Half Day on the Boat.

I said a while back that I'm reverting to the 2014 model of taking short day and half-day snatches messing about with the boat.

As the sky today looked like this:

And work was slack for once, I took half a day off.

I had time to kill while I waited for the tide, so I walked up the beach. I found the reason why the Westerley wasn't floating. All is not well in the skeg department...

A hole in the fibreglass isn't good and the metal part of the skeg appears to have rusted badly, The support for the rudder has gone too.

I offered the locker tops up to the boat with their new stainless hinges. Despite using the template I had last time, the angles are a bit off, but not by much. They'll do.

The hinges need a bit of work. The back of the hinge is too long and needs trimming by about 5mm in order to fit. I'll have to get the grinder out to sort them, I don't have any saw blades that will cut stainless.

I also had a play with the VHF shelf. It needs some angles making in the plywood to fit the roof and wall line of the cabin. No pictures yet as I was short for time. I had to wait for a couple of hours for the tide and then I only had a couple of hours to get to the boat, do the business and then get off as I was picking the wife up.

While I was there I watched a dredger using the deep water channel from Southsea Marina. They had been dredging the pontoons outside the marina. To say the twisty channel was a tight fit is an understatement. They got stuck at least once and had to wait for the tide and have a small tug help them steer round the tight (for a barge) channel.

Last year I bought used clips for the 2.5Hp outboard's cover. I know I'd put them on the boat somewhere, so I spent half an hour rummaging in the bilges through the boxes of stored stuff until I found them.

I also measured up the front of the cabin where the round porthole is. I'm thinking of getting a small used opening hatch to replace it and get some through-flow of air in the cabin. It might air it better.

Something like a Lewmar Size 10 should do it, 10 inches by 10 inches would be ideal. I'll be hunting on eBay for a while. The bad news is I'm working when Beaulieu Boat Jumble is on, so I won't be able to visit the best chance to bag a bargain hatch unfortunately.

Online auctions and boat jumbles it is then....