WWW……Winter.

Wet, Wild & Windy (very windy)

Wwwwith the second named storm of the year just having blown through (i’m writing this in mid December) i’m slowly working into a few days mostly just clearing up – we don’t have a greenhouse frame any more and bits of fence missing. It’s been a bad one for trees getting blown over, one report has it as some 300 so far. On nearby Berry head, the place I was dismasted a few years ago it had recorded gusts of 93 Mph : it wasn’t that bad here as we are somewhat Inland but maybe as high as 60 – 70 and it was pretty relentless as it blew all night and then all of the next day.

We lost power of course, this village always does and the local news is that some communities have been out for more than 24 hours. It made for a tedious day here because although we had heat by means of a woodburning stove there was very little that I could do : too overcast and grey to even read and far too rough to go out for some exercise.

I was anticipating a difficult winter due to my recent strokes and I figured that one of my main problems would be in having enough to do to keep me engaged : I did think that maybe I would spend a lot more time listening to lectures via the Peterson academy – I enrolled earlier this year. My second problem though is that I seem to have ended up with poor focus, concentration and a short attention span. At best I can only stay attentive to a lecture for 10-15 minutes at best.

So, unusually for me, iv’e decided to work on my boat projects through the winter – as and when I am able – instead of packing up at the end of October and having the winter off until late February the next spring. Obviously it’s usually the coldest, wettest and most overcast time of the year so it makes for very short working days : it’s a very bad time of year to be doing anything with Epoxy Resin but luckily aI didn’t have much to do – I did successfully laminate a new mast thwart for my primary project which is the little CLC Skerry and after that there’s only the new buoyancy tank to build and then a new daggerboard to laminate and shape. The deconstruction is done and i’m already putting together the first few videos for Sail,Oar & Canvas – my new video and writing project.

It almost goes without saying, although I will because i’m here, that winter has it’s own problems when it comes to boatbuilding work that includes some gluing with Epoxy resin. As I write i’m about halfway through building the new buoyancy tank and I would have been faster except for the fact that it takes about an hour of warming the glue and the new parts and that’s before I can even start. The most difficult aspect of working at this time of year – and it’s almost the winter solstice is how overcast and grey it’s been – almost dark most of the day and actually dark by mid afternoon I have to be happy with only getting done maybe 2 or 3 hours of productive work and that’s when i’m not slowed down by the need to capture video footage – most days though the light has been too poor to film with.

If you’re wondering what iv’e done there then it’s so that I could use a new and lighter mast that I could ‘walk’ in while kneeling in the boat rather than having to lift in the heavier square section wooden mast that came with the boat. Right now (mid December) i’m going to weigh each rig component and decide which new tube to use : my choices being a 16 Gauge tube which I think is to thin or a 10 Gauge (3mm wall thickness) which is plenty strong but maybe too heavy. My long term plans are to build a new hollow wooden mast although that would have to wait for easier gluing conditions maybe next summer.

My aim with this project is to be fully ready to launch and do a first rowing, sailing and camping trip early in the spring of 2025, as long as I keep working on jobs even doing an hour each day that I am able I should be able to achieve that goal.

Correction…..as of the end of the month iv’e gone back to using the original square section wooden mast because it’s about the same weight as a thicker section alloy tube would be and it’s only meant reshaping the mast cutout at the thwart. At some time i’ll include in a post my whole decision making process about my choice of mast and also my one side only buoyancy tank and daggerboard case arrangement.

A winter of new habits.

To help me get through this winter iv’e had to develop new habits and new regular routines for everything that I would normally do, in brief, iv’e had to change my normal routine which I based on sessions – that’s taken from a practice in medicine and surgery – to one of much shorter chunks of time based on my reduced capabilities. What I would normally be doing at this time of year is quite a lot of exercise (based on walking) and usually, once a week, I would aim for a long hike that took in rough ground and off piste tracks. The best I can do now is an hours walking and mainly on the lanes around here because I don’t have the balance for the kind of routes I used for training in my pre stroke days. Right now for example i’m trying to work out new ways of getting exercise because hard exercise is what always helped stave off the winter blues (S.A.D or Seasonal Affective Disorder) which iv’e been prone to since my 20’s.

With other aspects of my winter routine I regularly fast (food fast) at the beginning of a week with the target/aim of 40 hours fasted – it seems to be one of the few things that works for me in helping me control my weight when I can’t do hard exercise : I was always at my best when I could train hard with weights and that seems beyond my capability right now. Alongside a food fast I also do an internet fast once a week after I began to think that maybe it was too much internet time thus too much mental stimulation in continuous short bursts that was wrecking my attention span. Iv’e done the first couple of weeks with an internet day off and so far the effects seem positive in that, with this week as an example I woke up after a very heavy sleep with a whole bunch of new ideas about this blog and my potential new YouTube channel project.