New cushions

Looking very chic. My wife has made me new cushions and matching covers for the two pillows I carry. The interior is looking far better now. The pillows also make very comfortable back supports in the cabin, which was not the case before. The wooden seat backs are just far enough back to bring your head up against the cabin top sides, forcing you to lean forward slightly. I had planned to fit permanent padded backs to the wooden rails, but these firm pillows work just as well and can be taken out of the way if you want.

Very little more to do in the cabin now. I still need to scrub the waterline and paint that, plus touching up some of the exterior work. But nearly read to go sailing.

Anchor rope

Long outstanding job done. I have fitted a large cleat in one of the anchor lockers for the end of the anchor rode. Only just room to get a hand drill into the locker to drill into the samson post for the cleat. I usually store the anchor in the starboard locker and the rode in the port. They will all go into one, but it is very tight and you don't want to be struggling trying to get the anchor away on the fore deck. I have toyed with the idea of chocks for the anchor on the deck. I'll think further on that.

I have put a proper eye splice in the end of the anchor rode. First one I have made for years. I learnt how to do them 24 years ago in my "shore based competent crew course". I really ought to get a more advanced qualification some day...

I still can't decide if the hull needs a new coat of paint. I will do it if I can find a cheap tin of Donegal Green at the West Midlands boat jumble in a fortnight. If there isn't any, I will just touch up scratches with the half tin I have still got.

Rudder fittings

The rudder head has a lot of movement on its two pivot bolts. I had decided they needed replacing, so after a lot of heaving and propping, I got the top one out and slotted a new one in. Not easy as the clearance is very exact. Lining up the rudder and transom hole was not trivial. After finger tightening the nut, there was still a lot of play. I then tried just tightening the nuts on both top and bottom bolts, and now there is minimum play. They just needed tightening,not replacing. Good to find out in a dry shed rather than on a tidal beach, even worse, at sea. The bolts are in a horribly confined space. You can only get 1/12 of a spanner turn each go, so it takes a long time to get the nut secured. I will replace both nyloc nuts before I launch.

Mainly rope work

I have been fiddling with ropes much of today. Fittings new lanyards to the shrouds. They will need a bit of stretching. New tie downs for the spray hood, to be the right length this year. New tackles for the centreboard up haul and down haul. New lazy jacks. Spent some time simply heat knifing the ends of overlong and fraying ropes, which have needed doing for over a year.

I have also fitted a steel eye plate to the underside of the gallows to hook the main sheet onto when I am towing, just so it has somewhere obvious to go. So no big jobs, just lots of tidying up loose ends, literally. Still to tackle the waterline...

New jib sheet blocks

I have finally replaced the jib sheet blocks. All blocks on the jib sheet arrangement were undersized originally and led to far too much friction. But they are expensive, so I have only replaced them gradually. I could have just used a thinner jib sheet, but with no winches, a thicker sheet is easier on the hands. The original blocks were also swivel blocks, as they were attached to the sliding cars, and that just leads to them twisting the now doubled sheet. I had jammed them with cable ties, but that just increased the friction more. So I finally have these two new ones, and now everything runs smoothly. I bought a dyneema soft shackle at the Southampton Boat Show and will use that to link the sheets to the jib's clew.