Hopefully we will be able to "Splash " as early as possible in the morning. Weather and Ice conditions permitting, we would like to cruise right on to the Beach, immediately following our launch. Hopefully the ice will be off the lake by then.
But, that's a whole week from now, so for now it's back to work. On the schedule, is lots of sanding of the inevitable fibre glass repairs and a lot of painting. Every year we find spots where the outer fibre glass "skin" has cracked and water has penetrated the wood underneath. (That is the problem with Fibre Glass over plywood. But, it's to late now to discuss the original construction techniques used back in the 70s. It's what we have and we deal with it. )
When it does happen, we immediately dig out any wet or rotted wood and re-fibre glass over the area. When we took a look at the mast last weekend, we found a lot of rot at the base, so that had to be re-built. Then two layers of fibre glass over the repairs. That has to be all re-sanded again this weekend, then get a couple of coats of paint.
This is the constant maintenance that we have to do to our old boat every year. Because if we don't keep on top of it, we will be right back to where we were when we had to totally remove and replace the pilot house roof and remove and re-build the entire back deck.
There are a number of other repairs in process that were done over the last couple of weekends that also have to have another layer of fibre glass or another coat of paint. But, we are getting down to the final items on our lists. We should finish it all, this weekend.
THE ANTICIPATION OF LAUNCH DAY IS BUILDING
