This morning the welder arrived and the hole is now welded up. I was a bit disappointed in the workmanship, the weld looks a bit on the agricultural side, excessively heavy, but it will certainly do the job. I have ground it down a bit and painted it. Tomorrow subject to weather I will fair in the weld a little so it isn’t quite so ugly.

Hmm, the electric water pump isn’t working. It occurs to me as I write this that maybe the welding burnt through the wire which runs close by the area which was repaired. Another thing to check tomorrow.

After the welding was completed, seeing as I had the floorboards and engine cover up, I started doing a bit of bilge preservation hereabouts. I can’t see any serious corrosion problems so far. I have scraped, cleaned, vacuumed, and applied some rust converter which I am letting react overnight before painting, also tomorrow.

Then I moved aft under the cockpit and managed to remove the steering chain without too much difficulty. It is just like an oversized bike chain so I just had to find the link with the clip in it, which after removing a fair bit of grease soon revealed itself. Now the chain is soaking in a mixture of diesel and used engine oil. Hopefully after a couple of days of this the rusty links will loosen up and I will be able to reinstall.

I then returned to sanding the waterline some more but after about 20 minutes it started to rain and I was feeling pretty tired so have called it quits for the day.

All is well.

Bob Cat:

Fire and Brimstone!

Yesterday my abode resembled an industrial site, today we descended into the abyss, with thick sulphurous smoke permeating the cabin. What is going on for goodness sake? Then more noise and the passageway to my bathroom and the dining area was a shambles. Fortunately I have spent most of the day under the covers of the V-berth so managed to ignore it and continued … zzzzzzzzzzzzz.