an incremental thing

While I wait for the new standing rigging to be made up, there have been quite a few lovely moments bobbing around Beachcomber in the old tender, with sandpaper, brush, varnish and paint in hand. 

The bowsprit appears as though it means business again, the new bob-stay gives me some adjustment against the pull of the forestays and the rubbing strip has a new, more subtle colour. It is of a mid grey, but like the greys inside the hull it tends to photograph warmer (a bit lilac) because of the warmth of the wood...but so far, I like it. I feel it lightens the appearance of the hull from a heavy Victorian to a more creamy, light hue. It used to be 'Brunswick Green' like the sail covers.

Of course, nice shiny paint on the rubbing strip only makes the topsides look dirty and a bit weathered, but this is an incremental sort of rejuvenation and it will all get done eventually...Including the sail covers which have started to become cream, but still have some green bits there to keep me edgy. She will come out of the water this year for more antifoul and I will paint the topsides then, and replace the green covers at some useful point too.

I admit the two pics below aren't really fair in measuring progress because the 'before' pic was taken on a grey sort of day, but hey, I need motivation sometimes too.

It will be interesting to see if the new stays, shrouds and whiskers fit because I measured without removing the mast, by means of overlapping timber sticks (which needed to cover six metres for the forestay) poked up to the heavens towards the upper shackles with optimism and a bit of economy-driven confidence.