Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure

[Giles]

So we had a strop that holds a hatch down fail.  I made a new one but had to learn seizing and the Ashley stopper knot in the process…..

[Giles]

RIBs and outboards are like rocking horse shit at the mo.  Found what I want, but in the UK, not Spain, so we will not have a tender for the trip home from Menorca, but we can deal with that….

And powered by this a Suzuki DF20ATS, batteryless electronic ignition - yeah baby….

[Ian72]

Glad you can drive inside [emoji12]

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[Giles]

Hahahaha.

1. it was about low springs, so I was worried about the depth under her in the inner swashway
2. I was chasing these guys, it was great viewing….

[Giles]

My first soft eye splice in double braid.  I'm making up a tow rope for the tender on Sakura…

I'm also practising for a lot of eye splices I am going to have to do in some 22mm dock line, that's going to be a real challenge…..

[goosehd]

Really nice and clean job G!

[Giles]

A lot harder than I thought 

[Giles]

Oh, and btw, the tender will be called:

The Sea Word

[Jett129]

I Sea what you did,Absolutely brilliant!

[Giles]

I was ruminating on names for SAKURA when I had a 5-hour drive to do some fishing recently, it just appeared in my brain from nowhere, but I will admit, I am extremely pleased with it.  Obviously, the big boat has her own name now, so we have "The Sea Word tt SAKURA"

[Giles]

A braver man than me gets in to give her a scrub and check the anodes…...

[Clint_D]

I'm assuming that's not Alex, right?

[Giles]

It was not…..But a close friend and one of the guys he used to work with .....

[mclaincausey]

G, your knot work looks excellent to my semi (Boy Scouts) trained eye.

[Giles]

Thank you.  I have a lot to do, and a lot to learn…..

[mclaincausey]

Honestly though that is one of the coolest parts of your chosen retirement. Developing a skill that is useful. Nothing against traveling and playing golf or something, but becoming sailors is way cooler and I would imagine way more fulfilling. And it is a practical skill.

[Giles]

Thank you.  We chose to do this so we would keep mentally and physically challenged…...

[Giles]

Today's lesson from Youtube…..How to splice a continuous loop out of double-braided rope.

Sakura will have 22mm (7/8" to our colonial cousins) mooring warps, a couple will be 20 metres (74 feet) long, that is really too bulky and heavy for @Madame Buttonfly (and me too probably) to coil and self-fasten.  So I came up with the idea of using endless loops for the fastening, so I need to make a few….

I bought some end-of-reel braid...

And gave it a go….

The intended use…

It's actually far to long for its intended purpose, but I had no idea how much rope I would lose in the buries, now I know…...

[goosehd]

Damn G!  Keep this up and you’ll have to get the “hold fast” tattoos on the knuckles and the pig and the rooster tattooed on the feet.

[Bums_Fan]

I frickin' love knots and splicing.  Not very good at it, but I am fascinated by those that can.  When I saw these posts, I turned back to my bookshelf and start thumbing through this book to remind myself how cool this skill is.