Heavy Metal.

The race to get the rest of the welding work in the forward compartment finished is on, and I’d try to write something poetic but for the fact that I’m exhausted and sore. All I’ve done is a day and a half at the yard, but I’m knackered. So instead here are some pictures of the various areas that are currently receiving attention. Our new chain locker is coming on nicely, and I feel for Robin- who spent some time inside the thing welding up underneath our first piece of replacement deck. That’s his feet in the rather cryptic picture. I can empathise because I’ll never forget spending what felt like an eternity, but was probably more like half an hour in there grinding all the crappy old paint off last August. The aforementioned deck work doesn’t look like much, but it’s quite a masterpiece really because under the old deck was a vertical sandwich of frame and front of chain locker. The meat in said sandwich was loads and loads of heavy scale, so much that it’d started to severely bow the frame under the increasing pressure. You’ve really got to love these old steel boats. All this stuff was only made accessible by the fact that Robin had the presence of mind to remove the anchor winch, he’d cut its mooring bolts off and dragged the thing out of the way. It is not a light object, and Robin is quite small.
Yes, there’s definitely a huge hole in the bridge coaming on the starboard side, but not for long. Robin cut a bit out and then we all knew the rest was buggered too so it’s all gone and new 8mm plates are being cut to replace the lot. Once it’s in we’ll repeat the process on the port side. This will come with the added bonus that we’ll be able to bolt our wheelhouse back on and won’t have to worry about the nightmare scenario of it all blowing away in a winter gale anymore. Hooray!
What else? The bulkhead doorway has a fetching new curve to its top, neatly giving us a precious 100mm extra headroom, and everything is all ground nice and smooth. That was me. The Grinder monkey. Ook ook. Next weekend, more of the same sort of stuff (although hopefully Robin won’t have to spend an hour in a very small box with lots of heat and fumes- but you never know.)
In other news this week my plan for the spiral staircase looks a lot like it’ll work, that’s potentially a bloody relief. Also I’ve started a welding class in evening school. There’s no way I’ll get to be as good as Robin, but at least I might learn to do some of the simpler stuff eventually, and anyway- it’s an interesting way to spend my Thursday nights for the next ten weeks.