Allez-Oop !
Jeepers it’s been cold recently and the rain that we had mid June has got the shed a little damp.
But it was handy for us, as we have been laying on the necessary coats of paint that the hull requires. Low temperatures allow the two pack paint to go off slowly helping the protection of the timber. Though the thought of wet & dry, cut & polish with 220 grade paper when it was 5 degrees outside had us shivering in our boots and pouring kettles of hot water into the buckets we used for the ‘wet’.
Finally the last coat of paint was laid on to finish her off as a bright red boat. We then lain on the keel protection strip and prepared the boat to be rolled over. Which we duly did yesterday and the job is now to tediously scrape out the excess glue and tape that was used in the protection phase.
Amongst other things, we have been working on the chafers for Jetty two and we are simply waiting for the workers to return and prise a few more off the piers, so we can sand them back and paint them up. And just in case you are wondering where the seats that sit out on the nor-west edge of the clubs lawns, well one of our team had the bosuns remove them to the Bosuns shed and they are slowly being restored and given a fresh coat of protection.
A plea from one of our bosuns who found a large amount of children’s toys dumped in the skip next to their shed. If someone is clearing out their house of unwanted but useable toys, please put them into a box next to the shed so that they can recycle the toys to one of the local charities. Yes, our team did a bit of skip diving and we’d like to short circuit this process as the skips are a bit rough on the nose.
Finally we’d like to see some more teams stepping up to row the skiffs as the weather has been great recently in the afternoons with the very light breezes making it fun out on the water. When using the skiffs, the Cox of the rowing team will be the responsible person to make sure that the skiff is left in an appropriate state for the next team to use. (Think, neat, tidy & oars stored properly etc) A short session will be arranged with prospective Coxes to show them the ropes prior to their first row.
We are looking at some fairly large projects shortly and volunteers will be welcome, don’t hesitate to drop by the shed on Mondays, Wednesdays & Friday mornings and put your name down.
Rick Steuart
For the Bosuns Club.
