Some 'phots and random thoughts...

Let's deal with the random thoughts first...

It has been a couple of very busy weeks which have included a couple of weekends sailmaking and also a good deal of priming and getting the first coat of bilge paint on.  We have also completed the nailing, installed the breasthook and started on the deck, but more of that later.

Firstly painting... it takes about two and a half hours to paint the interior of the 'Rose, that being one of the joys of a clinker boat.  Also the paint is solvent based so after that period of time on your hands and knees inside the boat you certainly come away with something of a 'head'.  Secondly the bilge paint is one of those paints that seems more determined to stick to itself than stick to the deck.

Along with the breasthook I spent about a day carefully fashioning and glueing a mast step, this had to fit over a floor and two timbers and be a snug fit to bear the weight of the mast; it is a thing of beauty and as I stood back and admired my handwork feeling smug and self-satisfied, I suddenly realised that I had fitted it at the wrong place in the boat, Yes it helps if the mast step lines up with the mast!

To compound today's little catalogue of errors I have also found that I miscalculated on the depth of the deck beams so we are into a fair amount of correcting work there as well, although fortunately the principle beam  that supports the mast and which everybody can see is actually fine, so while an annoying and really unhelpful delay to proceedings the need to correct the mistake will have no cosmetic impact.