Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Merry chaos at Great Haywood.

Things went reasonably to plan this morning, after a quiet night at Weston, where the moorings got very busy by late afternoon. We got to Great Haywood just after nine, to find a couple of boats already watering, but just room for us on the end.

We'd not filled the tank at Stone, and wanted to top it right up here. After a bit of hassle getting a fitting to attach to the outlet on the water point, we were able to settle down. The recycling was chucked in the relevant skips and after that we were kept entertained by conversations with our fellow boaters.

First up were John and Elizabeth, Kiwis on Helen Louise. We had a good natter with them, then they went off and after a bit Periwinkle arrived. Periwinkle is a hotel boat; they had to tie outside us whilst our tank finished filling.

We found ourselves following Snowgoose down Haywood Lock; I nipped off and got a paper whilst Sheila worked Sanity Again down. Colwich was being repainted by a Community Payback team so even more merry fun was had by all, especially as there was a queue of four boats below.

This included fellow Braidbar continuous cruisers Bob and Shirley on Up Spirits, number 102. We last saw them just under twelve months ago at Marple.

We stopped for the day at Wolseley Bridge in steadily improving weather. This is handy, as it means I can get on and do the bits of revarnishing in pleasant conditions. It's not a great deal, just repairing sun damage along the tops of the external doors, and a bit of abrasion in the frame of the back doors, where you rub it getting in and out of the boat.

Another rub down with wet and dry and a further coat of polyurethane varnish tomorrow will see most of it sorted. By then, w'll have done our usual run through Rugeley and moored at Kings Bromley, I expect.

3 comments:

Martin said...

Bruce,

It was good to see you at Aston on the way down the T&M. You mentioned a product for cutting the paintwork on Erin Mae to remove the chalking, but I can't remember the name of the one you recommended. Do you remember?

Martin

Bruce in Sanity said...

Hi

Glad to see you made it back safely! The wrist must be a bore, though. Let me tell you about my shoulder sometime…

The stuff I was talking about is 3M Finesse-It; I've done a fuller response on your own blog. I've just found it for sale on eBay, £10 for a half litre. It's the Finishing Compound that you want, and I see that they now do a marine version specifically for boats.

All the best

Bruce

Martin said...

Thanks, Bruce, I caught the response on my own blog and have ordered some. The cheapest place was actually 3M's own site. I'll try it by hand first, before seeing if one of my friends has an orbital polisher lying around!

Martin