Solo Ventures

 Not yet known to this blog is not love out recumbent trikes. To save a heap of explaining,  here is a photo of the type of machine I'm on about.    The only real issue with trikes is cost. A new trike will set you back $4 000 upwards,  a ten year old trike in good order,  around the $2 000 mark.  They are made in all the usual places,  except China.  Of course there are cheap knock offs,  but the ones worth having are Australian, American, English or German.   The main reasons older men tend to pilot tiles are the lack of pain and they are great fun.  The seating position places the majority of your body weight in a kind of hard hammock, so your back takes the weight rather than your bum,  legs,  worst or hands.  Pilots report no pain, even after mamy hours in the saddle.  Mr Green of "Free on Three" fame even slept one his trike while touring in Oregon; try doing that on an upright bike.  So,...

  Money is a poor indicator of class.                        Rev. John Oates                        Wayside Chapel                        Kings  Cross, Sydney 

 

 Glassing the rudders Glassman painting the hatches continues.  Today,  between showers, I sanded both rudders which had their faces and edges glassed. I then primed both.   It struck me that I've lost time working due to wet weather. The BOM statistics reveal that we've had over  300mm of rain so far this month over 18 days of rain.  On the days that it's not raining,  I'm either catching up with paid work out waiting for the grounds to dry.  It had been wet like this for months,  la nina year.      3 April. Today the rudders were sanded and another smear of epoxy applied to all small imperfections.   Also,  the cheek plates,  or tiller stops,  were added in another small step forwards.  Weather is not raining,  but water lays everywhere and further flooding rain is expected  next Wednesday. To be caught at sea last week would have been calamitous.  Reading "The Old Man and the...

 All portside hatches & the outboard pod have a second coat of grey paint.  The rudders have been glassed & finished coated in epoxy below the waterline.  They are ready for check plate during,  drilling for rope pintles & paint.  Reading "Lively Lady" by Alec Rose. A 1967 circumnavigating solo& unsupported with one planned stop,  the year following Sir Francis Chichester in Gypsy Moth.

 " I've been trying to find way to get art out of the gallery".            Dr  Lexi Eikelboom "Soul                       Search ,  ABC Radio National 2022. Immediately,  as I heard these words uttered on Radio National today I had a brain fart. This is what I see as needed in sail cruising.  For sailors,  real sailors,  to get out of the marina!  Choose to anchor off, spend the night underway,  move,  careen, live aboard.  Interesting that the larger the yacht,  the less likely you are to be able to live independently afloat and to service your own needs.  

 Ooh, I love it when everything comes put right when you're fibreglassing.  Today I 'glassed the lower sides of the rudders and they came up quite nicely.  Bliss.