The Truth Dawns and Other Cliches

(Geordie Accent) "Day 3 in the Big Daddy household - 9.08am. Jaqueline D has spent the whole night lying on the driveway but has woken up to the first decent day in months. In the bedroom Ian is struggling into some old clothes regretting the last couple of glasses of Sauvignon he had consumed the night before at a friend's birthday party and murder mystery night."

At last a day not interspersed with pouring rain, thundering hail or drifting snow. I finally have had a chance to clear out the rubbish from inside the Potter so you could see the dog from the rabbit - and it wasn't the fluffy bunny. I think I now have a clear idea what it is going to take to be able to make her sailable and then what more will be needed to make her beautiful and live up to her forthcoming name.

Literally all the internal woodwork is going to have to be replaced, including the cross brace in front of the keel box. Probably the only wooden structure that hadn't succumbed to rot is the mast compression post, but I haven't looked to see if it would fit properly and it has a couple of rusty fittings on it and a very dilapidated depth gauge (or at least that's what I think it was).

Rotten cross brace and very rusted keel bolt - now has a lot of WD40 on it!

But I suspect it will take some shifting - haven't tried it yet

 Almost clean up front but hasn't had fresh water standing there for umpteen years

 Not much wood left!

And the mast step is going to need replacing as well - I'm hoping to build a tabernacle

I only had an hour or so this morning as babysitting duties beckoned, well they keep you young don't they, but I hope to sneak some time this week to begin dismantling her, making sure to keep as many parts as possible for patterns. Incidentally, there are a load of polystyrene blocks in the boat - is this normal? I can understand the purpose but I didn't know if they were standard or whether they were added some time after original manufacture.

So I'm beginning to make a list of the tasks to be done in some sort of logical order which I will post shortly. This is one of those elephant moments - slice at a time. One of the things I must sort out is how to stop water leaking into the bilges. At least the cockpit drain plug is in place. I'm going to put a cover on her in the next few days which will of course help and I hope to move her off the front drive round the side of the house where I can rig up a cover to work under. It would naturally be better if I put her into the garage but I have an old Triumph Tiger (an early triple) in there and more critically the garage door is stuck closed and we're waiting to have it replaced.

I'm also making a list of what tools and equipment I'm going to need. I have access to some at work but will need a little investment. I'm happy to spend a little on this as part of my retirement plan is to take up boat-building. The skills and experience acquired on this project will go some way towards that hopefully but I'd also like to take one of the courses on offer at the International Boatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft when I have the time (and money!).

But the first task I believe is to clean up the inside of the hull and cut away the rotten cross member timber - more news soon.