Sikaflex, sikaflex and some more sikaflex!

After the deck bolts, it's now time to clean and re-seal all the stanchion bases!


 
Sikafelx Adventures from Giulia Tyzack on Vimeo.

Easter Aloft

The Easter bank holiday weekend proved very productive, and Matt and Giulia are in fact still hard at work as I am typing this. Among other things, we finally had a chance to install the attachment points for the running backstays - these are necesseray to balance the load on the inner forestay.

View from the mast, tools at hand

Despite moderately strong winds and a wintery chill in the air, it was dry - reasonable weather for working aloft.

New Holes in the Hull

Another Saturday, another day of maintenance

 

This Saturday was another productive session. Among other things we made a new fibreglass conduit to protect wiring in the bow, removed the old aluminium forestay groove, cut off the seized wind turbine and protected some more of the woodwork with epoxy.

The big job, however was the new hole in the hull.

Giulia's response on being sent this picture: "What the hell is that?!"

The bow and other efforts

Time is ticking. There are now only 3 month to go until we reach the end of our berthing contract at Fox's. (Let's not call it a departure date - that is just asking for trouble!) This week we decided to up our game and spend the whole weekend on Auriga, rather than just one day. I think the work paid off, and it felt like we got a lot done.

The toe-rail bolts

Work continues apace to put everything in the bow together before we seal it permanently with our new bulkhead. This weekend we worked hard removing, cleaning, covering in copious sikaflex, and replacing the toe rail bolts.

Giulia working into the night cleaning nuts and washers

We probably put in 10 hours between us, and got only halfway around the boat. Overall I think we removed and resealed 30 bolts.