STRUT FIX

An early start today, got to get working, got to get out the shipyard. The weather today was perfect, just a bit of drizzle, not enough to stop work. All day I have been cleaning, scraping, sanding and painting. Truce is now almost ready for antifouling paint.

After a couple of glasses of amber nectar last night I found a solution to the broken strut. The strut is like a leg, when a leg is broken you splint it. Why not splint the strut? By putting stainless plates either side of the strut and bolting them through, the strut is made whole again. The whole arrangement acts like an ‘I’ beam and has great strength.

A young guy called Jimmy Pritchett did the work and made a great job of it. The bolts are tapped into the receiving plate and then welded in place to prevent any chance of movement. I am very pleased and relieved to have got the job completed.  I feel pretty tired tonight, it’s been a long day. The boat is in disarray, stuff everywhere as I am doing some small jobs inside now that we are out of the water.

The biggest inconvenience is not having fresh water at hand. Wrangell has a water crisis (treatment plant problem). Hope the weather holds for a couple more days.