Refit: winter update

Arabella's marathon refit is almost complete. As ever, the yard is taking as long as possible to finish work, but there has been significant progress since the turn of the year, with two long-overdue projects being ticked off the checklist.

The first was the installation of Tek Dek (artificial teak decking) to the cockpit. Having worked so long and hard in 2007 to clean, cut back and polish the cockpit gelcoat, it's personally very satisfying for me to see the end result, with the scabby old seats and sole covered over and lots of clean shiny gelcoat between each panel.

Tek Dek proved to be very reasonably-priced to buy and have installed. It looks pretty realistic until you get right up close to it, and is considerably grippier underfoot than the old grp used to be, even with anti-slip paint. It will be interesting to see how well it weathers and how long it lasts.




The other item that has made a real difference is the completion of Arabella's interior port surrounds. This turned out to be a particularly difficult job for the yard, because the port and starboard side window apertures were different shapes and sizes!

The yard has made a really nice job of the surrounds, and the combination of these and the decking to the cockpit has made Arabella feel more 'finished' than ever before.

And yet more good news. The images below may seem unremarkable, but anyone following this blog will know that at no point in the past have Arabella's electronics ever previously interfaced properly (or in some cases, at all) with one another. It took weeks of tinkering and the addition of an NMEA/SeaTalk interface box, but everything now officially works.

There remain some hard questions to ask, like how it took the yard over a year - even with Raymarine's help - to achieve this happy state of affairs. But for now, I'm just going to bask in the sheer joy of seeing everything just working, like it's supposed to.

Refit: new deck hardware

The trouble with upgrading certain items on an old boat is that they have a habit of making other items, that you never originally intended to renew, look even more worn out than they really are. So, to match Arabella's shiny new cockpit winches, various other shiny items of deck hardware have now been added.









Most of these items are mere fripperies that just look nicer than the items they replaced, but the pop-up midships cleats are what I really wanted for practical purposes. Arabella lacked any midships cleats for spring lines or short-handed docking, but her narrow side decks meant that installing traditional cleats would have presented a tripping hazard for the unwary, myself included. These cleats are very low profile and are spring-loaded so that they pop up when you pull the latch.

Matters below decks are less bright and shiny, as the yard continue to grapple with the problem of getting the (now replaced) ST60+ Graphic to integrate with the other instruments. I live in hope...




On the positive side, the new latches and gaskets to the cockpit locker lids have successfully kept out the heavy rain of recent weeks, and Arabella's cockpit lockers and bilge are as dry as a bone throughout.

Downloads area added

I have added a small downloads area for anyone interested in accessing and downloading documents about Arabella or about the Pandora International generally. Look for Downloads in the list of Links in the right hand margin of this page, or click HERE.

Most of the documents are in PDF format, with a couple of exceptions that are in Word where they might be useful to others who might want to recycle them.

The documents added today are:

• Pandora International: original sales brochure
• 1973 Boat Test: Pandora International
• 2000 Used Boat Test: Pandora Mark 1
• Arabella's 2005 Survey (PDF)
• Power Consumption Calculator (MS Word)

Refit: back to work again

Her moment of racing glory behind her, for this year at least, Arabella's refit has resumed. The objective was to have completed the loose ends by the end of July but, in fairness to the yard, the weather has been less than helpful. Here's what we did manage to get done in July.

Above: Arabella in pieces once again. The ST60+ Graphic Display has been removed and returned to Raymarine for replacement as it has turned out to be faulty, refusing to (Sea)talk to the cockpit instruments.


Above: Work in progress: Mr G and I have been constructing the box which will enclose the consumer unit, battery charger and other electrical equipment at the aft end of the starboard settee berth.


Above: The cabling and deck gland for the solar panel have now been tidied up.

Above: New toggle catches have been fitted to the cockpit lockers. The locker lids now boast gaskets in the hope of reducing the amount of water that finds its way inside - the current weather should given them a good test.

Worst floods for a generation (vaguely boaty)

As I type this, much of Gloucestershire and parts of Hereford & Worcester are under water as the Rivers Severn and Avon burst their banks following days of torrential rainfall. Hundreds of thousands of people are without drinking water, and a smaller - but still very large - number of homes have no electrical supply.

The news presenters have taken to calling these "worst floods for a generation." That, and a particular shot taken from a news helicopter showing the flooded fields that have transformed Tewkesbury into a beleagured island, reminded me of an old family cine film, captured on silent 8mm, of those self-same flooded fields a generation ago, in November 1960.

I've posted the clip here and on Arabella's new Movie Gallery - not for the flood pictures, which we can all see live on 24 hour news feeds, but for the interesting manner in which my family and their friends amused themselves in those biblical floods nearly 47 years ago.

Stay with the movie and you'll see what I mean...do you think they'd be allowed to do this in the Health & Safety-conscious Britain of 2007? With or without a risk assessment?

On an embarrassing note, the stupid yellow pom-pom hat sported by my older brother, back then in the Good Old Days before I was born, had an extended life and was regularly worn by me on the way to and from school, at my mother's insistence, as late as 1970. I'm pretty sure Social Services wouldn't allow that degree of mental cruelty to children in Britain in 2007.