In the tent this week.

Pathfinder build, Friday shorts post.

Pathfinder fitting out…..bilge pumps.

Friday shorts continued.

Well good morning everyone, I hope you are all well. Today I thought I would return to writing a short post on a Friday when iv’e got some progress to report…..well this week, aside from some expensive admin it’s taken me 4 days (so far) to do a 4 day job !.Speaking of shorts….I live in shorts most of the year round which is something that seemed to shock one of my elderly neighbors….anyway, this week it’s been so damn cold out in the boat that even I gave in and swapped to trousers plus an extra layer.

Maybe I should have left it until the end of February which is what I did last year but this year I really want to get it done. One solution to the problem of spending hours knelt on the achingly cold cockpit floor was to leave the covers on and work in there like a tent and have the heater in there this week.What i’m trying to do are the last jobs that I can before I have to heave the boat out from under the shelter and one of those jobs is to fit the first of potentially 3 bilge pumps – the plan being one manual pump each side of the cockpit plus an electric one some time in the future…..oh and buckets, lots of buckets.

The funny part of my first week back to work on the project has been my hilariously bad work organisation…like climbing up into the boat with most of the parts and then realizing that I haven’t got a pencil…..or then starting the job only to find that there’s an extra tool or part that I need.

This has been a horrible job because iv’e had to work ‘blind’ most of the time and working with my arm stuffed through one of the inspection hatches to get nuts on or the hose onto it’s spigots. The job seemed to call for the hose going through the aft compartment and of course that’s sealed now aside from a 4″ inspection hatch so I can only use one hand on the job. If I had thought about this at the time I would have fitted all of this before the cockpit and aft compartment lids. Some time I really must work out what the practical limit is for the distance away from an access hatch can be and to just be able to get a nut on the bolt !. With one of the securing bolts I just couldn’t get the washer and nut on so after an hour trying different techniques I gave up and brought the bolt through from inside the compartment by holding it with a mole grip and feeling around blindly for the hole……a small amount of epoxy and filler keeps the bolt in place now.

And yes…..I realize that I haven’t finished putting the hose clamps because I only bought 4 when I was in town at the chandlery and the job needs 8 due to their being 4 separate runs of hose.

Admin this week….the big step forward, I hope, has been to go ahead and order the frame of the trailer to be built as per last week’s ‘Dave’ post. Dave is a real character in this story as he’s the boss at Cornwall marine not far down the road and he used to work for the company that is (hopefully) right now building the trailer frame. The eventual decision was to just have the frame made and delivered to Dave’s place and only then will we start to think about bunks, decks and rollers. I think that the way we will deal with it is to get the trailer home , sit the boat on it, probably on a temporary flat deck, make some simple side supports and then take the whole deal to ‘Dave’ for a look as he seems to know a lot about trailers for boats.

As I said earlier, the total plan for putting the sea back where it belongs is one manual bilge pump either side of the cockpit plus an electric bilge pump to starboard which will run while i’m recovering dirty anchors into the cockpit along with buckets of seawater. I’m just going to have to find an easier way of running the hoses aft.

Anyway…..here’s a little something extra for the weekend : my next fitting out video.

Best wishes Y’awl.