I had no particular need to rush so sorted out a few things at home before hitting the road late morning.
The overhead signs on the A14 were warning of long delays between Huntingdon and Cambridge and the sat nav confirmed the bad news so I diverted onto the back roads to pick up the B645 to St Neots.
That made for a slower than usual journey but not as slow as getting stuck in ten miles of stationary traffic would have been!
Arriving on board, I picked up a phone call about a job on a boat here in the marina and arranged to have a look on Sunday morning. I'm hanging around until then waiting on parts and news of possible jobs.
I was disappointed to discover that I'd narrowly missed the raising of the mast on the Thames Sailing Barge Ironsides, I'd hoped to get involved with that cos I'm a sucker for anything traditional!
The sun was out and the day was warm so I decided to get stuck in to sanding down the exterior woodwork. The really good scrub I gave everything last week revealed how shabby it was all getting.
The palm sander I picked up cheap in B&Q the other day made the bulk of the job much quicker and after about four hours I'd dealt with everything I could get at with it bar the port rubbing strake. I'll have to turn the boat round to get at that
I was aware of one dodgy spot on the starboard rubbing strake and when I'd sanded off the grunge and gunk, it revealed itself to be worse than I'd hoped. About six inches of strake to one side of a scarf has two cracks either side of the screw now barely holding it in place.
It probably needs cutting out and a new section scarfing in but that's too big a job to tackle right now so I injected fast setting epoxy as deep into the cracks add I could and held it all together while it set. Being wise to the ways of glue, I kept moving my fingers to ensure that Erbas and I didn't become permanently attached!
Once the epoxy had set off, it was out with the wood filler to make good as best as I could. It won't be perfect and it isn't a permanent fix but it'll hopefully see is through this season.
By half five I'd had enough and I was feeling hungry. With rain forecast for the morrow, I put the spray hood and cockpit tent back up. It's not so big a job once you know how it goes
If the rain holds off, the next job is hand sanding all the bits the power sander can't get at.
With the boat back together, I toddled off to the yacht station and made a nuisance of myself for a while watching Toby sorting out the rigging on the barge. Everything is massive compared to a yacht (the rig alone weighs well nigh double the displacement of Erbas)
Then it was off to the pub for grub and a couple of pints before heading back on board for an early night
The overhead signs on the A14 were warning of long delays between Huntingdon and Cambridge and the sat nav confirmed the bad news so I diverted onto the back roads to pick up the B645 to St Neots.
That made for a slower than usual journey but not as slow as getting stuck in ten miles of stationary traffic would have been!
Arriving on board, I picked up a phone call about a job on a boat here in the marina and arranged to have a look on Sunday morning. I'm hanging around until then waiting on parts and news of possible jobs.
I was disappointed to discover that I'd narrowly missed the raising of the mast on the Thames Sailing Barge Ironsides, I'd hoped to get involved with that cos I'm a sucker for anything traditional!
The sun was out and the day was warm so I decided to get stuck in to sanding down the exterior woodwork. The really good scrub I gave everything last week revealed how shabby it was all getting.
The palm sander I picked up cheap in B&Q the other day made the bulk of the job much quicker and after about four hours I'd dealt with everything I could get at with it bar the port rubbing strake. I'll have to turn the boat round to get at that
I was aware of one dodgy spot on the starboard rubbing strake and when I'd sanded off the grunge and gunk, it revealed itself to be worse than I'd hoped. About six inches of strake to one side of a scarf has two cracks either side of the screw now barely holding it in place.
It probably needs cutting out and a new section scarfing in but that's too big a job to tackle right now so I injected fast setting epoxy as deep into the cracks add I could and held it all together while it set. Being wise to the ways of glue, I kept moving my fingers to ensure that Erbas and I didn't become permanently attached!
Once the epoxy had set off, it was out with the wood filler to make good as best as I could. It won't be perfect and it isn't a permanent fix but it'll hopefully see is through this season.
By half five I'd had enough and I was feeling hungry. With rain forecast for the morrow, I put the spray hood and cockpit tent back up. It's not so big a job once you know how it goes
If the rain holds off, the next job is hand sanding all the bits the power sander can't get at.
With the boat back together, I toddled off to the yacht station and made a nuisance of myself for a while watching Toby sorting out the rigging on the barge. Everything is massive compared to a yacht (the rig alone weighs well nigh double the displacement of Erbas)
Then it was off to the pub for grub and a couple of pints before heading back on board for an early night
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