Picture an old garden shed, filled to the point where the rickety door is an effort to close against the objection of that dusty lawnmower that wants to come out. Kudu is like that at the moment. The is turning into a major refit, a task that even the team on the bygone TV series, challenge Anneka, would have turned their nose at. There’s dust everwhere, and I have to shift loads of stuff into a pile somewhere, just to make room to sleep!

I’m making steady progress, but I seem to be creating yet more jobs as I go along. Steve has finished my bow roller, and a mighty substantial piece of engineering that has turned out to be. I reckon I’ll be able to lift the boat on it once it’s fitted tomorrow.  He’s also kindly added an extra fixing point for another forestay since I plan on making Kudu a slutter rig for the Jester Challenge. This will enable me to run another forestay without the roller furling gear in order to hank on a storm jib.

The hole where the seacock was is almost finished. I’ve got 6 layers of 400gm CSM on the inside of the hole now. I’ve got to grind the outside and fill it tomorrow.

Rob closed his shop early and came down to help me fir the new masthead antenna, and run the cable down the mast which we did by joining the new cable to the old coax with mousing wire, then pulling it through. The bad news was that whoever fitted the old antenna, didn’t drill very big holes for it in the mast, so we had to drill the rivets out of the masthead fitting and remove the cap to get at it all. I need to re-rivet that tomorrow too.

I’ve also fitted the new masthead wind instrument, so the mast side of things has only a few hours of work left. I can get the stick back up then, and have some more room to work on the boat. I’m currently having to crawl in and out of the cabin without opening the hatch. It’s a bit of a contortion exercise.

The next big thing on the list is the instrument displays. They had been glued in place so I’ve completely destroyed them while getting them off. Im now left with a load more holes in the boat which will need filling, sanding and painting before I can add the new displays, because, as you’d expect, the Nasa Clipper range doesn’t fit the “Target” holes. No problem though, I’ll have that done soon enough, perhaps tomorrow too. I’ve totally removed the switch panel since I’m going to finish that off properly and make sure the wiring is finished off to a more professional spec. I don’t like fudges.

I met a cracking chap today too. Carl. He was at the cafe I’ve been getting an afternoon refreshing cup of tea at. He got some charts of the east coast and pointed out loads of places to anchor along the Humber and up the coast to Whitby. It was a big help, so thank you Carl.

The state of the boat is quite disheartening at the moment. I know it will start coming together soon, but it’s days off, and long days at that. On the bright side, when Kudu goes back in the water, she will be a good way towards being ready for the atlantic, and of course, much safer in coastal waters.

Still, you live and learn, and over the past few days I’ve learned a lot. Steve, today, showed me various welding methods, so I now know the difference between TIG and MIG welding, and I’ve been given a great deal of advice about structural repairs to GRP. I’ve done a reasonable amount of fiber glass work before, but it’s been nice, and indeed important, to be told that doing x, y and z, will make a safe repair, as opposed to just a repair that “looks” fixed.

Anyway, I have a few pictures, so let me show you the state of Kudu as of today.

Kudu on the hard at Wells harbour.

Whoever fitted this, it's atrocious! 1mm aluminum taking the load of the entire rig, as well as the anchor.

Steve with the bow roller on the bench, ready for welding.

Here's where the switch panel and instruments were, and the wiring loom in my hand.

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