Mid January 2018

Some fairing has been done to the hull to reduce as much as possible of the weld repairs. Sanding of the hull has continued specifically at the waterline.

Welding has also continued.
The chain locker has been completed...or at least welded in. On deck, quite a few pinholes and deck rust was attended to. The caprail was receiving more repairs. The largest 'hot work' that still needs to be done is the cutting and welding in of the bow thruster tube.
Other than that its just a whole lot of finishing off / 'if Andrew isn't satisfied', and tacking structure for conduiting and piping.....

All the flooring other than the saloon, has been bonded to the boards. Once placed, they will receive mastic jointing before the final sand and seal.

The water tanks, genny and engines, with all mountings have been placed, and a temporary floor placed. All grey / black / holding tanks have been and are being joined / ground down. Total capacity approx 200 to 250 L per grey /black tank (2x), and approx 75 to 100 L for the holding tank (1x).
The below deck / side lockers templates are being prepared for glass fibre.

Painting of furniture backings are continuing. The forward cabin existing lockers have been removed. New partitioning and lockers are in process.

The galley furniture has been 'dry fitted'......basically units are cut up to suit the layout, before being removed and glassed into final units in the workshop. Obviously a discussion happened. A few changes from the design, but these are understandable. The biggest change from the design was the internal helm / nav area. Basically the nav area will be lost and the internal helm station will become a 'residual' space. Not 'ideal', but usable as a once in a blue moon space.

Shafts have been pulled......and they are stuffed it seems !
Andrew is going to take them for x-rays at which point we will decide whether we can salvage or not. One good thing is that they are currently 45mm dia. IF....and its a big IF.....the pitting isn't more than 2.5mm deep, we should be able to resize the existing shaft to 40mm dia. Yes we could go down to 38mm but 40 is a readily available standard size so.....!
We shall wait and see. Not sure were we will get the money from but.....!!

The rudder shaft still has to be pulled. Not overly concerned about this as it seems to be standard heavy gauge steel tube with flanges welded on.......but......

Something I forgot to mention in previous posts. The boat will now be a marconi rigged staysail schooner, as opposed to the gaff rigged.

Basically Andrew 'found' a set of alu masts and sails - all never used before - which was originally for a Barends Sea Trader, 45ft, approx 25T, I think !Cut a long story, we took a chance and purchased as it was a VERY good deal - for the same amount as we allowed for the 2 new steel mast. ....and we get a set of never been used sails, which we hadn't budgeted for now !
We just need to make sure that the rig meets our aesthetic and structural requirements !

Program seems to have moved a bit ! Last estimated completion was end March 2018. Now end April........

For images see Favourites 'January 2018'