Shed plans

All being well, work will start again soon on my boat shed. The long section will house Daisy G with room to move around her. It has to be quite a lot longer than the boat to allow for the trailer and the projecting rudder. I want to just be able to back her in without having to take any part off. The offshoot on the side will act as a workshop. Come the summer I can even park a car in her! There is room at the front to park a car behind the stone wall.

The intention is that the building will just appear as a small wooden shed, set behind the trees. We live in the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so the planners want as little visual impact as possible. Hopefully this will keep them happy. We will soon hear.
I have to decide if I should have a workshop stove. It is so cold in the  winter that any work using epoxy is near impossible. A stove burning sawdust and offcuts might just make it possible.

Weekend jobs progress bit by bit

The long dark nights in these northern climes mean that evening work is a non-starter, at least until my shed eventually gets finished. In the mean time, bits are done over the weekend, other activities permitting. Most of the time is spent pulling the tarpaulin off and then back on again.
I have built a completely new stern platform for the boarding ladder out of good quality 18mm marine playwood. Five coats of teak stain and now it is in place. Still needs to be bolted on with some new, correct length stainless steel bolts. I need to build up a shopping list of screws and bolts and then order them in a single post. They become impossibly expensive otherwise.

I have finally seen sense and thrown away all of my "car boot organiser" bags and bought a proper marine cockpit bag from Blue Performance. It fits under the companionway perfectly and it will hold the gas bottles, sail ties and sun tan lotion. What else do you need in a cockpit? It did just fit in place, but I have cut back the central duckboards a bit so that it has its own space.

I have also roughed out a template for the extended bulkhead I am planning. It should give a modicum of privacy to the fore berth. At the moment, if you are on a pontoon, anyone walking by can see the entire interior. With a full height bulkhead to port there will be "somewhere to go to pull up your knickers" as my wife delicately puts it. The plan is to build it out of tongued and grooved matchboarding (9mm thick) backed by thin plywood. It will take a deal of head scratching to sort it all out.

Start of Winter Work

Daisy G is back home from Swallow Boats after some expert work. Sitting under a tarpaulin for now as we await sorting out the planning for her new shed. All being well that will be within a couple of weeks and she will be under cover not long after that, weather permitting. The shed base gives a place to stand her and it is very sheltered. Just not much fun for working on her.

New work by Swallow Boats: Two extra cabin top hand grabs just by the hatch. I have wanted these all year. This is just the spot you grab for when getting in from a dinghy, and there is nothing there. Now there is, and they will provide a place to tie the dingy to when loading it as well. I had planned to fit them myself, but decided that a professional job would be stronger and better looking.

Second new bit: a proper bow roller, as is fitted to the latest BayCruisers. The alloy one I fitted was a bit rough and I really need a strong one as I keep her ona swinging mooring. This should do the job.

First of my jobs: swapping the hinges across on the anchor locker lids. Now they hige outwards, which means they are out of the way and don't keep falling shut. I still need to drill new finger holes, but that shouldn't be beyond me. I had to plane the opening edges so they didn't bind. A bit of epoxy needed over the exposed plywood and the old screw holes filling. I am planning to repaint the whole boat in March, so it will all be tidied up then.

I have also cut out a new boarding ladder platform in thick marine ply. The old one was delaminating. That all needs glueing up and finishing.