Betwixt

South Africa has been in lockdown due to Covid-19 Coronavirus for the past 2 months but work on the boat continued.  First some welding and fitting of the tank covers in the keel, which will be water storage tanks.  Then an outlet for the water cooling for the engine was fitted.  The Yanmar engine was ordered before the world went into lockdown and the arrival of that will be delayed. So the messy job of glueing the deck was tackled.  First the joints are caulked using cotton string which is then hammered tightly into the seams.  Then a seam of Jeffries Marine Glue is applied.  This black tar-like glue needs to be heated to over 180 deg celcius and poured carefully into the joints.  We tried all sorts of devices and contraptions and finally settling on a kettle and a couple of heated chisels to clean up the glue. 

The month of February spent fitting insulation inside the bow which involved experimenting with various glues, foam glues and contact adhesive.  Working in an incredibly small space (and it is only going to get worse) cutting and fitting and glueing insulation boards to the steel hull.  Very messy and very slow going, as each piece needed to be clamped down and dry for 24 hours.