9th March 2008

I managed to spend most of the afternoon on the boat as the weather wasn't too bad. As you can see from the photos the front deck is back down, on my next visit I need to grind off the screws that were holding the rubbing strip so I can trim and sand the deck. Once I'm happy with the deck I'll put two coats of epoxy on it and then use epoxy filler and glass tape to cover the joins which should mean the deck can last another 43 years.

Hopefully I can spend some time on her next week, finishing the side panel off, which will be used as the template to cut the right hand side. Before I start to put her back together I will strip off the paint on the inside of the hull and remove the water tank.

I ended up relaying the deck a further two times due to the new one getting damaged due to my infrequent visits to her, the same with the new side panel, although that was more to do with it not fitting right, which I only found out when I started putting her back together and the support timbers went in.

I did plan to use paper to make templates of the panels before I demolished them, but it was a bad idea, maybe I'm just need practise, but in the end it was easier to use the structural timbers assembled on a piece of ply and then draw round them, I've since found that its sometimes easier to use some cheap hardboard or scrap ply to make the template, seems to work a treat.