Time to build is an issue again and one I’m going to address very soon. For today I just sneaked in an hour and got the outboard tumblehome/cabin roof joint of the starboard hull sanded, routed and prepped for gluing of the half round finishing strip.

It’s been a busy business week this week so I was eager to get some build time in today. My intention was to crack on with the other two cabin roof/tumblehome strips. As we’ve had a couple of days of torrential rain here the outside edges of the barn were, as usual after a rainy spell,  pretty wet, so I opted to start on the driest side first i.e. the starboard hull. After about 5 minutes I realised that I was getting more and more annoyed as my head kept coming into contact with the heavy polythene ‘inner roof’ I put up back in July 2007 (I can’t believe that!) Realising that I was in any case going to have to do something about it before I could continue building up the starboard hull cabin top I decided to bite the bullet and do it then and there.

So instead of spending 5 hours building I spent five hours clearing all the stuff from that side of the barn, unfixing the polythene, lifting it further up, re-fastening it and then putting all the stuff back again. It was quite a tough job as there is a fair weight of polythene up there and raising it involved much pulling on ropes, climbing up barn sides and balancing on the very top of ladders about 20ft up.

I have a slight pang of regret that I didn’t make any progress on the boat today but it was a job that was going to have to be done at some point and I know have plenty of space to bring the hulls up to full height and work on deck when the time comes.

The Problem

Down It Comes

Up It Goes

That's Better

Annoying Little Screw

Not withstanding my planned day of rest on Sunday I did nip up to the barn with the intention of whipping out the 40 or so temporary screws I’d used to to hold the two half round cabin roof/tumblehome strips in place. 5 minute job that, I thought ….wrong! I soon discovered that the small screws I’d used were quite soft and as soon as I tried to remove them they just rounded out. A stupid little mistake that’s cost me two hours today. I did manage to get about half of them out using a perfectly fitting pozidrive and a lot of pressure but the others required a bit of clearance chiseling around the head and then a vice grip wrench to twist them out. Just one of theose annoying things that knocks you back occasionally but they’re out now and I shan’t make the same mistake on the other two edges!