26/11/12 - Tenacious

Last Monday (19th) was rather cold, wet and fairly windy! Nonetheless, with
the yards undercover, work could proceed on them and in the cable lockers
where the relatively rare (in a wooden ship) sound of the windy-hammer or
needle gun was to be heard. By Tuesday, the weather was improving and
although there were still showers, it was completely calm by evening. One
of the jobs being done on Tuesday was sorting out the anchor cables before
breaking them on Wednesday to get the three shackles we need to replace out
of the way. Our new comms gear is progressing, Jim (who usually sails in
LN) taking down bits of deckhead and muttering "It's not like this in the
other ship"! We'd just sat down to dinner when an alarm sounded, indicating
we might have a flooding problem. In the event, it was a failed calorifier,
dumping hot water into the bilge, but even so, I do feel that if you're
going to have a flood, on the blocks in a drydock really has to be the best
place to have it!

Thursday looked like a particularly productive day. We finished painting
the yards, the underwater hull received its first full coat of primer, the
boat crane was now ready for is first primer, the backing sheets had been
cut for the anodes and the emergency generator alternator back in place -
all good progress. Things continued well on Friday and on Saturday the
cable lockers were painted and the new shackles of anchor cable were
ranged, ready to be connected up. The new comms gear is fitted, it just
remains to get it all working the way we need, but the hardware is all in
and working.

Sunday was an easier day, we stowed the dry store, sorted the wellies, got
rid of the oldest bedding and the most damaged books out of the library and
one or two other things.

Today, it's all back to normal - ie it's wet and windy and cold, but people
are working hard and getting the job done. The contract painters are
struggling a bit - you don't get much of a smooth finish with gloss paint
when the rain's coming at you horizontally - so painting has ceased again
for a while. Never mind, the high winds will soon dry the hull off, ready
for them to carry on. The last of our liferafts have just come back, having
been away for their annual service, so that's almost, if not quite all, of
the gear returned to the ship

Simon
Captain