A whole sunny day!

A whole day with no wind or rain! At last I could work on outside jobs, including Garry's steps ;)  First I had to cure that leaking mast, and I decided to fit a gland between the mast and deck as well as trying to find the original leaks. Belt and braces, but at least I wouldn't be worrying about it. So the mast had to come down. That meant undoing all the wiring I had neatly routed and connected, so I could feed it through the gland.

At least this time it was pleasant on the roof, and I could chat with passing boaties. Finally it was done, all the cables back in place, and it looked just like it did before. Not really very satisfying!

Next job was the handrails. This was another annoying job, because whoever fitted the rails had not cut the projecting threads which were sticking into the wheelhouse and preventing me fitting the headlining. I wrecked a plunge saw in about 30 seconds, note to others - "cuts metal" does not apply to stainless bolts. So they both had to come off. Actually it was a lot easier than expected, and an hour later they were back on - exactly as they looked before.

By now I was desperate to spend hours on something that actually looked different afterwards, so I fitted Garry's steps. They look blooming good and are a delight to step on, no more swinging in off the top rail like a monkey and there is a fair chance I will not fall in the boat like I once fell out of it (in the farmyard fortunately). Here is the general view

and the close-up

The final job was the remove the old, plastic, rather faded navigation lights and replace with stainless, LED lights. Amazingly, the old holes were just covered by the new units and even the wire holes were in the right place, so they were clamped up ready for wiring in during the next rainy work-day.