News from the front.

Having worked myself out of work (going too fast for everyone else), i somehow ended up with a week off - no bad thing if i'm honest after three weeks living in the van on tinned food i think i'd reached my limit.

So what to do?, the list is long but i'd started the forepeak on my last break so commited to finishing it, this would involve opening up the moulding enough to get new structure over the top of it without excessive weight hence cutting alot of the old glass away.

I should say at this point i really wished i had done what Derek did with his Konsort and Tim Lackey over in the States does with nearly every project and that is to have gutted the entire inside of my boat, sounds drastic but so much of my time is wasted trying to figure out how to blend old to new how to attach old to new or how to get old and new looking like it should be there.

Still too late now but seeing how small the bulkhead opening is in the forepeak and the size of ply to go in there i basically stared at the problem for half a day figuring in which direction to cut the boards so as to fit in the space whilst reducing weaknesses from said joints to a minimum.

Got there eventually via a trusty correx template of the berth base, then set about the moulding with a new toy for Bicester - a cordless, brushless jigsaw which made light work of the whole affair if not a little dusty.

Still, one bonus of the job was discovering a rather large locker in the bow, from looking at earlier models than mine this was the original chain locker, this wouldn't be needed for such a purpose on mine so decided to enlarge the hatch from modest to feckin' huge. I did the same with the lockers either side of the berth so i can make framed locker lids in much the same vain as the saloon berth.

The idea in all of this is to provide access to the new water tank, and plenty of actual accessible storage via a series of hinged locker lids also by bringing the forecabin bulkhead all the way to the floor and in doing so filling in the centre part of the berth i'll create a load more space and one super massive berth.

One observation i made too today is how high the floor is in the space where the heads and hanging locker is so will have that out this week or next to take the crick out of my neck, theres at least 3" extra headroom to be had and i'm having it!

Think the worst job this week was grinding all the dead bilge paint out of the lockers and off the inside of the cain roof, had the crime-scene suit on, cans and mask and still felt sick afterwards so gave it an hour before getting back in there with the Henry hoover, but at least its a bit more progress.

One thing i did notice whilst cutting and grinding is what looks to be either a really shitty bit of laminating work or a bad repair to the the bow, dunno which to be honest, mind you there was a fair few repairs externally when i stripped the antifoul off so nothing new really.