Winter work continues

Though November I gone on with cleaning Elektra’s decks and free board, the deck has always been a problem to clean, with black spots engrained into the non-slip GRP decking, with the help of “Grunt” and stainless scowering pads I was at last able to remove the black spots. When Elektra was built in 1984 her deck had been pourly laid up, her light gray non-slip had not covered the mould properly, thus there are areas of no pigment and other areas where the white pigment around the windows is there instead of the gray. I have wondered for a few years if I should paint it or not? The free board was eaiser to clean having been polished most years.

Then on the 9th December Chris the surveyor arrived to do a full survey for my insurance (I had increased her sailing area for 2025 and beyond). Later that week the survey arrived in my email in box, and of course the insurance wanted all the recommeded work to be done before relaunch. Among the items were new guard wires, extra bracing for solar frame, new anodes, rerun some pipework under the sink to ease access to stop vavles, aliminum tape on sound proofing around engine, sort out some wiring problems, service the engine(this had already been serviced), the mast had resently been liffed on again, I had rerun the cables and sealed the deck fittings but not connected internally, the mast lights arnt working! The list went on, most were small jobs and easy solved. Then there were the missing bits mentioned in the survey. The boom was at the riggers having a new outhaul fitted, the tiller was home being revarnised, and almost all her running rigging had been removed for the winter. Also her sails and canvas work had all been removed for the winter(Chris did say this was good practice).

On the 15th I was back down to Elektra looking and mesuring to order bits to get all the extra jobs done. On the 18th I removed her stanchions guard wires to take over to Falmouth to the riggers for them to renew. While I was over there, I picked up Elektra’s boom and some new mooring lines. On the 19th I got on with some of the jobs, aliminum tape over instation in engine box, rerun the pipes under the sink, clips on the cooker and removed her rudder for work at home. on the 20th and 22nd I was at home varnishing, machining timber for water tank straps and cleaning up the leading edge of the rudder.