The Good Mood joblist has been largely static for the last six months. An unsatisfactory situation, obviously. Every opportunity to get up to Deganwy has been used to, erm, go sailing. I haven’t dedicated any time to ‘getting things done’ and that’s part of what I’ve been doing wrong. The other aspect of wrongness is I haven’t *correctly* prioritised the jobs correctly. I have been blinded by the scope of what needs to be done, and haven’t picked off the right jobs for the right time. I need to be more structured, and more disciplined. I need to get up to Deganwy and get things done. So let’s have a detailed look at the jobs again, look at what’s involved, try to group them into a logical sequence, and prioritise them. Again.
- Sterilise the water tanks
I know how to sterilise water tanks, it’s a job I do every spring on the caravan’s water supply. The boat has two steel water tanks; one located under the port settee, the other under the starboard settee. Logic tells me the two tanks aren’t independent and are probably connected via an underfloor pipe/coupling that runs through the bilges. But if they are connected, I don’t know how that connection works (electric pump? gravity feed?), I also don’t know how good/serviceable that connection is; that would need checking. So I think my first job is to take up the floor and ferret about in the bilges to determine how the water supply hangs together, and give all of those components a good, hard look. When I am satisfied with everything, I can find out how the water is pumped away from the tanks to the sink in the galley, and to the sink in the head. When I know these things, and when I have checked and, if necessary, replaced every component and every hose, I will be able to sterilise the tanks.
Estimated investigation duration: 3h. Estimated tank fill/sterilise duration: 5h. Total duration: 8h.
- Secure the water tanks
This is tricky. The steel water tanks are just sitting in the gap beneath the port and starboard settees and the hull. How do you fasten steel water tanks to the inside of a GRP hull? I could lay a strap over the tanks in a north/south config, and then lay another in an east/west config, and tighten them up on a ratchet. Maybe 2x north/south and 2x east/west straps for each tank would be better, to be secure in rough weather. But the question is how to fasten the straps to the GRP hull? Epoxy resin glue? Yep, probably that. The surfaces of all eight fixing points on the inside of the hull would need to be cleaned and prepped and maybe sanded.
Estimated investigation duration: 30m. Estimated prep/fixing duration: 4h. Total duration: 4h 30m
- Audit, clean and service the anchor (s/be 15Kg Rocna/Spade)
- Audit, clean and mark out the anchor chain (s/be 40m 8mm chain)
Clean out the forward locker
This means lowering all the ground tackle onto the concrete beneath the boat, laying out the chain and inspecting every link. If there are no issues with the anchor and/or chain, then it all needs cleaning. Once cleaned it can be marked into measured lengths, so I would know how much chain I’m deploying when in an anchorage.
Estimated investigation duration: 2h. Estimated cleaning/painting duration: 4h. Total duration: 6h
That’s enough for now; three full days to knock off just five jobs, and I would have to be sans dogs for each day. 🙁