Winter Jobs - Part 4

The moment when we put Maunie back into the water is very near - next Tuesday, in fact! So we've been busy finishing the main winter maintenance jobs and have started to reload the boat with sails and cruising kit. 

Having re-faced the floors, which now look wonderful, some of the surrounding woodwork looked distinctly tatty in contrast, the worst offender being the door into the forward cabin. It became clear that, when the door was originally fitted, the bottom edge had been planed to fit but no protective varnish had been applied. As a result, damp had penetrated the facing veneer and it had stated to lift and flake:

We took the decision to strip off a section of the damaged surface, apply a veneer patch (in order to get a level surface) and then apply a single sheet of teak veneer to the whole door:

The old veneer was scored with a knife and a sharp chisel was used to remove the veneer. The metal rule clamped across the surface was there to prevent the chisel going too far!

Applying veneer patches

Carefully applying a single sheet of veneer, making sure we didn't trap any air bubbles. The veneer had a coating of adhesive already applied so it was a case of peeling back the protective plastic coating progressively as we moved up the door

Very pleased with the results, after an application of wood stain and six coats of varnish. Just the door handle and hinges to refit.

The suppliers of the veneer really liked the photos and the video that we sent them so Graham has produced a version for their website, complete with their logos, which will appear soon. The original video is here: https://youtu.be/HFMF4y5ltfk

The short warm spell a couple of weeks ago was the ideal opportunity to remove Maunie's winter covers and refit her sails and sprayhood:

In all it took us a couple of hours but there's a 2-minute time-lapse of the process here: https://youtu.be/9qMadkpK3gg

The full boat condition survey, required by the insurance company, took place on Thursday and, as we'd hoped, the surveyor was very happy with Maunie so we're all ready to launch.

Of course, we'll never run out of boat jobs but another important one was to look after a rather smaller boat, our inflatable tender. During the sailing season it's stored in the Kinsgwear 'toast rack' where dinghies stand upright on their transoms (Blunt ends!) between metal hoops - just like slices of toast in a toast rack. Exposed to the elements, especially the degrading UV of bright sunshine, many of the boats look pretty worn out but we always put a cover on ours so, at 15 years old it still looks remarkably good:

However, our covers have been made using £25 sheets of "UV Resistant" woven plastic waterproof sheeting which we have found last only one season. Not a very sustainable solution, we thought, so we utilised some left-over boat cover material (off-cuts from our cockpit dodgers project of a couple of years ago) plus some new, long-life Sunbrella (it's fully waterproof and the light colour will reflect the heat of the sun prevent the dinghy baking inside it on hot days) to make a cover that should last 10 years or so. A long zip that we cut from a damaged cover that we found in a skip in New Zealand (we love a good boatyard skip!) completed the components so out came the trusty Sailrite sewing machine.

Bertie helps with the measurements! The old and damaged plastic cover is used as a template

The boat stands upright on the ends of the two outer tubes so the cover is open at the bottom for good airflow to prevent mould.

If all goes to plan, our next update will be on the water - we can't wait!