Blogging in the time of Coronavirus

Well, it looks like Gaia has finally lost patience with us and forced us to accept the fact that, actually, we are not in charge of this planet.  Blogging about something as frivolous as building a yacht might seem inappropriate, but how are we to bear the present if we don't believe that there will be good things again?  However that might be, Fate has stepped in to control my enthusiasm.   I managed to crack the screen on my laptop on Friday and as we Kiwis are in "lockdown",  unable to purchase anything other than food, household necessities, medicine and (mercifully) wine and beer, there is no chance of my either replacing or repairing the machine.  Add to this that in my quaint,  old-fashioned way, I use a camera to take my photos, then you can appreciate that this blog will be extremely brief.

Actually, this is barely a problem.  I have been.working on the rudders and bilgeboards, which both require vast amounts of sanding, filling, sanding, glassing, sanding, coating, sanding ...  you get the picture.  None of these is particularly photogenic, so my rather pathetic photos from the phone are quite sufficient to show you my progress.  Well, they would be if I could get far enough back from the rudders.

The bilgeboards are just about finished and in the photograph you can see the plastic anti-chafe sheeting.  HDPE.  I have yet to screw on the clamp for the uphaul rope (or is it the downhaul? I'm still trying to figure out the geometry of it all!) and fit the block that goes in the slot that can be seen on the left-hand board.  I have coated the upper part with epoxy and graphite and will Coppercoat the lower part when I do the rudders and trim tab.

This rather uninformative photograph shows one of the endplates at the bottom of the rudder. The idea od fitting endplates is that, apparently, they make a shallow rudder more effective by forcing the flow of water along the full-length of the rudder, if I have understood this correctly  I have stuck them on the sides of the rudders rather than making them in one piece and putting it on the bottom.  The rudders are higher than both skeg and keel, but there is a chance that the boat could rock back on them when I ground the boat, or that I might not realise that there is a rock conveniently placed to catch one of them as she settles. It would be easier to replace one wing than the whole plate and without, I hope, damaging the rest of the rudder too much.  These will also be glassed and then the rudders will get Coppercoat on them.

Life at Norsand Boatyard goes on much the same for me.  It must, however, be a worry for the owners, with 31 people laid off and no-one with much of an idea when, or if, life will get back to normal.  The yard has about a dozen or so occupied boats and those owners who come from overseas have even less idea of what the future holds.  Visas have been automatically extended for most of them and most of them seem fairly philosophical about the disruption to their lives.  As someone said to me today, there are thousands of people far worse off.  So far we don't appear to have anyone infected, but who knows?  Although we are all endeavouring to keep isolated in our own particular "bubbles", single people have been encouraged to take on a friend to share with.  Apart from anything else, this means only one of the two people needs to go shopping, reducing exposure for everyone.  I am very fortunate that Shirley hauled Speedwell out not long before all this Covid-19 business started, so we are seeing rather more of each other than we perhaps anticipated!  It's wonderful to have her here and to be able to offer my shed, some of the tools, etc to help with her work.  We live one day at a time.