Now all the ballast from the stern is back in place, We've been putting the Aft deck back together. This weekend with dad's help I put the deck beams back in place, and added some new woodwork to support the new plywood deck.
Juan gave me a hand, painting the rudder guard (aka heavy duty bicycle rack)

The new galley is starting to take shape, after some tweaking, I've fixed the worktop and sink in place, so I'm off to get some plumbing fittings :) meanwhile dad has been Putting all the freshly painted ballast back in place at the stern, so we will be able to start replacing the deck soon.

Here's the new sink, almost ready for a test run with some dirty mugs

I'm starting to assemble the new galley (kitchen) which involves a lot of head scratching, especially when the wind'e blowing so hard that the bubble on the spirit level is moving!

I've been fitting the worktop for the new sink, Juan is trying it out for size

watching paint dry

The most exciting thing to see in Southampton this bank holiday Monday, I've got some nice wet paint to watch!

I've just painted another section of the bilges, as we slowly work our way aft, cleaning and painting the inside of the boat.

grand designs

Mudlark saw a some visitors this weekend :)
Tom came down to help me, he removed and cleaned up the last (nearest the bow)
window on the port side. Then we put our thinking caps on, and built a cardboard mock-up of the new galley, to see if everything would fit in. the fridge is the box on the left, the sink is the flat piece in the centre, and the cooker is on the right.



whilst the tide was out on sunday morning, we replaced the pipe between the grease nipples and the rudder bearings, which got damaged when the stern was repaired.


And then I painted the next section of the bilges with primer

a quick update

I haven't been sat down long enough to update the blog for ages!
Dad has been cleaning the ballast, ready to paint it so it doesn't drop rust flakes when we put it back, it's one of those boring jobs that's more important than it seems
Further forward I've been sorting out the remaining bits of woodwork under the port side deck

waiting for the tide

We've had a busy day, repairing two ribs near the stern (back of the boat)
dad had cut away the old timber last time he was here, so we could get on with fitting new wood today.
In the photo I'm doing a spot of upside down hammering, driving home a copper nail, which fastens the planks of the hull to the new piece of timber. We had to wait for the tide to go out to do this, as the nails were below the waterline!