WATERTITE!!!!

 G'day People,Itz only Wednesday night but with all thatz happening this week I thought it prudent to file an interim update 2nite rather than a four page essay on Friday.As the opening shot showz, the windscreen is fitted and nearly complete with only the outer trimz and securing boltz still to go. The new screen loox fantastic and at least a 1000 times more practical than the old one that I just couldn't see out of. The day after we fitted the screen it Rained! so quickly tarps were place over the old skylight hole and as soon as the rainz cleared my new priority task waz the Skylight. Ken was quick 2 jump in and lend a hand to cut the plywood and 10mm lexan polycarbonate that
we fitted loosely that afternoon. This gave rise to a few

problems mainly the internal cabin temperature which skyrocketed as soon as the coverz were in place. This problem waz quickly overcome with the addition of 2 -10" hatches for rooftop ventilation(wkoa).A guy in the yard just happened to have these 2 vents spare on his YOT, so after wheeling and dealing I managed to get them cheaply and we fitted them that afternoon. I really think the whole roof line is starting to look like a completed boat rather than the construction zone it waz just a few short weeks ago. After toying with the handrail and traveller(technikal yot equipment) we settled on a compromised layout that should give both safety and practicality to the new cabin top. The  

FINALLY WATERTITE!

traveller has been moved further forward and butz up to the new skylight, while the handrailz have been shortened and will be bolted to the roof and the traveller 4 extra strength.This move has given a little more room at the rear of the new roof which will soon b fitted with supportz and a very basic windscreen (actually the old windscreen) that will enclose the roof ready for the curved fibreglass rear deck  cover to be fitted.(more work)! But fun work none the less.The materials for the big cover have all arrived now and construction will begin next week."fingerz crossed". This morning we raised WFT 3 (the mainsail) to calculate how much headroom we'd have on the rear deck with the roof inplace, and the short answer is that the mainsail has to be shorten and the boom raised "again" to give 6ft headroom out the back,itz a little more work but the end result I'm sure will be worth it as the benifit of higher ceilings has become so blatantly clear since we raised the main cabin roof just 3 weeks ago.All going well I should have the whole YOT (cabin and reardeck) covered in and watertite before the bulk of the wet weather getz here.This increased workload has curtailed fishing tripz for the past few weeks ,so I'm hoping to get out this weekend (weather Godz permitting) but at least the crabs are keeping me in seafood with the occasional blue manna variety now showing up in the traps along with some big muddies.The fishing from the front of the YOT has not yielded anything worth keeping for a few weeks now. The last decent fish waz a giant trevally that I caught while Mum was here. Anyway I'm going to call it a night now as I didn't sleep at all last nite as the Nascar race was on at 1am and went right through to sunrise Marcos Ambrose came in about 20th unfortunately.
SO ciao 4 now from Tropical North Queensland.
Captain Felix