Dinghy cruising refreshment for the soul

 Here is the second part of our recent day sail out on Plymouth Sound after a long, long, long winter hibernation! 

Nice to see given today I sit at the kitchen table watching a Yellow weather warning out side - 60 mph gusts. Drizzle and violent gusts. Our little woodland back garden is taking a real hammering. We took the precaution yesterday of  lopping several large branches off the tree at the front of the garden to reduce the weight. Probably unnecessary, but prudent! 

In this video you can see briefly a couple of modifications I have made over the winter. One is the installation of a small electric bilge pump. It is portable as in I can move it about the boat and just shove the outlet pipe down the centreboard casing. It is powered by a small 12v battery and I did two videos on how I set it up on our YouTube channel - search for the playlist on modifications to Arwen. 

This hole drilling was 'wear my big pants time' I must say! 

waterproof box, 12v battery, fuse and 1m long wires to pump

https://youtu.be/gTtOgzGHK4o

https://youtu.be/QD15o1TThWQ

And yes - it has been pointed out that a jubilee clip would be a good idea but it was one hell of a tight fit and thus far it seems to be holding! 

The second alteration has been to the lazy jacks/ topping lift. when erecting the boom tent I have always had to haul through sufficient slack in the topping lift to be able to take them forward to tie out of the way on the mast - a right pain. Now I can just unclip the lazy jacks each side and haul those bits forward - so much quicker and simpler. I can't remember whether it was Tim or Joel (two experienced and highly skilled navigator builders/sailors in the States) who shared that idea with me. Which ever one of you it was, guys, thankyou! 😆 You can see the modification in the video above around 6 minutes in. 

Another idea I have is to put in a mounting for my kayak stirrup pump affair - somewhere close to the rear end of the centreboard case so that I can access it easily from the rear cockpit area. Given the weather we seem to be having, rain is now part of our summer! It seems a prudent thing to do! 

Finally, I have always admired how decluttered Tim and Joel's cockpits always seem. I think we can all agree Arwen's interior always looks as if a bomb has gone off inside it. So, I'm going full on Marie Kondo and Stacey Solomon - putting things away so poor Arwen has at least some semblance of shipshape appearance. I also think declutter means - "lay it all out, go through it and be sensible about what you actually need to take!"  Ouch - I'm a natural hoarder come - "you never know when you might need it so be prepared" kind of guy! This will be sooooo hard! 

The boss says, given the state of my study, she will believe that when she sees it! 😂