Christmas and the New Year

Since my last blog much has happened here in St Lucia, sadly not to Guiding Light.

Poor Kevin had a slight accident, he fell down a ravine and ended up in hospital.  All is well now, he stayed an extra week which was nice.  By then we were into the ARC, and spent two 24 hour periods as the finish line boat.  The first time we had 25 boats in the 24 hours, so not much sleep!

Work is progressing slowly, with the odd notable, even if small, success... I finished the light boxes, see photograph for proof.  I am varnishing everyday over Christmas

Hopefully 2024 will be the year we launch, but I am no longer so confident.

Wishing you a very blessed and Merry Christmas

No blog last week as I was racing in the Mango Bowl.

We have been making good progress, helped by having Kevin out helping.  As you can see from the photograph, he has ground back and painted the floors red.  He has also dismantled and sanded the butterfly hatch, ready for repair and varnishing.

At one stage we had seven people working on the boat at the same time!  But we are still very much up against the clock if we are to make Classics next year.

I also completed my little experiment with wood expansion.  A plank, 135mm wide expanded by 3mm when left in the sea for two days.  Leaving it for two weeks showed little more expansion.  Removing the plank from the sea and it returned to 135mm after one week in the sun.  I'm not sure what this means for our plans going forward.  Any thoughts?

My other conundrum is hull paint...

The wood needs to take in water and expand to seal the gaps.

Paint provides a waterproof layer between the sea and the hull

So how does that work?