Time to start thinking about splashing

For a number of reasons I have decided that the next priority is to get New Morning in the water as soon as possible mainly because I have been working on the restoration for over two years and it is time to go sailing again there will still be some work to be done but this was always part of the plan there is always work to be done on boats especially old ones, the other main reason is that the future of the present location is far from sure due to the local redevelopment plans so to have the boat in the water so that it can be moved easily will be a distinct advantage. To this end I had originally planned to get on with the remaining underwater work this week beginning with fitting the propeller on Monday but the weather gods had other plans and Monday dawned cold, wet and miserable so plan 'B' was to finish the trim pieces for the heads bulkheads the forward piece was finished and fitted and a start on producing the aft piece was made this was to form a cable duct for the mast cables by laminating two narrower pieces to the front.

Forward trim

Tuesday dawned warm and bright so the first job was to get the propeller fitted I started by checking the fit of the taper with engineers marking blue which indicated a satisfactory match between the tapers on the shaft and the prop. I assume that the propeller has been re bored at sometime as the boss goes way beyond the end of the shaft taper such that it needs a couple of spacing washers to allow the nut to be fully tightened, I don't consider this to be good engineering practise but it will have to do for the time being. The next move was to fit the new shaft key which I had made over the weekend this required removal of some material from the top face to ensure that the top of the propeller key way would be clear of the top of the key when the nut was pulled up then once the nut was tightened down it was split pinned job done.

Propeller fitted

Once the propeller was completed I finished off making the bits for the aft bulkhead trim.

Wednesday turned out to be another cold miserable day with the threat of rain so it was another inside day I started by laminating up the aft bulkhead trim using thickened epoxy to stick it together. Moving on to spiral wrapping the cables for the shower drain pump which is fitted in the heads locker I then gave the locker a good clean out as it was in a bit of a mess after wet sanding the new gelcoat on the front of the locker. I finished up on Wednesday by starting to fit the new steaming light on the mast I had already run in the new three core cable to power the steaming light and the deck light it was a bit of a light fit through the cable grommet but some washing up liquid helped.

First thing today I finished the aft bulkhead trim and screwed it in place the head lining material still needs to be applied to the coach roof sides.

Aft trim/cable duct

The next job today was to complete the new steaming light by drilling the holes for the fixing screws and then replacing the lens and the cover.

New steaming light

Making the most of today's fine weather I got on with applying a coat of underwater primer to the hull I had some left over from the previous boat unfortunately there was only enough to go about three quarters of the way round  also I had run out of masking tape so I stopped a couple of inches short of the boot line looking on the bright side at least today's exercise has given me a rough idea of how much antifoul I will require.

Underwater primer

To finish up today I did a final test fit of the headlining panels for the heads some adjustment was necessary to accommodate the trim pieces for the bulkheads. Next week the weather is looking favourable so the main aim will be to complete the antifouling and get the mast ready to go up.