There is a chance that I may have forgot to mention the odd little repair that we have completed alongside all of the rest of the work. One of those little things is that while we were playing with epoxy and filler I decided to fill the bolt holes for the rudder gudgeon. Over the years several attempts have been made to drill new holes and what was left was a bit of a mess. Happy to report that all of the crooked holes are now filled, next step will be drill and reattach the gudgeon.
Another one I forgot to talk about was voids. Voids in the deck. So far we have identified and filled 2 substantial voids. One of these was located around the mast collar. I wanted to fill in the existing hole for the mast wiring plug, yes I have no idea why there would be another hole drilled when the mast comes all the way in through the cabin top but anyway it was there and I wanted it filled. So I covered the bottom of the hole from inside Akupara and mixed up some epoxy with structural filler. I repeated this process more times than I care to mention for this particular hole but eventually it did stop taking epoxy and as far as I can tell, I have filled the hole. Another one that we encountered was when Graeme was filling holes last weekend. It was about 2 feet forward from the cockpit on the coachroof and it took a hell of a lot of epoxy as well.
The old rusty Bruce anchor is now painted a gloss black, which probably will not last all the long but at least it looks good for the time being. I keep telling the admiral that if I had my way, I would take it in and get it chromed along with the CQR but there are too many other things coming up very soon to be worried about that.
We have decided, if funds allow, that we will have the forward lifelines changed to a solid rail. Our stern rail, sometimes called a pushpit, is a solid piece all the way up to the forward end of the cockpit. I like solid rails as they provide more mental comfort than the wire ones and I do not think the extra weight is all that much.
This weekend if plans work out, I hope to have the anchor locker bulkhead and the anchor locker divider measured, cut, installed, glassed, painted and stained so that we are complete with that project. I am also hoping that the rest of the crew will have all of the previously filled holes on deck, ground down, wiped with acetone and faired with epoxy. Once the anchor locker is complete, we will finish sand all of the wood and exposed liner in the vberth, paint and stain and reinstall all of the ceiling. Hopefully by the end of April we can say that the vberth is completely finished. We will then close it off with plastic sheets and continue on with the refit, slowly working our way towards the aft cabin. Having one cabin finished will be a big mental gain!
I think spirits are still high, and the Admiral and crew are persevering, but I know how overwhelming this entire process is and any milestones we can claim as complete, will go a long way to seeing us through to the end.