Fun times

Spring, and the rowing season kicks into a new gear. The serious athletes have been training long hours through the winter, but rarely getting into boats because of the conditions.
The long weekend just past gave us a chance to make some real progress on building crews from our respective squads. Joe is looking after the Senior and Intermediate women and, at long last, real continuity from one year to the next means he's able to develop, rather than build from scratch. I have the novices, who are lots of fun and making great improvements.

Which is yet another way of saying that the boat hasn't had a lot of attention for the last few weeks. Not entirely true, though: I have been varnishing, sanding, varnishing...and the results are pretty satisfying.

Rudder, seat back and thwarts

The rudder and the seat back for the coxswain have a thin seal of epoxy: even that makes them look warm and colourful. They'll get a few layers of varnish and take on the slightly deeper hue that you can see on the seats.

The interior is beginning to look very shiny as the layers build up. Probably a light sand, a last coat, and that will be our lot.

The breasthook has always been our special feature and this finish is just gorgeous:

Done with a brush only.

This week, we can drop in the seats and foot stretcher fittings, spin her over and add the last layers of varnish to the hull, then we're done.

Not entirely bad...

(Apart from the oars, that is...)