All in Harmony.

The goodship Harmony sails again! This time with ex-crew now owner Jon Roots, he of mystery 14 knots top-speed fame, a top sailing chef and all round great bloke, take some time to check out his excellent blog, my turn to helm.

The boats based in Largs and from the looks of it Harmony's getting some miles under her keels, i've also learned Dylans bought another Centaur so just goes to show the additive nature of these cracking little boats.

Just got to get mine in the water now so in the meantime heres myself Jon and Dylan sailing this great little boat all the way from Chichester to Anstruther, the trip de-brief at the end still makes me laugh.

I would do that trip again with those two in the blink of an eye - it was such a great laugh, with Jon's wit, Dylan's endless fiddling and my snoring we made a good team...........

'Kin Jobsworth.

Well i've written and now proof-read my Encylcopedia Centauranica, might get it bound later, still after going through everything, absolutely every last job i realised a glaring omission - the water tank. 

I meant to remove it when i was in there years ago re-coring the deck but somehow forgot so without further a do i set about working out where the tank appeared to be from nothing more than the tiny gapin the bulkhead below the berth. From that i could work out where the tank was within an inch or so then drew it out on the berth top and proceeded to cut. 

Thing was, and much like the foredeck when i cut that away, after i had joined up all the cuts i presumed it would just come away - wrong! Cue some quite 'salty' language as my fingers kept getting pinched whilst trying to get a chisel into the cut grp, still i persevered and was rewarded eventually.

As it turned out that was the easy bit, as Westerly' way of fixing various items to the boats hull and not being able to figure out how was in evidence here, with all the pipework cut from the tank theoretically it should just pull out but no.

Having made the hole i originally cut wide enough to get my arms down each side of the tank i ripped it from its base, turns out and i haven't figured out how they did it, they tabbed the tank to the underside of the berth base, bizarre.

Have to admit for a tank thats forty plus years old its in great nick but peering in through the old inlet with a maglite proves my decision to replace is the right one, whats on the bottom of the tank can only be described as scaly, brown and it glints too and to think we used to drink from this!

So like the rest of the tanks i will get a smaller polyprope one, i say smaller as the space is a bit awkward but also thought that cycling the water would be better way of keeping the tank clean.   

To round off i tabbed and sheathed the bulkheads the tank fits between seeing as it had none due to the internal moulding restricting access, today i'll run some hardwood out for the new tank mounts.

To the point!

Been working up in Oxford recently. but having had three straight weeks of near continuous frustration and intransigence courtesy of the job i decided to take a little time to catch up on a few things back home as well as a few bits on the boat, or the keels to be more precise.

After posting some progress pics on Sailing Anarchy' site one of the sites forum contributors told me i might want to 'crisp' the trailing edges of the keels up, the particular contributor was only Bob Perry.

For those who dont know Bob's a yacht designer, writer and sometime grouch based in Seattle whose work is truly global having designed for many yards and private clients all over the world so i took his words seriously and started figuring out how to lose the 'drinkers nose' look to the keels edges.  

Seeing as the original trailing edge was over an inch wide i figured using some fabricated glass plate around 1/8" thick would at least help the keel slip through the water a bit better, so having figured out where the vertical centre of the keels edge is i spotted them on the old trailing edge with duct tape then when it'd kicked i then filleted with more cabosil'd wests then faired out with 410.

Been varnishing the window frames using Hempels Diamond Gloss which proved a little frustrating as its thinner than water but slowly getting there although i had to re-laminate the very first frame i made as it curiously turned yellow so that was a set back.

Other than that not alot, as i now need to sit down and start designing the systems for the inside and where everything will go plus i want to break everything down now into job sheets so as i get breaks from paid work i can pick up a 'job' in the shop and do it. So amongst other work commitments this week i'll start designing a 21st century reimagining of a Centaur.

A little late after seven years...............................................