All measured up.

0 Locks / 0 miles

The hood maker arrived as arranged and bought his samples for us to choose from. What we have chosen is a new material that is burgundy in colour and has a grey lining on the inside. Hopefully the covers will look very nice. He took paper patterns to work from and hopes to have them finished in 2 to 3 weeks.
In the mean time there is no time for me to be standing idly by so it was business as usual. Grinding off the last of the rusty marks above the gunnels and finally cleaning the new back doors and getting a coat of red oxide primer on them. In between times I have now applied the second coat of blacking all the way around the boat and have some left over so area’s such as the bow and stern will get a third coat. The welder has now fitted 2 flat anodes amidships which should help to reduce future corrosion and has pulled the rudder apart as it was not mounted properly. At slow speed the tiller arm was OK but at higher revs on the engine the tiller became quite hard to hold with severe vibrations. Basically the rudder was hanging by the top bearing as the bottom mounting on the skeg was worn and sloppy. A new mounting with a brass insert is to be fitted which will solve the problem. Anyone recognise this scruffy fellow? The other photo just shows one of the new anodes amidships (the silver thing on the side)