A few things have happened since I last wrote, due in the most part to the brief bout of nice weather I have been enjoying. It took two attempts to re-rope and wire the mast, it was simply too cold to work and the aluminium conducted the heat away from my fingers so quickly I was unable to perform even the most simple task.
Happily the weather improves and with the benefit of hindsight I stripped the stiff copper wire out of some household heavy duty electrical cabling and used that to gently push down the mast from the top. Once I was through I pulled some monofilament back up the mast and used that to pull ropes and wires into place. All in all it took about an hour to complete.
It was fun seeing the mast go up and rewarding to see things broadly fit where they were meant to. I pulled the boom out of the boat and fitted it to the mast for the first time in many many years - and that is where my fun began! In the days of old you would pop down to your local chandler, describe or show him the bit you needed and he would hand you one straight away. Normally at great expense. Let's face it the chandler is not doing it out of the goodness of his heart alone, he probably has a much nicer boat than you that he is trying to keep alive. However, these days we do like to order online but in order to search for bits we need to know the name if it, and blimey can that be tricky! In order to attach the kicker I needed a thingy, like a rod with a coin welded on the top. So I searched Force4 marine online for clues and what a nightmare that was. They have an excellent website, great kit and good prices, but I simply could not find the part I was looking for.
I went for a walk, my favourite way to get the creative juices flowing and while on that walk I bumped into my town's very own artisan - he can make anything from oil paintings to boats, a hero of mine. I mentioned my problem to him and he immediately said "Ahh yes, its called a kicker key". A few minutes later and using only my mobile phone I had ordered one.
Boats have lots of weird things attached to them and many have bizarre names, the downside of the Internet is that you now have to learn them whereas before you simply pointed at the object on the shelf and grunted.
As you can see from the picture below she was really dirty too.
This was a combination of mould, filth and tree sap, a deadly combination that is hard to remove. I researched many solutions some varying from the outrageously expensive to the sell-a-kidney. They all promised the Earth but I really did not want to pay that much for a tub of something which might not actually work. In the end I spoke with some of the old boys at the club and took their canny advice.
So, you know how much it cost me to get the boat from dirty black to shiny white? About 64p (about a buck for our American chums). I used supermarket own cream cleaner and a scrubbing brush. It was a remarkably enjoyable job because it really felt like I was making progress.
So I have to reseal the windows, fit the cabling to the deck glands and then rewire the interior. For the mast top I have a windex and antenna combination that I like plus a groovy LED tri/mooring combination.
As for the big jobs remaining I am going to show you the rudder work and tiller handle in another post.
In the meantime, my fine seafaring friends, happy days and fun nights to you all!
