The initial boatyard phase is always a little soul destroying. You go from order to complete disorder very quickly. By disorder I do not mean that the wheels have fallen off this project, far from it but rather everything has to look worse before it can get better. As I write this sitting in the saloon I am surrounded by tools bags, boxes of spares and new equipment, vacuums and cabinet doors that are not hung where they usually belong. There is the sound of scraping and spraying from the team wet sanding the bottom, the odd loud bang from the engineer working on removing the stubborn cruising prop and the quiet musings of out B&G mastermind Eric as he upgrades our system.
We have been ticking off some pretty major jobs but of course as fast as you work through the list you come up with more. For me seeing the end of the paperwork involved in shipping a boat and a container was a big relief as miss a deadline for that and it has all manner of knock on consequences.
Tim and Nick, Dorade’s two nippers have been doing a grand job respectively. Tim is now the master of bronze spray painting and Nick has almost completed the varnish work on the two booms after removing the track. Both have impressed me with their work ethic and the pride they take in what they do.
Finally after a week and a half out if the water we are moving into the more pleasant reconstruction phase where we can walk away from the boat each day with visible signs of progress. It helps that after a couple of cold rainy days the sun is now shining and looks set to stay that way for a few days. Some of the hard work that has gone on this past week is clear to see, some is tucked away behind the scenes or in hours of emails and paperwork but all of it is moving us towards running a faster more efficient boat and therefore a happy team.
Hannah