Spring has sprung

Having bought a new tarpaulin to cover the boat and wrapped up to keep her dry I realised this morning, after the rain had been and gone, that I should have set up the mast as a ridge pole. There was a large pool in the tarp where the cockpit is – it was obvious if I'd bothered to think about it. As Homer Simpson says Doh!!!

Still at least the weather has finally improved – one week of warmer temperatures and nature is up and running. The trees have suddenly started to look greener, the cherry blossom is out and the Tulip Magnolia trees are in full bloom.

Spring has AT LAST sprung

Like most working folk the time available for doing 'projects' is somewhat limited, particularly when there are lots of other things on as well. So I have been spending the odd moments (mostly at 3 in the morning – it must be an age thing!) thinking through all the jobs that have to be done to be able to put the little Potter back in the water and make her look presentable. It's a scary list taken as a whole but hopefully by breaking it down into small tasks I can make progress – as I said in an earlier post, eating an elephant in slices.

I thought it might be interesting to put some of these onto the blog if for no other reason it will provide me with more motivation to complete them so I don't look like a complete ….. (fill the blank with your own appropriate word). I've separated them into must do and nice to do tasks to help prioritise them, though I may be tempted to do some of the latter before the former to keep my interest high.

Key tasks:

• Replace rotten cross member and glass to centreboard case
• Strengthen centreboard bolt mounting and put in bolt
• Clean and paint centreboard or replace if too corroded
• Clean and paint interior
• Create bulkhead at front of rear locker
• Make rudder and tiller
• Build tabernacle and mounts
• Make pads for shroud fixings and refit (maybe renew with good bottle screws)
• Replace ring fixing at the bow * (see below)
• Sort out rigging
• Make woodwork for cabin interior
• Connect cockpit drain to transom drain
• etc. etc. etc.!

Pretty stuff!

• Grind out all old filler and crazed gelcoat
• Strengthen with glass (where needed) and refill topsides (hull seems OK)
• Sand and prepare for paint
• Paint topsides (I guess this is best done before putting any fittings back which may change the priorities)
• etc. etc. etc.!

And I still have to check if the sails fit!

*One thing I am pondering (among many) is that the ring that is mounted on the bow for attaching a winch is loose. I can't access the back of it as that's within the bow buoyancy tank. I suppose I could just fill around it with epoxy putty and hope it holds but that doesn't seem very satisfactory. So what I think I'm going to do is cut a hole into the tank to give me access (and allow me to see if there are any horrors in there!) and fix it properly. Then I'll seal the hole with a removable inspection hatch. Having looked there are hatches available up to about 9” in diameter so that should do the job and maybe provide somewhere to put things out of the way.

Right - off to buy my plywood!

So I've ordered a sheet of 12mm marine ply for all the structural and exposed stuff and a sheet of 6mm WBP for everything else - should be delivered on Tuesday. Hopefully that will do the job! I've also orded a West GRP repair kit to get me started and some extra tape which I know I'll need for bonding in the cross member. That should give me enough to learn what works best for the repairs before I spend any more and waste it.

Thinking about the rudder assembly, I'm hoping that I can use the ply to build that. I may have to epoxy coat it but that shouldn't be too difficult and I'd quite like to see the lines of the laminates come through where the rudder is faired off. Mind you that will take some doing to make it look good - might end up with paint on it!