I was far more interested in the sails which have arrived. We ordered these way back from Mark Butler at James Lawrence in Brightlingsea and had an enjoyable visit and a couple of hours talking to Mark about what we wanted and they are now here. The Golant Gaffer is cutter rigged with a jib, staysail and high peaked main and I am looking forward to unfurling them for the first time and promise I will post some pictures of her sailing when we reach that point.
Here is one of the locker tops part finished and a shot of the cockpit in progress.
Then to the hatch, here it is laid out and stuck down. Tile spacers being used to keep the spacing even and D is getting to be a whizz with a piping bag full of epoxy mixed with graphite which he is using to 'pay' the seams.
Here is the hatch almost finished
And here it is in situ
On the rigging side, this is endless but I have been pressing on with backstays. The top part of the backstays is Dynastay with a large loop spliced in and to make it kind to the mast, the loop is covered in chromed leather and stitched in place with baseball stitch (sort of like lacing shoes). Here they are.....
The lower part of the backstays - the part with blocks is in braided rope that is particularly resistant to being spliced so I have made a seized eye and sewn and tapered the end and then served it over. In order to be able to do this, D made me a basic 'serving board' out of a piece of teak decking. It has a number of holes down it and some garden wire at the end to hold the reel of twine. This is so you don't need to occupy the ship's boy in passing the reel of twine round and round. To set it up, the twine needs to be passed through a number of holes that allows the twine to unreel but provides some resistance so that the service is tight. I found some lovely thick buff waxed whipping twine which was perfect for the job.
Below is a picture of the device and it was brilliant. I served the backstays and the mainsheet in about 20 minutes. Quick, easy and a good finish. See pics below..
Basic serving board
Served backstay
Additionally, I have started making the strops to hold the blocks for the jib and staysail. These are made with continuous loops of dyneema with a thimble seized in and then the loop covered with chromed leather again (see below).
And then we were also thinking about the cruising chute which we will fly between the jib and staysail so this needs a small strop to sit round the bowsprit to take the tackline. Here, instead of using a block for the tackline we have used a Selden low friction eye, again seized into a continuous loop of Dyneema and leather covered (I guess you are getting the idea now). We will see how it goes.
