Fibreglass repairs

When I arrived at the marina on Monday morning New Morning was afloat so the first thing that I did was switch on the echo sounder and low and behold it works giving a steady depth reading below the keel even if it is zero I checked it again at high water and the reading had gone up so I am quite happy with that.

Echo sounder works

The next job was to repair the tabbing between the interior moulding and the engine space bulkhead in the centre locker under the quarter berth. I cut the old tabbing away with the multi tool this was followed by a good sanding and clean with acetone I then laid up several layers of CSM and left the whole lot to cure.

Defective tabbing before removal

Tabbing repairs

I have added tabbing to the vertical flange on the internal moulding but there was no evidence of this part being secured to the bulkhead I don't know if this is by design or error but there are a couple of other areas where this is evident.

On Wednesday I replaced the missing bolt to the port bow fairlead this entailed hauling the anchor chain up onto the deck so that I could lay in the cable locker and fit the nut and washer for the bolt. Once that was done I returned to the forward cabin sole and opened out the old holes with a countersink and filled them with some thickened epoxy there were several holes in the heads sole which I filled at the same time I also opened out the cracks in the corners of the bilge opening in the forward cabin and filled them with some thickened epoxy that now completes the remedial work which was listed in the survey report. I finished up the day by removing some of the stuff from the aft cabin which is no longer required mainly a bag of hardwood trim pieces I shall probably use some more of it in the future as I complete the internal fit out but for the time being I want to get the boat tidied up so that I can go sailing.

Today I started by sanding back the forward cabin sole where I had previously filled all the redundant screw holes once this was done I spent some time going through a locker full of rope and disposing of some of it which was not fit for further service. Whilst doing this I found the tackle for the kicking strap and fitted it to the boom. There is a bit of a puzzle here as the mainsail still has the original roller reefing system but the kicking strap connects to an eye under the boom which means that unless it is disconnected the boom will not revolve to reduce sail there was normally a cast aluminium horseshoe with a restraining cable to hold it in the correct position along the boom however I have found no sign of the horseshoe anywhere but I have found the restraining cable there are also some lazy jacks on the mast which also are not compatible with a roller reefing system. The ultimate aim is to go for slab reefing but until I have had the mainsail up to asses its condition I can't decide whether to have the existing sail modified or order a new one I know the sail is quite old and will probably need replacing.