"Physical Distancing"

This morning I heard that the health officials are trying to get away from using the term “Social Distancing” and want to go with “Physical Distancing” instead. I understand the distinction but it is sad that we have to spell it out for so many people. It’s fairly simple… wash your hands more and stay away from people. I hope everyone out there stays healthy.

Earlier in the week we had some special visitors on the boat. My sister and her two friends stopped by to take a tour. Everyone seemed healthy and so I figured it was safe to allow them on board.

Wendy (on the right) and Denise (on the left) have been following the blog and wanted to see the flag table.

I guess I must be very used to the boat because they said you don’t get a real sense of the size from the blog.

We did a good job of “Physical Distancing” this weekend. We went ahead with Boat Day and were very careful. Tom and Chris brought my father along for a shorter day and we cleaned with Lysol wipes before he got here. We figured he would be around family members and this would be the last chance for a while before he could come back. Pretty sure he enjoyed himself. Now it is isolation for him for the foreseeable future.

Here he is watching Donald work on cutting the mid-berth ceiling open more to allow for the larger hatch.

No comment of the space between us in this photo…

As I mentioned Tom and Chris were back to take on more of the dirty work. I asked them to clean the bow and, as usual, they did a great job.

Donald got started on the mid-berth beds. There won’t be much room left in there once he is done. We have to work the air conditioner into the space under the bed and will also be building in a bit of storage as well. Before he completely closes in the walls with new panels I will have to run the wiring for the LED reading lights.

Here is a bird’s eye view from the hatch opening. It gives you a good idea of how little room there is at the door.

I took the day to start on the headliner for the v-berth. It took me most of the morning to figure things out and get one panel made. After making the panel I covered it with a white vinyl fabric. I had to pre-install the lights in it.

It was great to get the first one in a see how it looks.

The same angle but from a little further away. I also made the template for the mattress.

We started repairing the windlass area at the bow. I found out that the new windlass will need different cutouts and so will have to re-fiberglass that spot for sure. I glued a piece of plywood to the underside of the hull at the existing holes and applied a thick layer of fiberglass and resin to the top of the piece of plywood, placing it against the underside of the bow and let it set overnight.

The next day I started building up the fiberglass layers within the holes.

Next step it to build that up so that it is level with the gelcoat. Once I do that I will sand it down a bit and grind away the gelcoat around the holes so that I can blend the new gelcoat finish in with it. This is a great place to practice because it will never be seen. This will be eventually covered by the Ipe and the windlass.

The same goes for the tip of the bow where the gelcoat and fiberglass core was actually cracked right through. Here is the new hole that I cut out last week.

And after cleaning up the edges to accept the fibreglass….

And with the plywood screwed to the bottom…

I will slowly start building up these layers and making the fiberglass piece bigger until I connect it with the existing core of the hull. This will also be covered with Ipe once I am done. A great place to learn.

Since it was a beautiful day Donald and I took a look at how easy it will be to take off the existing pin striping and the last strip of anti-foul paint. In this photo I was sanding that little bit of paint off.

The boat is 46′ long with a 15′ beam so that means there is at least 107′ of pin striping to take off.

I wonder when Tom and Chris will be able to come back….????

I just heard that news that Ontario is going to be shut down for a minimum of 2 weeks starting tomorrow at midnight. I hope I am wrong but I think that it will be longer than that. Here’s hoping that everyone stays home and isolated and, when you have to go to the grocery store to get food, thank the people working there.

Until next time…. good luck!