Lake Taupo

Does my face look bothered

Welcome back Joe I hear you say.

Last night we spent another session preparing the inside of the boat for its finishing coats of paint... I mean varnish.. I think we will just keep sanding until one of us has worked out a robust solution to the foot-stretcher problem. Or until we get to the other side of the boat. 

Anyway, one picture that I took last night confirmed a couple of things. 

It's noisy work this sanding

Firstly, if there were any doubts about the cat's hearing, they can be cast aside, she is very deaf. She sat happily in the boat while Chris and I sanded away with rather noisy electrical tools. You will note the ear-muffs that Chris is wearing.

Secondly, the cat is a darn sight bigger than in a photo included in a 'recent' blog. Yes it has been a long time between drinks, but we're back into it. Unless of course the boat is shrinking and cat is the same size.

Note - the cat is only ever referred to as cat. She's deaf as a post so it seemed a bit of a waste to use up a name on her and "Give the cat a kick up the arse to get her attention" is a bit wordy.

(No cats were injured in the making of this boat)

Wellington Harbour

Back to it.

 So, aided by the absence of Owen and Daniel during the second week of the school holidays, we made a fresh start on the build. After Harry and I had spent half a day clearing a path to the boat.

This is what greeted us: a very similar sight to the one we had left in early 2013….

The worst thing was the realisation that we are indeed only days away from completion: varnish, fit the stretchers, fit the seats, stick the rudder on…Why on earth did we just get distracted? I’d tell you, but I think that was the doorbell…

The best thing, though, was that it is still beautiful, elegant and deeply satisfying.

-

Dawn at Karapiro

As excuses for not being in a garage in Wellington go, not too bad...

Ninety Percent of the Art of Living is Just Turning Up

 

Stumbling across a deserted beach, he came upon something projecting from the sand: a blog, no less, abandoned by some ancient civilisation whose memory is long forgotten. Did anyone read it? Did anyone, as it faded from memory, check, from time to time, to see if life stirred within its cold embers?

As Jimmy Hendrix said at the Isle of Wight,” it has been a long time”: over 18 months since we last wrote on this blog and nearly that long since we did anything whatsoever to advance the project.

There were reasons, good and bad, for the hiatus, ranging from work and rowing commitments – both Joe and I have been coaching squads – to sheer inertia. Some say it’s fear of completion: apparently, garages throughout New Zealand have nearly-completed-but-not-quite-boats, planes, coffee tables, tunnels under the wire and other projects in them, victims of some strange force that holds the builder back from doing that very last bit.

I’m not convinced that we are suffering from anything so complicated, but we’ll carry on looking for excuses…