Sanding, planning, sneezing
My spring-optimism got punished by Swedish weather today: windy, cold and wet.
However, I managed to persuade myself to go to boatyard anyway.
To make sanding and varnishing easier I usually erect some kind of rised platforms around the boat. Thanks to Börje & Jim there are these long planks which I can use, screwed to euro-pallet. Ugly but does the job.
I started sanding port side - the one which had varnish “blobs”. As this year is the one when I should remove more varnish - I do it every few years, to prevent too much buildup of varnish which would result in need to “wood” the boat - I hit the port side with orbital sander and 180 paper. Blobs are now gone.
Dragging vacuum pipes, electrical cords and raging sander while balancing on narrow platforms was such a “joy” that I was considering throwing this away and do it by hand. My considerations got abruptly interrupted when the sander disintegrated (luckily not damaging anything around) and blessed silence came back to the place. If not counting for the wind and rain bunging on metal roof.
I was too tired to continue by hand so instead I went into cabin and planned how to finish fo’c’sle: where the toilet will be, how to secure batteries and what type of sole to build.
With some pine lists I mocked-up two variants, to help me imagine the final look.
Rised sole would make the bilge very deep but serve toilet mounting directly. At first I liked it but thought of crawling along it to reach batteries or whatever on the very bow made me re-do the design.
Traditional, inclined sole would work better, leaving enough head space to actually go all the way to the bow and not wasting precious space for bilge. Toilet would be mounted on rised platform, just enough to mount it and for some feet room.
I will build a strong shelf for both batteries on the very bow. Battery boxes will be secured with strong straps and possibly some wooden blocks around.
I like these planning moments: just being inside, moving things around and thinking how to solve problems. Not much progress is visible and it takes time (for me at least) to plan things but it’s a time well spend. After all - that’s why we are here, to mess around with boats, ain’t it?