved out of other areas to allow me to work on them. By Saturday morning it is all looking great after 2 coats of gloss white and with the lining board back in place. There’s a very slight cheat in that not all the insulation is in place 
behind that board because I ran out of sleeping mats and havent yet got another one ordered. It will have to come out again soon anyway because the storage pods on both sides need washing, sanding and painting and the front varnishing. The port window also still needs to be removed and refurbished with fresh rubber however the weather forecast towards the end of the weekend is for rain so I am avoiding that particular job again.
Three parcels arrived on Saturday with parts that I ordered during the week so I now have the cables and could install the Solar cell charge 
controller – Until the lockdown that system seemed a distant plan for the future as I was thinking I needed to launch with the minimum possible and add helpful but non-essential items later. Now seems easier to do it on the drive before the cabin headlining is fitted.
The other part of that mini project will take a lot longer though as the flexible solar panel needs a mounting frame because the radius of the top of the hatch cover is too tight for the panel. Maximum ‘arch’ over the panel length is based on a 3M radius and the cover curve radius is 1.8 M near the mast and 2.2M at the aft end. Even working those measurements out took time because the PDF drawings that I have are too small to allow accurate measurements so it was a case of measuring the arch on the real cover and working back to find the radius of the curve so I can draw it out onto plywood. Used a thrown together device for the drawing but it seems to have worked well enough and I have two rough templates based on the measured curves and a 3.3M bend radius for the panel. The idea is to build a wooden support structure on top of the hatch cover, add fiberglass mat to fair it into the original cover and for strength and waterproofing. This will then be painted and re-fitted.
Sunday 10th dawned grey, windy & wet. Quite a contrast to yesterday and the temperature has dropped something like 10 degrees C. Definitely a cardigan & inside jobs day.
Mainly concentrating on fixing the bilge pump plumbing in place through the heads compartment and across the cabin ceiling. If that sounds a little strange to you it is because, for right or wrong, I have been reading that one way valves in bilge pump plumbing can be a problem and that to avoid flooding of the boat when it is healed over you should take the pipes as high as you can. My interpretation of that is to discharge the bow compartment’s pump to port and the main cabin locker pump to starboard so the outlets are on the opposite side of the hull to the pumps. Unless you look in the heads compartment or hanging locker nobody will be able to see that as the headlining will conceal the pipes at ceiling level.
I have also been trying to work out how best to attach the plywood headlining backing onto the cabin roof which has resulted in me removing the roughly installed wooden blocks that used to do the job above the galley. I have a theory about having visible oak strips with the headlining up against them at the edge and screwed upwards into a protruding section which is fiberglassed onto the roof. Just needs to be more effective than the previous version and preferably a neater final install.
Afternoon spent 
assembling the waste water holding tank and trying to get it into the forward locker where it would preferably be. Not as easy as the summary might suggest because there is quite a lot of stuff that I moved on to the V berths while I painted in the main cabin and install the solar controller. Although the tank will fit in the locker, the closure plate makes it too large even without the plumbing attached. Not enough room in the heads compartment so the third place to try is the main locker in the cabin. I also considered putting it in the electrical locker or even the space under the cockpit behind the engine but both of those would involve installing multiple pipes around half the boat length so main locker it will be. I also looked at the possibility of getting a smaller tank but the one I cannot get in seems to be the smallest one I can find on the internet. Maybe this is why a lot of boats have caravan type cassette or portable toilets rather than the traditional marine version.