Owens L'ill Slice of the Web

Well, since my last posting months ago, quite a lot, and nothing here.

I’ve got a new car, some new fish, sorted some of my life out and been really busy. But no time to do anything much here, I hope nobody comes here regularly to read this.. (yeah.. right )

Current plan is to try and be more proactive with updates here, I have also been putting some technical stuff on my technical blog over at easytarget.org, and I will build a wiki at ezopic.org for my fish stuff. So this remains my personal site, I have a seperate space for my howto’s etc, and a place to write at length about the fish.

I’m bored… bored bored bored…boooring.
No updates recently, except loadsa guff about fish. Well I’m still going to write about my finned friends but I need to start venting and smiling a bit more; so, having vowed I’d stop commenting all the wonks here and just use it as a diary I’m going to exercise my prerogative and say ‘Stuff that! Make more noise.’ watch this space…

We sailed Coppelia for the first time in 20 years! A couple of lengths of the Gaasperplas and a big smile on my face…

I finally got the mast on Coppelia up yesterday, and the sails raised, really pleased!

Still a way to go before first trip on the water:

• Sail repairs: cleats on foresails, rip in spinnaker.
• Mainsail outhaul (clew) needs strengthening.
• Halyards need fittings splicing to the line.
• Toestraps to be purchased and fitted.
• Deck fittings need sealing in place, keel bolt needs sealing.
• Rear lockers need lockable catches fitting.
• Sort out the forestay bottom fitting, it’s a mess at the moment.

The list is growing shorter every day

Keel after refitting in boat.

The keel is now back in the boat, and the new winch mechanism works well. Many thanks to Cassje for helping me to get the bolt in place, it was not easy.. The list of things to do is getting shorter:

• Seal keel bolt, replace and seal a load of fittings, get some matching locks and some lock-plates for the cockpit lockers.
• Paint cockpit floor with anti-slip, make and fit toe-straps, end-stops on mainsheet track.
• General hull cleaning and touch-up, seal up some cracks.
• Mast and rigging; do a dummy-run on the rigging and work out what needs to be replaced, find any sail repairs that are necesscary.
• Test sail on the Gaasperplas..
• I’d like to sort electrics and some running lights out too, plus interior fittings and cushions.

I got the keel of Coppelia painted yesterday, two coats of ‘POR-15‘, she needs a final topcoat today (a nice blue to match the rudder) and she’s ready to go back in. Another huge job, hopefully I’ll be doing that later this week

The keel weighs 110 kilo (240lbs) and is made of a single piece of cast iron, it was very rusty when I took it out and has needed quite a lot of cleaning, the paint I used is a specialist rust covering/proofing coating that should protect her for some time. To do the painting I needed to hang the keel by it’s mounting points from the roof of the EHDC clubhouse, this let me paint all of it, but makes me nervous as hell. Despite my best efforts I could not really smooth it off, although it is good enough for cruising. Maybe that is a job for the future; ideally it should be fibreglass clad.

I got a load of other minor things done, the new keel winch is in place, I have now baseplates on the sheet winches so that they can be fitted to the existing holes in the hull, rather then creating new ones. All that is left are the toe straps, painting the cockpit floor and then rigging her. Which will be fun, all the rigging was stored in the dry and looks good, but new halyards and lines will need to be brought. The sails are good, but maybe a bit baggy and I think ther eis a rip in the spinnaker. If she sails OK with the existing rig I might try to get a roller-furling setup for the front and a new mainsail.

Hectic weekend, 10 Miles running on Friday night in the Midzomernachtcross (Midsummer Night Race, not strictly held on the shortest night, but rather the Friday closest to it). It was a really good run held in near perfect conditions. I posted a good time: 1 hour 43 minutes and 43 seconds. Within seconds of my personal best time at this distance
Then on Saturday I had a dragonboat racing afternoon in Amlere; with the EHDC, I’m shattered! We managed to avoid the wooden spoon in the 2km race, which is quite satisfying.

Hummm.. Tomorrow I have the Fundarun. 10K, then another 10K on Saturday, wat leuk! . I hope I survive this.

Edit: Day later… Well, I survived the first (under an hour, not bad for minimum preparation). But my knee gave me some pains so I abandoned the AMC loop on Saturday and had a bath instead

Following last Fridays success, and the fact that I feel great, I’m thinking of doing it again in Weesp (which is just around the corner from my place).

10-Km in 54:56, certainly a new personal best. But a lot of people ahead of me, I was 435′th out of 650.

And I am off on another run, the MidZomerNachtCross in Amsterdamse Bos.
Starts at 9 in the evening, sounds perrfect, I’m just running the 10K event.

So.. Borland is moving it’s support center to Belfast.
Damn! Damn! Damn! and Blast!!!!!
Best job ever.