Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin

I am at the boat yard at 8:00. I am bristling to go. Here is the plan. Remove the locker covers, easy, 2 screws, take the covers down to paint space beside the car and paint them with first coat of primer. The removal also liberates access to the grooves, slaps and stiles between the lockers. This permits cleaning and sanding prior to paint.

My paint guru has impressed on me the mantra that the enemy of good paint adhesion is high heat and high wind. Thus cool morning painting is imperative.

Everything goes wrong. The screws that attach the hinges of the locker covers are driven into small nuts that are embedded in the locker covers.

Early photo shows a couple of hinges on locker covers. Easy to remove?

Unfortunately, the nuts spin during the unscrewing. It is impossible to get a spanner onto the nuts as they are embedded in the locker cover.

Small things can cause much pain.

So, I can spend many hours fiddling to try and get the locker lids off, and then many hours getting them back on again.

Here is is the awfulness of painting.

I can paint the lockers lids perfectly well without removing them, but there is no doubt that removing them is the right thing to do, as I will be able to clean, sand, etc, all the little nooks and crannies prior to painting, resulting in a better job. Who is ever going to look at the grooves between locker lids? Who cares? The answer unfortunately is that I do.

I have been found wanting.

Anyway, by the time I have realized that removal of locker lids is not an option, it is 30 degrees and there is an strong breeze blowing across the boat. These, I have been advised, are the enemies of paint.

Once again, as so often in my life, the words of Robert Burns ring true.

But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

So no painting today.

However, happiness and joy returns with the grunt of Kiyuna san’s Harley.

You will remember the arrival of Tag Boy.

Unfortunately Tag Boy was backed up against the shack where my engine lay, preventing access.

This is no problem for Kiyuna san. He simply cuts a profile into the shack’s door that corresponds to the transom and hull of Tag Boy such that the door can open freely.

He sits on a block of wood and works on the ground. He overhauls my engine under the hull of Tag Boy.

I have been on many space allocation committees where academics have howled at their inadequate lab space. They should meet Kiyuna san.

Gearbox therapy

We will replace the bearings. Wakarimashitasu!

I have to make a template that will enable me to paint the corners of the non-slip parts of the boat. This may be confusing to you, but to achieve this I need tracing paper. Guess what the Japanese for tracing paper is? It is “tracing paperu”. I score some at Daiso.