Category: Uncategorized
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Trip #1 Bala
Trial launch and day sailing expedition is next on the agenda. I booked a qualified sailing coach from Bala Watersports Centre to accompany me on this first sail reason being that although I had worked on the appearance of the boat I was still as yet inexperienced on the water, and new to this type…
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Trial Launch and Reteieve
Refurb mostly finished I turned my attention to the trailer and launching procedure. The trailer is a tipping type, or break back trailer. The drawbar, normally rigid is, while still hitched to the car, partly unpinned and allowed to pivot downwards. As the loaded section of the trailer now has a weight bias towards the…
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Boat Renamed
Time to give the boat a new name. Decided since the model is called Sea Otter that Tarka would be most appropriate. One of the original old name plates was on but the other was badly rotted so this was replaced with a new piece of birch plywood made to the exact dimensions. I hand…
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The Language of Sailing
When I started to get into sailing I was fascinated by the language, being someone who has spent his career in computing, coding languages are the thing that holds everything together and makes it work. But it’s the programmer that makes sense of it to mould it into something useful. Boats are the same in…
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Taking a Break
After working nearly every weekend on the new boat since Christmas and remembering I still have a family, at least for the time being, I decided to take a weekend off so we packed up the car and came here to Bridlington to see the local traditional fishing boats, Cobbles, go out to sea and…
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Painting Under Way
Restoration is probably too stronger a word for this process. It’s a general clean up and repaint. No structural work necessary. But the overall appearance is improving vastly. I feel reassured about the oil finish on the topsides. This little boat has bucketloads of charm than seems to come shining through more and more each…
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Brightwork or Dullwork?
Mulling the future of this boat I was facing a choice. Should I varnish, epoxy then varnish, or oil. Conscious that a great deal of dust had been created and more to come I wondered whether I could acheive the same level of finish that this boat originally had. Varnish might look nice when first…
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Brightwork
The brightwork was all solid but the top layer of protective varnish looked patchy, a lot of areas were scabby and some parts was peeling with large flakes coming away easily. The coating was tough having been originally infused with thin epoxy and then coated in thick epoxy and finally varnish. The varnish is there…
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Assessment and work begins
The overall appearance was a bit scruffy so a new paint job was needed at least. I divided the project in two those being the brightwork and the paintwork. I want to sure what I was going to find when I started so I told myself this was going to be s labour of love…
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Purchase and move to a new home
After a second viewing I decided this was the one. After negotiating I managed to buy Puffin within budget. The brakes were still out of action and the tyres needed replacing but I was determined to get the boat home before Christmas. The boat was also not sitting forward enough to give any noise weight…
Small Boat Voyages 