Work set aside.

May 2024 – detail work on the Pathfinder ‘expedition’ boat.

For the end of April and most of May so far iv’e been working in a focused way to get to a point where the mainmast is in the boat semi-permanently, the boat and trailer are mostly under the shelter and I am nearly at the point that I can measure for the sails. To do that I will have to rig a temporary yard and boom and then heave the boat back up the yard so I can see it in the round. Once I have measured up and put the order in there will be about a 6 week delay while I wait for the sails to be made : I intend to use that time to take a well earned break and to then deal with my set-aside jobs – detail parts of projects that I didn’t urgently need to complete at the time.

As of the end of May I am slowly writing up a list of small jobs on my workshop aide memoir – basically the inside of one side of the shed door that I have always used as my jobs list and ongoing shopping list. The list of jobs and stuff to buy is still quite long although the jobs have gone from taking a month to complete to now being something that needs doing but only takes a couple of hours. The small difference with my current work list is that as well as the job I also try to estimate the time I think it will take to complete ; on a good day and if I double that estimate I have a rough idea of how best to use a working day.

There are still a couple of jobs which are more like projects in that I know they will take several days and I don’t know what new problems those jobs will create. Right now, for example, i’m setting up under the shelter to lift the boat off the trailer and move it forward – or more likely move the trailer back underneath the boat. That whole job is just due to having shortened the boat by about 14 inches by changing the long sailing bowsprit to an anchoring ‘stub’. I know that the whole job will take several days and it’s a useful one because in it’s original form the whole rig is a bit too long for the space I have to turn it around in.

I know (and know that I know) what stages I have to complete, and in what order, to reposition the boat on the trailer – it’s just lots of individual tasks and at times very physical. I also know what I will have to do the fill fair and repaint the boat’s top plank – again just stages of a job. Where I am slightly unsure of what I am doing comes with the rig and sails and even more strongly with the last major project (for now) – that of doing the final design for the sailing/camping cover.

With the rig and sails my ideas have slowly evolved alongside actually doing the work : where, a few weeks ago, I was basing my thinking around the boat becoming more like a Northumbrian Coble with it’s raked mast, long bowsprit and balancing jib….basically a sloop. Now, I think I am building a simpler lug yawl with a semi-balanced mainsail ; in fact I think I want the boat to balance just under it’s mainsail and only to use the mizzen when I anchor, heave-to or back down in a tight anchorage. The problem there is slightly stroke related – like my previous week’s problem of trying to work out the required rake for the steeply raked mainmast in both mathematical form and as a technical drawing i’m having difficulty remembering and then using a sailplan and boat plan to work out the center of effort – i’m sure that I did once know how it was done but can’t now.

The last big job, a project really, is to design and build a sailing and camping/living aboard shelter against sun, wind and rain. Iv’e been through several different ideas based on other people’s work but nothing quite matches what I have in mind so i’ll have a first go at doing it myself with the fabric I have to hand, then if it mostly works but needs tweaks here and there I will make a second and hopefully better one. What I am thinking about at the moment is something really simple that attaches to the forward edge of the cuddy and runs as a curved flat plane back to a fixed boom gallows like arrangement roughly in the middle of the boat. It needs to be tall enough that one person could sit in shelter underneath it but then it also needs to roll forward easily to get to sail handling gear, The shelter aspect is mainly against wind driven rain – especially from astern which made my life such a misery during my first trip out last year.

As it is I have improved the sleeping arrangement for one person, usually just me, by removing the old compression post under the foredeck ; with that gone I can sleep comfortably with my head forward without having to jam my head between it and the side of the boat. Sleeping that way around is also slightly head up rather than head down which is what happens with my head aft – it also means that I am nearly completely covered by the cuddy.

That brings me onto what are, at the moment, the final jobs on my set-aside job list – at least for now : I am starting to prepare the actual onboard sailing and maintenance gear such as tools and spares but one note on the list is to put together the survival pack which I should have been carrying during that first trip : it contains, for instance, my woodland bivvi bag, a sleep mat and a basic tarp. Had I had those aboard last year I would have simply beached the boat and made an improvised bushcraft style camp somewhere ashore.