Above: Chaos reigns below decks!Work pressures, coupled with yesterday's less-than-sparkling attempt to get to Southampton, conspired to prevent me from going to see how Arabella's refit was progressing. But the yard's bills just kept on coming in all the same, so in desperation today I rushed through my meetings and made time to go and inspect the work done since September.
The refit was obviously going through a 'messy children' stage at the moment, with various people starting and stopping work around each other's progress (or lack of it). But the process was moving inexorably forward, and even in her unfinished state, it was becoming easier to see how Arabella would look when the work was finished.
Much of the interior work shown here was done in September and October, and the focus had now shifted to the exterior fittings. A key issue for me was the height of Arabella's guardrail. The original pushpit and pulpit were in great shape, and the stanchions had clearly been replaced at some stage and were also in excellent condition. The only problem was that they were all pathetically low. This had clearly been done with a view to maintaining the yacht's visual proportions, and it has to be admitted that in that sense, it worked well. But - call me a wimp if you like - I just couldn't see how they would engender any sense of security at sea. I like to feel that I am in, rather than on, the cockpit. I opted to double the height of the guardrail all round.
This turned out to be quite an undertaking. Each of the stanchions had an extension welded on (and the seam polished out for aesthetic purposes). The original plan was to weld extensions to the pulpit and pushpit, too. This worked well for the pushpit. However, extending the lines of the current pulpit would have led to it overhanging the bow by a considerable degree. Apart from looking odd, this would have increased Arabella's length to the extent that my marina charges would have increased. That didn't seem good for my blood pressure. After taking a deep breath, I authorised the fabrication of an entirely new pulpit. It looked the part, but I would have to claw back the cost overrun somewhere...
Once I had checked the work and taken pictures, I sat down and made a list of the other things that need to be done. Once I got back home and typed it up, it ran to four pages. Damn. I'd learned the hard way on this project that planning was everything, so I broke down the list into as many constituent items as possible and tried to put them into some semblance of order, according to their priority. Then I asked the yard to sit down with me in January and work through the list together.
I'm determined to get Arabella back into commission this coming Spring - before I forget how to sail. If all the work can't be done before then, she can go back in the water unfinished and then come out in the high season, when I rarely sail (I hate the Solent when it gets overcrowded in high season) and the yard is quiet again.
Above: New self-tailing winch (note the custom s/s base) and cockpit instrument heads to starboard.
Left: Plastimo Contest compass to port.
Above: View forward, showing an example of the stanchions which have been extended to create a full height guardrail, and the new pulpit beyond
Above: The new pulpit.
Left: New wooden panels to the rear bulkhead. The Studer Innotec MBC battery charger has now been installed alongside the 240V consumer unit (lower background).
Above: A composite photostitch showing the instrument panel, among the debris, awaiting installation.
