It’s been too long (ten years ashore, five since we got the boat under cover and four since serious restoration work started and stalled again), but I’m back at work on Fly at last! No doubt I’d have got going on all those old screw holes round the window apertures sooner had I known that Blakes Finefill (still my filler of choice) was not discontinued per se but now sold as Hempel Epoxy Filler, but better late than never. So last week I took advantage of the continuing (now discontinued!) fine weather to get this double set of redundant holes cleaned out with the drill and filled, and now we’re ready for Twig to come up with the new windows (a little bigger all round so we can drill new holes in solid material) and be able to discard that hated mixed blessing of a tarp for good…
So here you see too many poorly-placed holes (an inherited problem not of our making!) now cleaned through with a 5mm drill and gently countersunk both sides, with any obviously loose surrounding gelcoat also chipped off:
And here a good (200g?) helping of Hempel Epoxy Filler after my first big plateful only did about 1.5 windows and I had to mix up some more:
And here the surfaces now ready for the new windows, with the internal shots also showing the remaining liner stripped from the main cabin if not yet ready for new linings, which will still require the removal of further old glue and paint:
Might just add (copying this paragraph verbatim from a Facebook post) that I’m so ashamed and sorry for the way I’ve neglected this boat over the past ten years! No doubt I’ve done much to improve my life in other ways including achieving some respectable ‘athletic’ and mountaineering goals, rediscovering my love of whistle and flute playing, taking up (cauld wind) piping, sorting the garden, learning to live with depressive episodes etc. But all that time poor old Fly’s been sitting there with building problems till we’re renovating a virtual wreck, and I can never be proud of that!
However things are looking better now even if we’ve got yet more to rip out of her before we can start fixing stuff back, and what I’ve just got done has at least reduced the obvious stumbling block to a (hopefully) straightforward refitting job. :-)