Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Saturday, 29 March 2014

New hatches and bits

The inspection hatches in each centre thwart have warped over the years and had become buckled. So I've been watching the cost of inspection hatches; and when they dropped in a sale to £15 I decided it was time to buy two. They didn't quite fit so some jigsaw artistry had to be done but eventually the port one dropped into place.


 I also, as a result of it being that little bit bigger, had to relocate a cleat to the side of the centre case. It is the cleat for the mainsail downhaul. The centre board sheet cleat was placed on a new wooden block to give it some more 'down angle' so that it is easier to cam cleat and un-cleat the sheet. The plastic holder of the compass also got repaired (it snapped when I fell against it recently).

if anyone has some bright ideas about how to get that small cam cleat off then I am all ears; the screws seem to have rusted into blobs so there is no thread to attach....bizarre

Access to the starboard side was somewhat restricted by hedges so the fitting of that hatch will be next week's little job. Its nice pottering on Arwen and my lovely family give me some space at the weekends for such tasks.

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