Today it was a migraine and business that conspired to hinder my progress but as before I ‘sneaked’ a couple of hours and got the final top layer of 4mm ply glued to the port hull side decks. Apologies for the lack of photos and short posts, I’ll make up for it soon. Interestingly though these posts reflect my work sessions well i.e. short, no frills, just a bit of progress!

My diary had me down as spending a full day at the barn today. I did, but only got 2 hours work done on the boat as another (paying) job took up the bulk of the day. Not to worry, it was a worthwhile use of my time and I managed to get the polystyrene sandwich material glued into the port hull side decks at least. Some progress is better than no progress.

I unexpectedly managed to sneak in an hour and a half this afternoon and got the lower sections of 4mm ply side deck cut and glued into position on the port hull. I’ll take anything I can get right now, it all helps to keep things moving forward

It’s happened again, a little over two weeks just disappeared without a tap being done on the boat. I can look back and say it was unavoidable because we went down to Cornwall for a few days, I was busy working on my business etc. etc. and it’s all true but the reality is that it keeps happening and if it keeps happening then my launch date will keep getting pushed further and further away….. I’m not going to let that happen. To be honest this time management issue affected everything, I have 5 important areas of my life I need to keep making progress with and Gleda is just one of them. I’ve written more on my Dream To Sail blog and I’ll be expanding more in future blog posts but all I’ll say here is that I’ve made some serious changes and from now on I’ve scheduled at least 2 full days a week on Gleda with some extra flexible time available as well. This means I should be able to make some steady progress from here on in.

Decent dry fit at last!

Cabin Roof down safe

Today I spent some time getting reacquainted with the tumblehomes. I confess I’ll be very very glad to see the back of them, for me they’ve been the most frustrating part of the build so far. As I said before, when I dropped the cabin roof into place I could see that the second set of tumblehomes I’d cut months ago still didn’t fit so today I’ve re-cut two of them and made two new ones and I now have a full set of properly fitting tumblehomes on the starboard hull. After dry fitting them I manhandled the cabin roof back down onto the floor and turned it upside down so that I can sand and epoxy the inside before it’s fitted. It’s a big section to handle on your own and I was scared silly I’d drop it but with a bit of care and a lot of sweat I got it down OK.

The last two weeks have been two of the most intense weeks I’ve experienced in a long time but at the same time they’ve been incredibly satisfying because the intensity has been entirely self driven and that’s something I’ve rarely experienced. I was determined to regain ground after our fantastic holiday in Portugal and so I’ve been entirely focused on my business. As always I have pangs of conscience that I’m not making progress with the build but then, as always, I remind myself that I’m still working on the project and without the business there will be no boat. That said I’m coming round to the idea that I should schedule a minimum of build time in every week and stick to it, not only will I feel easier about building progress but the enforced change will probably make me more productive at my desk. Despite these niggles though I am happier than at any time since I started the project and supremely confident about the future. Don’t forget that I’ll  be sharing more about my thoughts and actions away from the build on my new site at Dream To Sail.com so please check it out.

Today I started construction of the second large section of main cabin roof and also spent a bit of time playing with the fit of the completed one over the starboard main cabin. Pleasingly it dropped into place really well and it was immensely satisfying to see how well the curved deck section married up to the curved top of the main bulkhead I fitted so many months ago.

Roof Section In Place Over Starboard Cabin

Well we had a super road trip to Whitby, Holy Island and Edinburgh and the Landy ran beautifully apart from fracturing a power steering pipe at Gretna Green on the way back. There was nothing I could do with it so I drove the rest of the way with very heavy steering. No doubt some Series owners out there will mock the fact that I had power steering in the first place!

Two decks with first coat of epoxy

Anyway that was last week and this week I’ve been super busy with my business and just didn’t get a chance to get to the barn. My hand was forced today though as some tree felling down the lane meant that I had no electricity for most of the day so I couldn’t work at home anyway.

The weather has turned this week and it was 23′C in the epoxy shack this afternoon, very pleasant indeed. I had a good work session and got the starboard deck and tumblehomes nicely dry fitted then took both deck section off, inverted them and got the first coat of epoxy on what will be the forecabin deckheads (ceilings). Much easier to do this now than try and work overhead in a cramped cabin.

As I said in the title of this post I don’t know where the time goes., in two weeks time we’re off to Portugal for 10 days, a holiday that seemed an eternity way not so long ago. Ah well it’s all good and I’ll be making sure that the next two weeks are super productive