Restoration Blog

Pat's Progress

With a week between working parties and a considerable dosage of rain in the meantime, it was not surprising that there was a significant volume of water in the bilges.  So, it made perfect sense to check out the function of one of the new bilge pumps. - Impressive it was too.

With a predictable urge by the team to find inside jobs, we progressed the inside of the facilities cabin with the preparation for and the application of white paint around the walls and ceiling.  In the engine room work continued on the wiring of the solar cell control box and the conduit feed up onto the roof.

We had intended to apply paint to the outside of Pat, but it was either raining or just too damp and soggy to apply paint outside.  Fortunately, there remained plenty of work to continue with.  The floor decking required descaling and derusting but, most importantly, with the arrival of JCB paint, at last, the first application of yellow to the spud leg metalwork.

Each section was presented in a complete state with its new bushes pressed in place.  Each of those was first checked for fit with the pins, a few required reaming just to ease the fit.

The rudder assembly was also assembled in place to check alignments and to see just how much slack there was in the bottom bearing.  The degree of wobble is a bit too much and we will have to attend to the bushes otherwise the packed bearing up above might suffer vibration damage.

Finally, at the end of the day, work had to be halted to go and attend to an urgent traffic management requirement.  It is pleasing to report that there were no casualties or minor bumps!  I expect the family make this journey at least twice a day.