Time…….., Man hours, minutes lost, extreme seconds, days wasted, regretted years and yet we all have trouble using it well and would like to be able to re live small or bigger parts of our lives. Hindsight is 20/20 vision, or so they say, and yet I have no major regrets over this project if only that we had given ourselves a little more time! I suppose that passion can overcome the hardest of tasks, and keep one motivated to the end and this is one of those times. We are late, the pressure is on, people drag their behinds when they should be grafting and yet would we have it any other way? Or has it ever been any different? Such seems to be the way of the world; less than perfect. This is a human adventure in every respect and all drawn together by a near hundred year old boat that was happily rotting away undisturbed and a long dead designer who is probably writhing in his grave wondering why the hell we idiots didn’t restore it in carbon fibre! There is a Murphy’s Law poster in the down stairs bathroom of my parent’s house that has probably been there for the last 25 years and the quote that springs to mind from it is: “the light at the end of the tunnel is actually the headlamp of the oncoming train”. In my 30 years of involvement in yachting, I have yet to be part of a major refit that was on time, no matter how hard we tried to be.
We are inexorably forging ahead towards the launch and the boat is now almost fully waterproof. All through hulls are in and plumbing has commenced. The electrical conduit is also placed and we will endeavour to run some cables soon. The engine is in place and I am working on the fitting of the custom P bracket. Meanwhile the butterfly hatches, companionway, original Samson post have been fitted and the keel joint has been caulked. The lead has also been cleaned off and primed with epoxy, ready for fairing. Work continues on the interior but is slow to finish. The bilges have been painted out and Sandra has made great inroads with the leather. The rigging arrived and has been checked against the mast which has now received 9 coats of varnish and another 6 coats will finish it. The toe rail is well advanced, speed stripe routered, and hull fairing is continuing. We were joined last week by our crew man, Guillaume, and he has really taken the bull by the horns. Also, “Elephant Man” Andrew showed up on Sunday for a week and has spent Monday lovingly caressing the elephant!

More next week,

Jono.