Summertime

Summer - our proper Summer Holiday - is fast approaching. James' school will soon break up for its long vacation and as of the 20th July I will be working just 2/3 days a week at my new research position. This means that once Bumps are finished we will have rather a lot of time on our hands, but we shall not be short of things to do!

Most importantly, we have a few things that need to be sorted before our next BSC (Boat Safety Certificate) inspection is due in December. We plan to replace and rehouse our battery bank, as well as a few other bits and pieces.

The propellor shaft coupling needs a good look at (hopefully by a professional) before we can think about crusing any sort of long distance, so that's another priority.

Perhaps most excitingly for me, the Duck needs a new coat of paint! We need to grind off a few rust patches back to bare metal, which will then need to primed. The original primer coat seems pretty good, but we'll have to remove quite a bit of loose flaking paint, clean and rub down the whole lot before starting to think about the top coats. We've been thinking a lot about colour schemes and signwriting but have yet to come to a decision about what to do. I hope to have a play around on Photoshop, the results of which will be posted here of course!

Now we just have to hope the weather holds!