I got to first base!
Dude, don’t, just don’t!
Hello everyone. Meet Zed – Director of Operations for BeastInTheHead Inc. This is what I imagine he’s been muttering under his breath since last weekend. He is NOT a happy bunny. I’ll explain why shortly. Zed and I go back at least 30 years. We were at school together, we worked together, his mum is my mum, my mum is his mum, both of whom hung their heads in frustration at our shenanigans when we were growing up. He was the best man at my wedding (the first one). He’s pretty much given up on me when it comes to love and well… actually everything else too. He’s the sensible one, the one blessed with artistic and technical skills. We’re Dumb and Dumber. It is he who I turn to for sage advice when I need it. I still ignore said advice but he is wise and old and it’s always good to have at least one wise person in your life.
Right, enough nostalgia, let me get on with what I want to tell you. This post pretty much catches you up to present day in the life of The Accidental Sailor series of posts. I will strive to write more often, but no promises. There are other posts in the pipeline, little snippets to augment the whole series so you get an understanding of the chaos that is me.
I was down at the boat last weekend doing what I hate most. Sanding. Will it ever fucking end? I bloody hope so! I’m getting impatient waiting to start repairing fibreglass, something I’ve never done and then move on to painting. The sanding was mostly concentrated in one place. The little strip of fibreglass that runs around the boat. I want to call it the rub-rail it’s the part that the wooden trim was attached to. This is the part of the boat that I’m going to restore properly first. There was a lot of damage, mostly caused by me ripping the trim off in anger, helped of course by the fact that Fuckwit had glued it on with the strongest adhesive known to mankind.
Look at how damaged it was. Note the green stuff growing on the damage. In this series of pictures I’ve included other plant life that has found its way on to my boat. I really have neglected her.
I spent most of the day sanding that rub-rail and it’s actually turned out quite ok. I may not but probably will try and make it look better with a bit of fibreglass filling. The decision is up in the air. I want to paint it and then attach new wood trim, so most of the damage would be hidden. We’ll see. Have a look, pretty good job eh?
I finished sanding about an hour or so before I planned on going home. I could have spent that hour still sanding but as has become the norm I got bored with it all and decided I’d like to get on to doing something else. More fun, more productive, anything other than sand. It was a bastardly hot day and for the most part sunny too. So I was topping up my tan sans t-shirt. I never do fucking learn. A thought ocured to me. Since I was in Essex, it was sunny, summer and hot most people drive around with their car roofs down to help. Decision time.
Should I take the roof of of my boat? After all the inside part of the roof in the cabin is a complete mess, is difficult to get to with any tool and to be honest my lanky arse struggles in such a cramped space. Additionally, I could even get the roof home and work on it there because working on all things boat related at home always ends well.
Decision made and now armed with one of my favourite tools I started to take her top off. Much like getting a bra off I struggled at first but the more I did the easier it got. My favourite tool happens to be an electric multi-tool. You can sand, grind, cut and some other things which I’ve not figured out yet.
After almost two years I finally got to see my girl topless. Boy was it a sight to behold. I managed to drag the severed top off of the boat and rest it against the hull. In my defence, can you see how absolutely vile the roof is? I am 100% vindica….
No you aren’t you fucking loon!
You do know you’ve fucked the structural integrity of the boat right?
Pah! It’ll be fine!
Oh, right. Well that’s me told. To be honest I am worrying a little bit about my decision to see my girl topless. On the plus side, it’s so much easier to wander around in the boat now. Most of her is very accessible with tools.
The thing about me is, is that I don’t think about the consequences until I’ve done something. So to get a bit of validation I spoke to Zed. He was not happy at all and he said I may as well cut the whole thing up and buy a new boat. He also added this:
Pfdft. What does Zed know? He likes planes not boats. So I decided I’d get further validation from the Facebook group. Like I mentioned before, they’re hard to read:
At the time of writing 57 people have read this post. I think they’re all skeptical that I’ll ever get the boat on water. I think everyone is. Especially Zed, who after reading this post will probably be muttering the same words under his breath as at the start of the post.
If I was looking for validation for what I’d done I didn’t get it. Brave and nerves of steel. That’s me. Yep.
Special Thanks: To Zed for allowing me to use his picture.