Following a very comfortable five days at mum's whilst waiting for about eighty packages to arrive from various suppliers, my friend Tony very kindly acquired the loan of a Sprinter van for Sunday into which we loaded a massive amount of boatie gear and set off to the Hayling Yacht Company, Quasar IV's home for the past six years. At last, we can get the sorely needed refurbishment work underway. On arriving at 'HYC', via the Port Solent Marine Superstore (B&Q for yachties but not as cheap...), the van was duly unloaded next to the boat where upon we were met with out first real challenge of the day. As the boat is out of the water 'shored up' (aka 'on stilts out of the water'), all of the gear on the ground had to be moved up onto the deck then down into a cabin already packed full of sails, fenders, cockpit cushions, life-rings, technical gear from deck, etc, etc. So, starting with five batteries at 25kg each....an hour later we had everything on board just as the rain started. Now, to get it all down below! Anyway, we are now here with all our gear, replacement equipment, food, water and thermal sleeping bags as the cabin is about 8 DegC every morning due to no operational heating at the moment. I am on the case but it is not the top priority believe it or not! WE have about three weekes to get the boat into a state suitable for launching and moving to a berth in the water at HYC where we will be staying another month, at least, to complete our work. The task list is massive; quite a bit of time this week has been associated with refamiliarisation of the boat systems - electrics, plumbing, engine (new), and the most important of all, identifying why the boat was taking on water for about 1,000 miles when returning across the Atlantic in June 2010! After a week here, we think we have finally cracked this and identified the cause; one of three bilge hoses has at least three weak points in it and two areas look punctured. Spare hoses are being picked up next Wednesday and an additional isolation valve being fitted to prevent any chance of a recurrance. So, what else? Installed a temporary cooker, new toilet and shower in the rear 'heads', replaced the engine battery and four 'service' batteries (the ones that provide our main power when afloat and sailing), rigged up a solar panel for battery charging, repaired the wind generator which is generating a MASSIVE amount of power tonight during our ongoing Force 8 (!), stripped out a large amount of redundant electrical cabling and plumbing hoses, tested the fridge and main water pumps, partially installed the Eberspacher diesel heater (not finished yet), and repaired numerous other small bits and pieces. We have removed the windscreen from its frame which is now away at Sunlight Plastics to be used as a template for a replacement, due in three weeks. Tracey has also been incredibly busy with all of this and cleaning the deck which resembled a small forest when we arrived, started removing the cockpit teak-faced plywood seats with a chisel ready for new synthetic 'aged' seats to be installed, hard wearing and long lasting, sorting out the galley into a useable space, making the V-berth suitable for sleeping in, a small corner of the saloon available for eating (out of the rain and wind!), removing mildew from walls, bulkheads and lockers, and most importantly, cleaning the transom of the boat so that the name 'QUASAR IV' can now be read again! We have a fellow Westerly Oceanlord neighbour, Malcolm, here on SALUKI who has also provided some inspirational ideas and magic liquids for restoring our brass cabin lights amongst other things. Mark T has already visited and is assisting us this coming week with some transport logistics from Port Solent as well as offering beer, curry, a hot shower and a washing machine - luxury!! So, all in all, a pretty busy week, but we still managed to get to the Maypole Pub on Friday night for a couple of beers and an excellent meal before returning to the boat to watch the concluding part of John le Carre's Night Manager - what an outstanding series! That's it for now, next week's update may include all the work that should have been completed by the boatyard before we arrived, however....! This year's weather so far has been a crippler for the boatyard so we are working together to ensure everything is completed in time for us to depart...this year that is :-)