The work on Argonauta progresses. This Easter weekend we planed to get the bottom of the boat sorted. So Friday morning saw us with sanders in hand smoothing the old girls bottom. Dust and muck abounded all around. I felt slightly sorry for the owner of the glossy black BMW parked in the car park behind us, and hoped we finished before he came back to find his car covered on a thick covering of blue dust. Nathaniel & a friend Michael helped and completed the sanding of the Hull whilst Jackie set to with a wire brush on the drill to the rust spots on the keel. This done we treated the keel to a coat of epoxy primer to seal it and then set to anti-fouling the hull. After a couple of hours the now black hull looked much improved with the first coat. We then beat a hasty retreat before Mr BMW came back.
Next morning we woke to the challenge of getting the second coat on. It was a case of mind willing but bodies certainly weren't . That said we dragged our aching limbs into the car and headed back to the boat again. This time without the assistance of the two young men of yesterday. She seemed to have grown to twice the size overnight. The second coat on the hull was further added to as we now had to cover the keel in anti-fouling as well. Three tins down at £70.00 a tin for anti-fouling and £36.00 for the epoxy primer this was no cheap slap and dash paint job. Argonauta now looks smart with her below waterline area covered in matt black, a bit like a submarine. We still have however to polish the hull, another arm aching exercise. But that will have to wait another week.
Sunday stiffer & with even more aches saw us fitting the fridge components, the keel cooler had been fitted so now we had to run all the pipework to the compressor and drill holes to allow them all to meet up under the cooker. Why do we seem to spend all our time making holes in this craft. At the last count we made 9 additional external holes in her since October. I beginning to think that Edward Lear was right when he stated 'they went to sea in a sieve'! We certainly seem to have enough holes. Following this we fitted our new instrument panel and wired up the new VHF radio and music system the number of wires behind there is a mass of spaghetti but Jackie's thin hands managed to get in and sort it out as Pete's were too big to go through the radios aperture. We will have to wait to next week to see if we've got it all right as we don't have power till then to test with. By now the rain had set in so the sign-age due to be fitted to the outside would have to wait till next week as Monday was a day off and we were due to see Pete's brother and family for the last time before our departure in May.