25th August 2007

spent a day starting to strip of the vinyl roof so I could assess the damage to to front cabin, but was hoping that at worse it would only be the window frames at the front that would need to be replaced.

The more I stripped off the more it became apparent that the whole of the front was going to have to go.

The main problem I had was striping the vinyl off as it had been overpainted at somestage with roofing paint. I tried a paint scraper, but that didn't work so I ended up using a blow torch to heat it, then using the striper to remove it.

If you are going to try this then my advice is to wear gloves as I managed to burn my hand a couple of times.

12th August 2007

The boat had been moved the week before to hardstanding so this was the first chance I had to go over her with a fine tooth comb. Unfortunately things were far worse than I expected, the rot had been painted over and been badly repaired over the years. I knew the doors would needt to be replaced and maybe the windows at the front.

In reality from my proding and poking it was going to need a new front cabin as the roof had leaked and rotted more of the boat than I first saw.

I took the photos as a reference so that I know what she looked like at the start and hopefully will be able to do before and after shots once she is complete.

Don't get me wrong there is a lot of work that will be needed between now and then, but I'm going to take it slow and steady and hopefully do the old girl proud