Weekend

This weekend could be exciting in the world of Live Magic. Either she will get a tillerpilot fitted or not, and she may go to Poole or not. Fingers crossed for both but only time will tell.

Sailing

I picked up the sail on Friday as planned in Poole from Crusader Sails who could not have been nicer if they tried. I had a brief tour of the factory and some advice before heading back to the boat.

Once the sail was fitted I took her out for a spin. Unfortunately the wind was a bit strong and I still have no reefing on the main so I was under head sail alone. I put the whole genoa out and had a great time doing 4.5 knots, very nearly the boats top speed.

The following day I took the boat out with my dad and anchored at the entrance to Chichester harbour in beautiful sunshine. We then sailed to Northney Marina and had an excelent steak at the Royal Oak. Sunday we waited for the tide and motored back in a F7 to Emsworth marina. Unfortunately I broke the guard wire which was rusted internally so I now have something else on the list to replace!

Sail at last!

My sail will apparently be ready on Friday so hopefully we'll start to see some pictures of the boat out sailing.

Motoring

This weekend I replaced the leaking fuel cock on the engine, fitted a new sparkplug and replaced the impeller. Although the impeller appeared to be working it actually only had 2 out of 6 vanes left. The difference since replacement is very noticeable. With all that done, and while still waiting for the new headsail, I went for a motor with my brother. We took a quick trip in the sunshine over to the Hayling Island bridge and picked up a mooring buoy for a while to refuel.

Here's the boat following the deck painting and sanding.

And here is a before and after shot of the sanding. I was using 80 grit paper on a precision sander then applied teak oil after cleaning.

Boat update

The measurements for the new sail is now in so fingers crossed it won't be 5 more weeks until I can go sailing. I've now bought a detail sander so can finish off the look of the boat by sprucing up the woodwork. Hopefully I'll finish that this weekend or next and get some new pictures up.

Painting the Deck

This weekend and last I painted the deck to get rid of the old baby blue which no longer matched the hull.

To begin with I brushed it with a wire brush to help give a key, and also to remove any flakey paint. In some areas I also had to use the scraper. All ropes were tied up out of the way, and the nice spliced shore lines were replaced by tatty ropes for the duration of the painting. On the first weekend I used a brush all over because I didn't have a roller tray and had already been to B&Q twice. I regretted this almost straight away and then even more when I returned after a week to see a boat that looked like it had a bad white wash on it. This time I was armed with a roller, however, so proceeded with a second coat after washing the deck down. The second coat went on very nicely and now looks pretty good for a 40 year old boat.
The paint used was Hempel Deck coating.