The Pen Maker's Journey: Keys in Cambodia and The Bronze Propeller Award

We are still here, honest.

We've been doing a little bit of boating...

a little bit of boat maintenance...

a little bit of trading and socialising...

and a little bit of planning...

Oh, and Dudley learns to cope with no 'nads

So the boat work went better than expected. I tried to keep to all the methods Phil Speight had drummed into us the weekend or so before.

The chosen part of LJ for a makeover and practise session was the rear doors and surrounding area, rear deck storage lockers (which were never done properly) and the rearmost section of cabin top that was chipped and scratched by windlasses and mooring pins.

We're still debating whether or not to do the whole cabin top, but at the very least we'll sort out any chips and nicks with a cut back to bright steel and three coats each of primer, undercoat and topcoat.

Our Aldi detail sander wasn't up to the job of stripping off the old rollered topcoat. A quick trip out in the car to invest in a nice new random orbital one from Axminster in Nuneaton soon kitted us out with what we needed.

Blessed with pretty good weather I was able to get the primer and undercoats done before we had to shoot off to Alvecote big weekend.

And a cracking weekend it was too. Only a handful of us traders but it was such a great atmosphere and were always made to feel most welcome by the Burge family who own the pub and marina. The historic boat owners didn't disappoint and the old ex and still current working boats were beautifully presented.

Highlight for us is always the winding competition, seeing these old boys working their boats alongside the new generation is heartwarming. I think the youngest participating historic boat owner was about 19 and the oldest probably well into their 80s.

Paul our boat builder was taking part too. I've mentioned the importance to us before of having a boat builder who knows how boats handle and actually uses them now and again. The competition which was made particularly tricky this year was judged by 4 keen historic boat steerers and guess who won again (his name appears several times on the trophy)... Yes it's Paul 😀

Planning wise for NB Ernest, we've been looking closer at boat electrickery particularly battery tech and power management with the help of a retired engineer from the south coast. Think that's going to be a separate blog or three...

Paul is away on his holidays for a week or so from the August Bank Holiday (yes he's gone boating) so little to report on the steel side, we did have a cracking visit last time though and lots of little bits are taking place. One of which was the space for a cabin top hatch (somewhere between pigeon box and dog box sizes) that'll be in the galley. Measuring up the inside it looks like everything should go just about where I planned it. The only other addition will be a gunwale height rubbing strake that will be painted the same raddle red to delineate between black hull side and gunwale top and hopefully will look a bit like the timber tops on the working boats.

The guys rebuilding the engine should have the injector pump back by now and hopefully the engine will be test ready by about the middle of next week. If it is, it will fit in well with our timings as we're out on the hard standing at Stafford boat club from Sunday 9th and if all goes to plan Thursday and Friday that week will be curing days.

We we're hoping to get some measurements of the engine to Paul so he could start fabricating the engine beds. I used photoshop to convert a photo of the engine to a line drawing so I could illustrate what I wanted measured and Geoff emailed me back that he'd sort it all ASAP even though they were on their summer shut down... an hour later came the apology email that accurate measurements wouldn't be available for another week as Martyn had taken the security keys with him on his family trip to Cambodia. Not an issue as fluky enough it's coinciding with Pauls holidays too... Phew