My winter projects for this winter and into the new year

 Now we are all looking forward t​o the new year and carrying on with the projects we put to bed for the Christmas break. It is now time to dust off the sheets and uncover the boats and get to grips with the boat job lists on the work in the workshop and out in yard. The main job at the moment that needs most of my time is sanding down the decks which were filled with epoxy filler before the Christmas break and now needs finishing off so that I can move on to the next stage on the deck repairs, which is to do the second layer of filling to get the deck to a flat and uniform shape with the correct camber.

There is other work is being done on the Morgan Giles 30 other than the epoxy filler is curing off on the decks , one major jobs is to make a custom shaped GRP water tank to fit under the new bunk in the main cabin which is a custom shape that the owner as design to make the best use of the space in the main cabin. there is going to be a fair bit of brainstorming of ideas to best workout the best way to make the plug and then make the tank to as close to the maximum size available to fit inside the space available to fit the new tank.

Some of the other jobs in the workshop that need working on, the Picnic boat and its ongoing refit which is at a stage where major parts are going into the boat, such as the plywood fronts and tops for the aft seating, an engine box surround and top, plywood sub deck which after they are laid down will have a thin mahogany laid deck glued over the sub deck which will have white seams. Other jobs on the picnic boat are to fit the fuel tank and make the aft locker into a usable space. The space under the two remain thwarts will be made into lockers as well. After the floorboards are made and fitted down in place. Then there will be the engine alignment and finish fitting the stern tube and making the keel to fit round the external part of the stern tube to protect it from damage.

Once all the work is done of the boat, it will be time to repaint the boat in the owners colours and modify the trailer to fit the new underwater design of the boat. However, that is a few months into the future before we have to think about that stage.

The another job in the workshop is the 8ft. GRP dinghy which now as the major hull repairing done. There are a number of small grp hull repairs that still need to be done before any painting of the outside of hull. Other jobs on the dinghy are to make a new aft seat/buoyancy locker, make a new centre thwart as the old thwart was missing and a new pair of gunwales and inwales and rowlock blocks to fit the new rowlocks in and finally a new pair of oars made to fit the dinghy. When the boat is finally finished off and it is painted and varnished, then the deck fittings will be fitted and then the dinghy will ready for the new season.

Other work jobs in the workshop is to do grp repairs to a Mark I Lotus Europa while its owner is working on chassis. The grp repairs are in a number of different places all over the bodywork so it is going to be interesting work.

So the first few months of the year are going to be busy.