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 30 January 2016

New year's resolution

to sail this year in an organised fashion so that Arwen's  interior doesn't look like a bomb has gone off in it. So I've spent a couple of hours sorting out in my head where things will now go when the weather finally allows me to pull the poor old girl off the drive.
My aim is to have a completely uncluttered interior. I think it was Joel who once said that he couldn't have things rolling about in Ellie...things which he would trip over or stand on. My friend Dave has a similar philosophy and he has stoically put up with things rolling around in Arwen without complaint, good friend that he is. I intend impressing him, next time he joins us for a cruise. He deserves a shipshape boat after all the time he has put in teaching me how to try and sail in a semi decent fashion.
 So with all this in mind, some new Lomo dry bags have arrived in 8 and 20 litre sizes. They make storage so much easier and fit through her circular hatches without undue hassle. They also keep contents dry in the front thwart side locker, where, as regular readers will know, due to my annual complaining, the hatches keep leaking because water gets through the tarps and collects down the front of the cockpit because the drive slopes down that direction......and it makes me sooooo irritated!!! Regarding the dry bags, I  have always been very impressed with the quality and value for money from this company. No Lomo product has let me down yet.
So when the weather is better, those side hatches will be permanently sealed up with marine sealant and a new circular hatch installed in the top of the thwart. In the meantime some nice bronze gleaming hatch toggles arrived at Christmas and these will be attached to the front bulkhead hatch which will make life so much easier. For the first time ever, I will be able to use the front under deck locker space. However, it is limited...........the mast stands right in front of the access hatch and the clearance either side is consequently around 6 inches width, if that. As I have said before, as a novice boat builder, I didn't really think through that aspect. Hindsight being a wonderful thing, I do wish I had offset the hatch to one side, pushed the deck coaming further forward, kept its width smaller etc etc......but hey there we go! Lessons learnt for next time!

2 comments:

Bob said...

Excellent resolution! And, yes, hindsight is wonderful... I need to build another boat just to use what I've learned from mistakes on Gardens!

steve said...

Thanks Bob
Yup hindsight, a wonderful but painful thing!
Steve