Still waiting for word on work but in the meantime got an interesting call Wednesday from a fellow wood butcher and good mate Lakey as to how busy i was. Having told him i was mid conversion on the van, he asked do i fancy working on a classic yacht?
Fuck yeah! And it turns out its 20 minutes down the road, turned up Thursday to a barn in the forest to be greeted by a 50 year old Robert Clark sloop, very imposing it is too. Overall shes in pretty good shape, just the external condition of the hull needs seeing to. So tools out and straight to work, the first day was spent drilling vertically through the newly fitted toe-rail and fitting a series of bolts via galleries cut into the hull, i understand its to provide a bit more strength locally in that part of the boats structure where the genoa cars attach.
Without sounding too cheesy its nice working with hand tools too, shaping and profiling various bits and pieces to attach to the boat, yeasterday i got to cut and shape some timber to plug a couple of old skin fitting holes and then spent the rest of the day re-instating the cove line around the top of the gunwale where the new toerails been scarfed in. Theres something rather satisfyiing about finely sanding a cove (half round) into solid teak and more importantly being left alone to get on with it, much prefer to do this sort of work then site carpentry if i'm honest, i'm there next week and then see where we're at but for the time being i'm loving the change in disiplines.
Hi Roger
ReplyDeleteI think you should change your website name and subtitle back to how it was.
Totally understand the future funding issue but let that not cloud your judgement or mood.
You have done an absolutely amazing job on the yacht thus far and have everything to be proud of and upbeat about.
Leaving aside the big ticket funding items which clearly need big cheques to resolve could you not focus on the small ticket but high labour cost (your labour cost), particularly as the weather begins to warm up. Forgive me for chipping in I just think you need to see progress even if the funding of the big ticket items is not clear yet.
All the best
NormanB
Hi Norman
ReplyDeleteFWIW i've had a handful of emails asking if everythings alright since i changed the title, so i'll change it back. There was nothing bitter or angry behind the change more a humourous dig at myself and the situation i'm in.
Regarding the financing its pretty much all in place as i've reached an agreement that'll secure its completion.
At the moment though i'm upto my neck working on wooden boats, man i thought plastic ones were a nightmare!
cheers