Autumn is coming to a close and winter is about to start and the weather is suitably cold and damp at Rye.
It looks like iroko is going to be the wood of choice for our seating in the cockpitbut we have to be careful about choosing the right material. It seems that you have to get the grain correct with iroko. No doubt I will get to understand why later.
Otherwise I have almost finished the engine cooling system. The raw water pipe work is now complete and all connected but when I tested it with a hose pipe water cascaded out of the primary filter. Fortunately a spare kit can be bought from Venus and that arrived in the post a couple of days ago. This has a new lid which was cracked and two new rubber seals. That should do the trick.
I’m going to extend the floor in the heads because you’ve got to be able to get your feet on the floor when you’re sitting on the loo. Then I have to reinforce the floor area and seal it with resin.
I have started fitting the hinges and catches to the bow anchor-
well hatch cover. It’s looking pretty good however I made the mistake of putting fresh resin out in the weather and it’s gone a little cloudy. I will need to sand it down and then put some Coelan on it to match the rest.
I have received the link cable which goes between the new Raymarine axiom 7 navigation screen and the 4000 ST autopilot. I’ll be testing this out in the coming weeks. This will be done off the boat.
I have also been manufacturing a new Perspex cover for the engine controls and have now got that correctly fitting and I’ve just bought some new hinges for that to work. I now need a latch.
Also my alternator was not giving a reading for the rev counter. It did not have an AC outlet which acts as a sender for electronic rev counters. Fortunately I found ElectroGen in Bethersden local to us and they were able to solder a little wire in the back. Now the rev counter the work will too. 
I have received a 60 mm diameter rod of acetal plastic which surveyor Chris is going to turn up into a top bearing for the steering pedestal.
The old bearing which took a lot of getting out appeared to be an old wheel bearing and had disintegrated completely over the years.
Once the bearing is manufactured and installed then painting the pedestal is the last bit for getting the steering ready for installation. Once installed we can go sailing. Well we can take the boat out and steer which is a big advantage over where we are at the moment. That will be a good chance to test the engine and use Anne Marie in earnest. However I will need change insurance and get the survey properly sorted to the satisfaction of the insurance company beforehand.
Fortunately we are halfway through with the survey because we asked Chris the surveyor to do the first part of it when the boat was on dry land. As he is helping with the fit out he’s in the best position to do the final survey and write reports.
Onwards and upwards.
Saving Anne Marie 