Whether the weather...

I was designing the lighting for a theatre show this morning so Tim went down without me. Our hope, well, my hope, had been that we should get the Treadmaster layed on the saloon deck this weekend. That was not to be. Tim made the template for the port side and the aft end of the saloon roof and when I arrived we together made the template for the starboard side. Actually, Tim had done more than 90% of the work already as the starboard is almost a mirror image of the port side.

The templates were made out of thin cardboard bought from a stationers. Then around the dorades Tim measured and then cut out with a compass. The template around the dorades were then placed in position and the template proper created. The edges were made using double sided table and masking tape to created a flat and accurate cutting template. It's a painfully detailed job and took Tim most of the morning.

Only having half of the afternoon didn't really give us enough time to cut and lay the Treadmaster. Also driving down to the marina I remembered that we needed to fill holes the dorade mounts and then paint them before laying the Treadmaster.

So... the weather... can't we just do it tomorrow?

Sadly the weather is bad for the next 10 days.

We really need a few clear days for the paint to dry on the dorades before we can lay the Treadmaster. In a normal spring/summer/autumn week it would be odds on that we would get that. But this winter its been rain and rain and rain and rain. Which is useful for the reservoirs but not for a major refit on a yacht!

Ken came down and fitted the new water pump and the exhaust. Both should have been trivial... OK, the exhaust is in a difficult to get to place, so maybe not trivial... but both had problems due to the thread in the engine block not holding firm on one bolt on each ot the appendages.

Discussion about the solution ensued. I had used Epidermix epoxy on my dinghy to create a 'thread' for a bolt to hold the blocks for the genoa and so suggested using that. Alternative to that was using Pratley's Putty, which is also an epoxy. The problem with using an epoxy on a bolt would be that it would be stuck firm for all eternity. And there was a question if it would be stuck firm under the heat of the engine... Then we realised if we stuck in a stud we could use a nut on the end and it wouldn't matter it was stuck for all eternity. Then... Ken tried a stud and found that being longer than the bolt it worked very well on the end of the thread that the bolt had previously not reached. Brilliant. Just quite a few hours to get there!

Oh, and Tim and I also removed most of the blue 3M masking tape from the the portholes and other masked areas. That took a huge amount of time as it had stuck fast and the paint was holding it even firmer.