The cat's whiskers

D tells me we have had a new visitor to the shed this week as a small inquisitive cat has turned up on the scene and is interested in boat building.  I am  thinking of recruiting it as a ship's cat as we have not got one of those yet. Though I have not see it, apparently it is grey so will go with the hull nicely.

D has had to 'discourage' it from getting too involved and is now having to close the hatches when he leaves the boatshed so we don't come back to 'presents' from the cat. I am only glad that the varnishing is over....

Anyway, on to progress... we are now wired for sound with the VHF and radio installed and internal speakers for the radio and external repeater for the VHF (pictured below). Whilst I am not one for canned music generally, I have visions of cruising on calm seas is glorious sunshine with 'Sailing by' (if you don't know, look it up) playing quietly in the background. 

I have not had many specific requests in the build process, but my one stipulation has come to pass this week, let me explain.  There is a locker at the head of each berth, one of which has the cooker on it. Having decided that we wanted to stick with the spirit burners, that paved the way for using the space underneath in a much better way as we were not dealing with pipework for gas. As such my design request was a couple of gas struts to support the cooker allowing me to rummage underneath with both hands if necessary and without risking dropping the top down. Obviously this is only for when there is nothing on the cooker. So pictured below is the solution. The gas struts themselves are pretty strong and need a bit of 'tuning' as, at the moment, I think it could flip pancakes all on its own!

Above decks, instrumentation and compass are now installed properly.



This is far more fancy than our current boat which has a hand bearing compass, a depth sounder and piece of wet seaweed. 

Talking of fancy, the socket for the flag staff is now in place on top of the rudder stock and is a suitable match for the splendid ensign already provided by generous friends.