Its been some time.................

But now i'm back i can concentrate on the tasks at hand; principally getting the boat into a more boat-like state, starting with the waterline.

Having spent alot of time building that box cradle to mimic how the boat would sit in the water i totally overlooked that it now sits on railway sleepers and realised only after applying data i took form the hull many years ago that something was amiss.

So the search was on to collect some data from other Centaur', having found a couple locally i duely measured & recorded their waterlines then emailed Tony Corcoran and Mike Lofthouse to see if i could measure their boats seeing as they're both in the water and would therefore give a more definitive measurement.

I can now announce my findings (for anyone wanting to re-do their Centaurs marks) that if you were to measure down vertically from the bottom of the rubbing strake down the middle of the transom at around 760mm would be where the water laps the hull; likewise if you did the same down the stem from underneath the bottom of edge of the horseshoe stem fitting at approximately 1270mm you'd hit water.

I bought the laser and stand for £120, to join these two measurements up, all of this was important as i didn't want to build out the interior and then put the boat in the water only to find i was entering the twilight zone, rather worryingly i have already glassed in the main bulkhead but luckily the boat only had to drop 10mm down at the bow which resulted in the bubble moving off the vertical but still between the two check marks on the level.

What else? oh yes i've been acquiring machines although not the easy way as like everything in my world it wasn't before a brain-aching challenge which was to build a 12" thicknesser out of two dead machines kindly gifted to me by elder brother Richard. So we now have thicknessing capabilities, just need some wood i guess.

I've made the worlds longest list of jobs to do to get the boat upto being craned over and back to the wet stuff, it is a good feeling ticking things off; makes me feel like i'm getting somewhere. Nearly forgot to mention my new favourite supplier; Timbmet.com.

I'm bigging these guys up as they finally solved the 1.5mm plywood mystery in which no one would supply it in the sizes and quantities i wanted and then after a final google on the subject and a phone call later found out not only that they would supply me with no minimum quantities and at a decent price but they were on my door step too, again like Marineware i'm nothing more than a satisfied customer.