Well that’s day one of the weekend at the boat completed. Was it successful? Not quite. I had a plan of action for the day but as always absolutely diddly shit went as expected. I may as well have wiped my arse with that to-do list for all the fucking good it did today. It’s been a long and wet day truth be told. Shall we start with the positive?
Well for starters I had a to-do list. That’s a massive improvement on how I used to do things with the old boat. Mark that as a win. Points deducted for handwriting I guess, I am left-handed remember. A special case.
FINALLY after 4 months of trying and getting stymied, all the bumpers are off the boat! Another win. The boat has gone from full on zebra, to half-arsed zebra to white stallion. Points deducted for not supporting the weight of the bottom bumper starboard side. The result? A bigger than expected hole where the last loose bolt was ripped out. Cue having to fish for the fucking bumper with a broom. I think the hull looks a lot better and after repairs and a fresh coat of paint it’ll look even better.
Tarpaulins, well this isn’t so much a win, but a lesson learned. If you recall I rushed down to the boat a week or so ago and smacked tarpaulins over the larger holes in the cockpit. The thinking behind this was it’d stop or at least slow water getting into the engine bay and then flowing into the cabin. To be fair the tarpaulins seemed to have at least slowed the volume of water getting in the boat. Of course it was a Beasty Botch Job and after clearing out the water from the engine bay I looked up at the tarpaulins and they were hanging lower than Dolly Parton’s lady bumps. Have a video. Can you see the bump theme yet?
So, before I finished up today I tried a new tarpaulin strategy. We’ll see how well this works. I’m back tomorrow, there’s rain due overnight and tomorrow thanks to Storm Ashley.
When I say rain, I mean rain. See what I had to deal with today.
During the week, whilst I’ve not been down to the boat, I’ve been in The Meth Lab cooking up those fibreglass back panels. I had a few pieces of fibreglass left over and took them down with me to the boat in case they came in handy. They did. There are drainage holes leading from the engine bay into the cabin, which is really starting to irritate me more than my genital warts. I jumped into action, cut suitably sized pieces of fibreglass and tried epoxy gluing them over the holes. I haven’t quite mastered the art of epoxy glue yet, I thought you just added the resin and hardener and Bob’s your uncle. Yes I made sure the area was dry and clean before using the glue. Anyway, gaffa tape to the rescue. Again. This is a temporary measure.
Speaking of holes and leaks, I discovered two more today. Both are in the cabin ceiling. Sometimes it is beneficial to be there when it rains. I had no clue. The leaks are from where some brackets have been fitted to the outside of the cabin. I say fitted, I mean screwed directly into the fibreglass. They’re not massive leaks thank god. Another job to add to my growing list.
Oh, diesel. I almost forgot about the diesel. Whilst rolling around the engine bay like a happy little pig in shit undoing the bumper bolts I had a little diesel incident. There was a metal pipe that was geting in my way so I broke it off to get better access to one of the bolts. Of course there was still diesel in the tank, and of course I had a smoke on the go. Apparently diesel doesn’t ignite with naked flames. According to Zed. I’ve just fact checked him:
Yes, diesel can ignite with a naked flame, but it takes longer than gasoline because diesel has a higher ignition temperature.
This is why I love the man, full of random, seemingly useless facts but he’s always bloody right.
Last bit. I welcomed 3 new members to my family of backing plates this week. The original family is here.
