Clear the deck
You wouldn’t think it’d take that long to grind down the main deck, but with our noise restrictions meaning we can only work on Saturday mornings (since we’re at work during the week and arrive home during quiet hours), the weather being generally uncooperative, and social plans getting in the way, we’ve only just completed the last of the deck grinding this weekend!
The red areas are everywhere we’ve taken off the existing layers of uneven paint and rust down to the bare steel, and then temporarily protected these areas from the elements with red oxide. The next step is to rough up everything with a wire brush and then (finally!) we can roller on our green Hammerite.
...and then start on the side decks. We didn’t realise we’d bought the Forth Bridge...
The other progress on our big list is that James was finally able to locate the inverted electrical socket last night. The power for the moorings (and half the street) went out last night and it seemed as good a time as any to switch on the inverter and start plugging our work light into mystery sockets. We figured it must be in the engine room, but none of those lit the test bulb, and neither did the socket directly next to the inverter… But one of the sockets in the wheelhouse did, so through a bit of an extension cable, we were able to plug our water pump in up there so we can still wash up and flush the toilets. The next step is to determine if the inverter can handle the cold and hot water pumps at the same time, meaning we could theoretically have hot showers while unplugged or on the move!
And in other electrical news, our galvanic isolator has arrived! James reckons it should be pretty straightforward to install, so fingers crossed he doesn’t end up with an Einstein ‘do!
Lorna Brown, 31 July 2008, 17:18:
Ooo, so you went for one then? Can I ask how much it was? We’ve been umming and ahhing about getting one since we bought the boat.
James, 4 August 2008, 17:25:
Nikolaj got a bunch of us together so in the end I think we paid just over £50 for it including shipping. It can handle 70A so it’s only overspecced by a factor of 2…