Backwards Forwards..................

The reason i say that is the last few months i've been going back to various points in the project and re-doing or re-working the original ideas, I realise i'm making this project up as i go along now, the cockpit lockers being a great example. Sitting on my mates Griffon getting drunk whilst looking into a cavenous cockpit locker got the synapses firing (even after many bottles of Henry Westons Oak-Aged neuron killer) and thought i can do that on mine.

Even now i see ideas all the time in all manner of places & situations and go; brilliant that'll work on the boat, the latest epiphany was the boats interior as i'm almost ready to fit the engine my mind turned to the cabin/living area and after much sitting around in the dust and mess measuring and chin-rubbing i concluded it'd be easier to rip the lot out and start again.

Not - you understand - that the decision was taken lightly as i want to paint before winter and with the rather parlous state my finances are in, the sensible money would say sand off the snots of resin and start wet-sanding the interior back to life but the essence.....no the pivot (Elgar's Nimrod playing softly in the background) around which this project articulates is creating the ultimate Centaur.

(Elgar still playing............but rather louder now.)

I will not make an original.......(yawn)..........concours......... (mega yawn) exact copy of a boat with all the inherent problems like; (sharp intake of breathe) the headlining, the wobbly keels, the leaking companionway, the condensation problems, the leaky windows, the crap looking factory coamings (imo), the non-exsistent access to........uh - everything; together with the inconsistent build quality.

All these things ladies and gentlemen.....(your ranting now........no i'm not)  are to be eradicated on my boat, a modern Centaur if you will and we'll go to the moon and do the other things...................what??? (sound of needle dragging across a record)...............er..............sorry - got a bit carried away there.

But seriously trying to create this boat is hard as the brief is still forming (even after all this time i know) i mean i love this project but hate it in equal measure; I love it because i know i will create a masterpiece (in my eyes) but hate it for the years of my life its taken but you know what? I can't do a half-arsed job, i really can't, its hardwired into my DNA and who knows where the money's gonna come from to finish it?

But finish it i will.....................................i wonder if i have got OCD? I know i like the drinks coaster on my desk square to the edge.

I can almost touch it...............................................

Yes i have conquered the engine bay, no more will i have to crawl around this bloody space getting covered in glass dust and other crap. All the glass work was finished today (Sunday) so when i have the time i'll re-drill the holes in the Aluminium plates now bonded into the bulkheads and fit the newly-powder-coated steel angle then its chain hoist in the shed roof and get the lump in.

Got a bit giddy wiping the penultimate list off the wipe-clean board this afternoon, after this i need to attack the interior get the windows and coamings finished and we can paint.

I bit the bullet and bought the mega expensive cleats and stanchion bases i was whinging about last month but not before i sold a load of old cordless tools i no longer use on ebay to raise the money. I went a different route to start with and what got delivered was a load of damaged, poorly-made rubbish.

So after a bit of soul searching i decided there was only one way i'd find nirvana: that was buying the right gear (even if it is limb money) as i'd only regret fitting the other rubbish and you spend a long time looking at things like that on a boat......well i do,............ sad i know. 

Still the last bit of glass work in the engine bay was also my most ambitious as i went 'wet method' so cut large pieces of cloth to go from the middle of the bulkhead down onto the bilge four times in 600g bi-ax. I decided i'd do it in two hits of two each side, starting on port as that was the more uncomfortable side for me so didn't want to tackle it tired, i even penciled on the bilge where to put my feet so as not to tread in the freshly rolled cabosil.

I say ambitious as the space is so confined and squating half-in half-out with a one metre long roll of soaking wet cloth in rubber-gloved hands got me thinking i'd bitten off more than i could chew but to my amazement everything went swimmingly.

If there were any flies in the ointment it was rolling out the last two panels for the starboard side on a piece of 4mm ply i was using as my wet board, which by then had a heap of already setting epoxy from the previous three hits and was starting to gel. I only realised this when i tried to roll the newly-wetted cloth onto the cardboard roll and realised i had a battle on my hands, it came up off the ply but only after i'd stretched it way out of shape but the gods were smiling and i managed to roll most of the rucks and creases out of it in the bay. I sanded the rest out this morning to lay the final panel on the bilge floor, i just hope the gods smile on me a bit longer as i'm still determined to paint this thing asap, i'd hoped in August but somehow time and circumstance seem to conspire against me, here's hoping.

Rog