As SWMBO headed off with Medium-fella in tow yesterday I got down to making my job-list and got to work...
- Mounted and fitted Chart table/Laptop desk, which I had manufactured back in Melbourne, successfully after four short hours of fiddling with incredibly small nuts, washers and bolts that needed cutting to exact lengths... am pleased with the resulting firm platform for working on the laptop and having it visible from the cockpit if needed with navigational charts.
- I finished about 9 pm and decided that my planned pork curry could wait and that Freeze dried lamb would have to suffice.... the rain which had been off and on most of the day continued to fall and became heavier as the evening wore on. Around midnight the pace picked up and became torrential making sleep well-nigh impossible as the boat rocked and rolled in the storm - even harnessed to the dock. I'm told by a reliable source (F.i.L) that 120mm was measured overnight - incredibly two months normal Melbourne rainfall fell in one night, and I awoke to a clear and fine morning with almost no residual evidence of the downpour.
- The work continued apace as fenders were re-fitted with carabiners, stainless fittings cleaned and polished, and Barrington's step was epoxied and coated with Tred-master.
- Next on the list was measuring - I'd been wanting to find out the sail area we were carrying and had worked out some cunning systems for getting luff, leach, foot and 'J' dimensions of sails, mast and boom. So, armed with tape measure and lengths of rope I sweated my way through the 29 (Yes 29 ) degree afternoon in the hot sunshine. Notwithstanding the requisite Marina Cafe late morning flat white, I sacrificed lunch and tiffins to continue slaving away knowing that the imminent return of my first wife was rapidly approaching on the morrow...
- So, the inflatable was blessed with a new bridle, the cockpit locker reorganised, the new hand-made safety harness fitted with stainless 12 KN shackles...
- Sun was well over the yard-arm by now, so a visit to the OCC for a cold one was well warranted, and thus it was!
- Along the Opua wharf, the R.Tucker Thompson was berthing after a day sail, she's a gaff rigged tops’l schooner based in Opua and is operated as a non-for profit charitable trust, taking visitors for some genuine wooden boat experience
- Coming back along E pier I stopped to chat to some of the neighbours, including John, a school principal from the North Shore visiting with his Jim Young designed Challenger 29 yacht. We got chatting and I invited him along for a pork curry (which was all organised and cooked in half an hour!) A very pleasant evening followed chatting and comparing notes on our respective life's journeys...
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