Effin plastic no more!

How pretty is that?

Can you remember that horrible white plastic thing that used to house my instruments? Well it’s gone and is now replaced by a beautiful shiny piece of iroko. I really love it. The housing and all of the adjacent companionway woodwork has been given a new high gloss finish. It’s a bit like a makeover!

Many thanks to Jason Fisher for supplying the iroko.

Yesterday I also had my new trailer. I sit a few inches higher off the ground, but the ride is much more comfortable now. I’m sure there will be some pictures in due course.

Round the Island Race

Guess what? He hasn’t even sailed me yet and my owner has entered me in the 2011 J P Morgan Round the Island Race on June 25th. Brave or stupid?

I’ve been entered in the Gaffer class, and I’m already worried about having to get up for a 06:20 start. I’ve no idea who’s going to help him, because I’m sure he won’t be able to sail all the way round the Isle of Wight on his own –  in close proximity to about 1700 other boats.

I’ll know more about it than he will as I spent two years in Lymington and sailed these waters before.  The video below is from last year’s race.

Varnishing my bits

Ooh er! It’s been a long time since I had my bits varnished so I thought I should mention it.

In the picture above, from the top, you can see my companionway threshold and two companionway fascias. These are original and were fitted to me in Cape Town. They had some knocks and varnish chips which have allowed water ingress which has left stains. My new owner has stripped them back but cannot remove the stains, so now these are having about 5 coats of Epifanes applied.

The lowest piece is my new instrument housing which was made by Dodgy Knees Tony. It replaces the “effin plastic thing”. Below is a picture with the instruments temporarily installed.

Old Dodgy Knees has also used the wood cut out for instruments to make two new patresses for my staysail sheet fairleads – ropes for the sail in front of the mast. My old ones had no varnish at all, but I’m really excited about getting new ones. Just look at the shine on them.

The varnish being used is Epifanes from the Netherlands. Each piece will have a build up of 5 coats to cope with the marine environment. It’s quite expensive at £25 for a 500ml tin.

I’m going to look fabulous when I get back on the water!

Effin plastic thing

I Tweeted a few days ago that my owner was wittering on about an ‘effin plastic thing’. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but now it’s clear. Some time in my earlier life I had some instruments fitted to my bulkhead, these were a NASA Clipper Duet and a NASA Clipper Wind, the former tells my skipper the depth of water underneath me along with how far we’ve travelled through the water, and the latter gives my skipper the wind speed and direction. Combined they give great information, and yachts as small as me don’t usually get to have them.

But this isn’t about the instruments; I’ve found out that this is about the white plastic mount. It may not be that clear from the image but top part of me is a creamy colour, and the white plastic housing for the NASA instruments doesn’t really go very well. My owner doesn’t like it – so it’s being changed. A previous owner of mine didn’t make a very good job of fitting the instruments, as the holes cut in the bulkhead were wrong, hence the need for something to cover it over.

Just a couple of days ago a lump of iroko wood arrived from London – apparently donated  by a very nice man called Jason. Iroko is the type of wood used elsewhere on me. The piece of iroko you can see in the picture above is the frame around the companionway. I understand that the new block of timber will house the NASA instruments and sit adjacent to the existing piece.

Step forward the bloke with the dodgy knees, for it seems he’s an expert woodworker. He has taken the new block of iroko and cut out holes for the NASA instruments. I can already imagine how much prettier my instruments are going to look once it has been varnished with clear Epifanes. So much more in keeping with the rest of my woodwork that that effin plastic thing.