With the weather being very cold and foggy today, the little time I had to spend on Shoal Waters I used to carry out a couple of tasks for the cabin.
The first was to refit the ballast restraining battens. On examination, only one of the screw positions was useable out of the eight, the other seven all had broken off brass screws in them. I had to drill new holes instead. I elected to put just four heavy duty bronze screws instead of the eight original brass screws and use some Sikaflex to aid the refit.
With these in position all the major reconstruction work inside the cabin is complete.
The next task was to put up the curtains. This was a little tricky and took longer than I expected. Firstly I had a number of old brass hooks to remove, then I had to drill pilot holes for the new, stainless steel eyes and these had to be screwed in. Then I had to thread bungee cord through the curtains and fit that to each pair of eyes. All the while I was sitting in the cabin, at an awkward angle, trying to work above eye level with no support !
My stomach muscles are going to ache tomorrow.
I only had four out of the six curtains, so I had purchase some lightweight green material a few weeks ago and my dearly belovéd made two new curtains and a new one for the forehatch.
The result is fairly good although I think I will need to put in a thin line to hold the curtains back in the open position.
What is left to do on the inside is to brush out all the large rubbish, vacuum the interior, then wash down all the surfaces and let that all dry. Then it needs to be sanded and painted or varnished as appropriate.
But not this side of the New Year. Well, not the paint and varnish work. I may do the cleaning before then.
Time for a cup of tea.