I started the day by removing the rubbing strake, a long steel bar on the side of the boat, used to protect the wood from collisions at the dock or alongside other boats. It was falling off, and I needed to fill the holes it was screwed into, before re-fixing it. There are four strakes, made up of 4 separate bars of half round steel. I thought I would do one now, and see how it went. I drilled out the soggy wood behind the strake, ready for filling with thickened epoxy later.
Tim had baked a lovely loaf which we had for lunch then we took a taxi up to the dinghy man’s workshop today to see how the repair was proceeding, and to drop off the rowlocks for him to glue on. It doesn’t look like we will get the dinghy back until next week, which is a pain.
After this we did a big shop and back to the boat where I mixed up some epoxy for the repairs, now I’m finding it difficult to get the epoxy to not exotherm, this is the epoxy heating up and going into an uncontrolled chemical reaction where it sets in seconds. I reduced the amount of hardener today to a 3:1 mix, and a few minutes later had a boiling hot tub of thickened epoxy, I didn’t even get a chance to use any of it. What a waste. Meanwhile Tim did a great job polishing the strakes, and I slapped some varnish on the bowsprit, three coats now, another three to go.
Once I had calmed down over the epoxy, I started again, this time with a 6:1 mix, this worked really well, I won’t be sure until tomorrow, but no exotherm, but the epoxy did start to harden after about 15 minutes, which was just long enough for me to get all the holes filled. Tomorrow I can test it and sand it down smooth. Oh how I wish I had bought an electric sander back in Penang.
Tonight we went looking for Veena, a Thai restaurant recomended by a taxi driver, but it was closing up as we arrived, around 8:30, all the Malaysian food outlets shut around 8, but I think that’s to do with Ramadan. We ended up in a Chinese seafood place and had a lovely Tom Yum soup, and prawns.
Looking forward to the Brexit result tomorrow, I’m expecting and hoping for at least 70% remain, fingers crossed.
Paul C.
Ops we are comming out of europe. That will disappoint you
Yes very dissapointed, not just in the cost to me, but I think we will be a much poorer nation for it, in every sense. Still lets see how it goes. The peple have spoken!