Stop the presses – bamboo is in Sweden!

According to the latest info, the bamboo might arrive at Stockholm tomorrow. Then we might be able to finish the rigging.

Dirt, teak and windlass

Some work on a wood/epoxy-boat is quite dirty and unpleasant. I am sure a steel boat is worse. Anyway, sanding the teak deck was such an unpleasant job. The teak itself was OK, but the graphite filled epoxy in between created a lot of black ugly dust. Fortunately the day was still and damp, so we didn’t contaminate our boat neighbors.

Here am I with the belt sander:

After maybe half an hour of hard work and two hours of cleaning it looked like this:

We also fastened the windlass. It looks good, even though we haven’t made the bow rollers yet.

I am thinking about buying a handheld wind meeter to use to get some data during sail trials. I used to have one but it is broke. Can anyone recommend a cheap model? Are they acurate?

2 m/h roping

My mother can rope a sail at 2 meters/hour. Look!

This corner is nine layers of 11 American oz Top Gun polyester cloth. Roping really adds a nice look to a junk sail. Some people like to save time by sewing on webbing or just reinforce with a rolled tabling.

Waiting for the bamboo

The bamboo won’t arrive until next week. So now we work on other stuff. After a couple of rides with our about 20 years old bosuns chair we had to get something new. So I bought a climbing harness a bit extra padded from a rock climbing shop. I also found an emergency break that can ride a second line. Everything works great, I could hoist myself up quite easy. And the lower attachment point of the climbing harness is great for working at the mast top. (Where else would you want to work on a junk mast?) Here is Ricard getting ready to be hoisted. We had to fix the lead for the halyard so it won’t chafe at the mast and create friction.

Meanwhile my mother is sewing on the boltrope and my father drives to the chandlers to find some line and fasteners.

Here is a picture of the mast at the galley. Looks quite good if you ask me. I had to discourage some people who wanted to hug it, because we had just had some extra oil on it. Maybe next time Mårten!