Went sailing

I didn't get a lot done last week as I went for a trip round to Stangate Creek on Wednesday stayed overnight before sailing back to the Swale on Thursday, the weather was cold and damp but I did get to try the chart plotter WiFi connection in anger, as the holding in the creek can be a bit iffy I left the chart plotter on with the anchor drag alarm set and took the tablet to bed with me so that when the tide turned and the alarm went off I didn't need to go outside to see what was happening isn't this technology wonderful?

I did manage to screw and glue the right hand vertical section of the forward door frame in place last Monday and hang the door so that I could measure for the left hand vertical section and then over last weekend I cut the timber to size and drilled the screw holes

Door secured to right side of frame

I arrived back in Conyer last Friday with a bit of an oil leak from the joint between the casting which holds the oil filter and the cylinder block so the first task non Monday was to remove said casting and investigate using a flat plate and marking blue indicated that there was some distortion to the flange which had also led to some corrosion to the lower edge.

The high spots can be seen around the holes for the securing studs, this particular casting is not an altogether good example of British engineering design. The flange was fairly quickly straightened up with a few strokes of a smooth file and replaced with a new gasket,while I was at it I changed the engine oil and filter I finished up the day on Wednesday by sucking up the oil from the bilge before giving it a good clean with some industrial strength detergent.

Today I got back to the forward heads door and started by screwing and glueing the top semicircular section of the frame into place followed by a trial fit of the left hand side vertical section of the frame.

Top and left hand side sections of door frame

The latch for the forward door was long gone when I bought the boat it had been replaced by a collection of barrel bolts, knobs and handles I have been looking for something similar to the original, which is still in place on the aft door, I eventually found one on the Force 4 chandlery website which arrived today it is not identical to the original and doesn't have a key operated lock although it can still be locked from the inside.

Original lock on the aft door

Replacement for forward door

I finished up the day by removing all the old door furniture from the forward door, on the original installation the door locks were fitted on the outside of the heads doors but on the forward door I am going to reverse the set up and to cover up as many of the redundant holes as I can I shall make a stainless steel plate of the same footprint as the new latch. I don't know quite why the latches were installed in this manner because it means having a cut out in the door stops to accommodate the latch I may well look at reversing the arrangement on the aft door, unfortunately the doors are not thick enough,at 20mm, to accommodate a mortise latch 

Forward door minus furniture