Finally back on the water

Approx 5 nautical miles

I went down to the club in the morning and Tim joined me to try and fix the last few things on the boat. Last Sunday Tim [my son, not the Tim I sail with] brought out a some things I needed for the boat to repair it - a couple of cleats with fairleads and a bow plate were the main things. The bow plate got damaged in towing I would guess since it doesn't have the strength to be towed by...

During the week I had been down [with Tim] a few times doing repairs. In the process I had removed the floor boards and found the cleat that had come off the track, but having ordered new one I didn't replace it. The holes from the old track needed filling. I did it initially with gelcoat filler, but that didn't go off properly [too old] and so used some of the glue Tim's daughter brought back from South Africa. That worked very well, and in fact when it came to bolting in the new cleats I found I couldn't get the nuts on the end, so glued the bolts into the hull itself.

The amazing glue was also used to repair the tiller. But when we came on Saturday to refix the uphaul for the rudder, the rope wouldn't go through. Tim and I must have spent an hour or more trying to feed it through till we realised that the centre plate of the rudder had moved and the rope would never thread through... some gentle persuasion and the plate moved [and was then screwed in place] and the rope went through easily!

Tim decided that my 'There's only one more thing to do...' was nearly as bad as my 'I won't be long...' cry to my wife. There were many 'only one more things' to do. It took us all morning to get the boat back into a sailable state.

Then we were too dehyraded to sail so went off the club for a drink. Cool refreshing water melon also helped and we went out for a short trip round the bay. We tested everything and checked the boat at all points of sailing from close hauled to goose wing running... and even checked out the motor. Hmmm... motor... now that was expensive to get repaired... very expensive.