Little packages

This box arrived in the post yesterday. It contains a 'foredeck' and enough wood to repair the holes.. Quite impressive for such a little box.  

Work commitments last week meant that my planned leave didn't quite happen as planned so there wasn't much progress made.  Hopefully I'll get a few hours in the garage over the weekend. 

However I did get my first blog comment which was rather nice, so nice I've copied it below. Thanks Mike. 

' Reading your notes on SR with interest. The bulkhead is very thin ply and was warped when I got her. The front compartment was full of water! As the bulkhead is clearly not structural you could consider removing entirely and using a bow bag for buoyancy however this does increase the flooded area in case of capsize and may reduce efficiency of transom flaps. Mike' 

Despite work getting in the way of progress I did get to do some more poking around at the bulkhead.  It would be easy to remove but difficult to replace without joining a couple of pieces at the same time as fitting it.  I'm not sure I want to go down the route of having no bow tank for the reasons Mike's outlined above.  More thinking's required before I commit to that particular job.  

Fingers crossed for some decent progress soon!  

Warmer?

There's been very little progress to report over recent weeks.  My vac pump purchase certainly proved a bit of a mistake so if anyone wants a three phase pump in what appears to be good condition please get in touch!  Time to implement Plan B on the bagging front - any thrifty ideas welcomed.

On the positive side I've ordered some more wood, this time for the decks and for the hole by the mast foot.  It should be arriving next week.  I hope that the horrible weather will finally go away and I can make some decent progress.  I've got a couple of days off work later this week so I'm hoping to be able to make a start on stripping the varnish and non slip paint from starboard side of the insides.  The port side's mostly done but I'll probably need to spend another few hours scraping away at the really stubborn bits. There are a few awkward spaces that I just can't get too with any of my current scrapers so I think a custom one might need fashioning.

Once the inside's have been stripped I'll start on repairing the hole.  Originally I was thinking of a quick and effective solution but one that would certainly need to be covered with paint.  Having stripped back all the deck paint on the port side I've decided to attempt a wood repair with veneers to match in with the original construction and try to keep SR as pretty as is possible.   The front bulkhead hole is my current worry.  Making it water tight is one thing but the bulkhead appears to have been made from very very thin ply which makes it incredibly flexible and I think, will make a repair fairly tricky.  Bearing in mind that I am going to have to repair the mast step / hog area there is a part of me that its tempted to take out the bulkhead to give better access for both repairs.  I could then refit a new bulkhead but I've yet to establish whether its possible to get a new one in without taking something else off which I really want to avoid.

Inside the front bulkhead - musty

Whatever I need to do something about this! Nothing serious but another job for the list.