Friday 14th October

At Debdale, the boats been lifted out and jet washed for blacking.

As you can see the weather is perfect, warm and dry.

The first thing to get on with was to have the bow thruster tunnel grills altered, to a better removable type. This the local shell builder Andycraft did promptly and well. They also flattened the plate that was bent on the top of the rudder, when we were caught on the cill on the Rufford branch.

I then started on the bow thruster repair to the propellers that had either fallen off or were spinning loose. I removed the loose propeller and blacked the tunnel and left it to dry. I then started on blacking the rest of the hull, most of it was done with a roller the rest with a 4" brush, Jo followed round with a smaller brush getting in the bits that I had missed. By 3.00 p.m. the first coat was on the shell. with the light dropping it was time to return to the bow thruster to fit the propellers on the shafts, complete with new shear pins and fixing screws, all complete and tested by 4.15 p.m.