Yet more expense and plans ...

Much as I'd hoped to avoid more spending this spring (ha! Spring. Yeh, right), a further order to the chandlers proved unavoidable

First and most expensive outlay is a new battery charger. The ancient and decrepit piece of tat that I dug out of the bottom of the shed (and which I have a feeling I'd acquired from the Bosun many years earlier) has finally succumbed to the marine environment and now refuses to emit so much as a feeble spark of life.

That led to some head scratching because the choice of replacement wasn't straightforward. The cheap option would be to nip down to Halfords and buy a cheapy automotive charger. But they aren't that much cheaper and won't last long.

So that left me choosing between a clever charger that can revive faulty batteries  automatically de-sulphate the cells and other clever tricks and a unit without such fancy tricks up its sleeve but which is guaranteed to be safe for the on-board electronics.

The drawback of the first choice is having to disconnect the battery to be charged from the boat wiring system because if it goes into battery repair mode it could potentially damage the VHF, masthead LED tricolour and anchor light, depth sounder and so on. In other words, it could blow several hundred quids worth of kit and, worse still, render us unsafe to navigate

So I chose the somewhat more expensive IP65 rated and therefore fairly waterproof CTEK XS7000 7A electronics safe option at a cost of £99.95. If and when one or both of the batteries exhibits any problems, we might acquire the further option of disconnecting it from the electrics and hooking up an auto-repair type charger

The recent tragic deaths of a mother and daughter aboard a boat on Windermere sparked the next purchase (and in truth it's something we should have had all along) to wit a battery powered long life CO2 detector. £22 is a cost worth paying even though, normally, our only source of CO2 is the cooker. When we use the gas radiant heather below decks though ...

A further £25 went out of the window replacing the deck brush set I broke when I chucked it out of the cockpit last time we were down on the boat. For an additional fiver I added the matching mooring hook which may come in handy for Jane when it comes to picking up a mooring. Worth a try anyway

Next up, a 52mm snap shackle which guarantees that the one I bought on the last order and now can't find will turn up any moment now. Oh well, it won't hurt to have one in the spares box. Then a pair of Nab shackles, lightweight plastic shackles for the cruising chute sheets, that I forgot to order last time

Not cheap at £19.95 but a further (and overdue) addition to the safety kit is a Truplug emergency safety plug. This is a foam conical plug that can be rammed, jammed, cut and twisted and generally used to plug unwanted orifices below the waterline. Such as, for example, a broken skin fitting or a hole in the hole created by a sharp object.

Finally, a mere £3.18 purchased what I hope will be a suitable in-board end fitting for the "whisker pole from a washing line pole" project of which more anon if and when it works!

Of course, I clean forgot to order a sailmakers palm for Mum as requested just the other day and I also forgot to order a lifting ring for the new cockpit floor. Oh well, I'm bound to be buying more stuff before long.

Moving on to plans ...

Weather permitting, this coming weekend Glen and I will be slapping a couple of coats of antifoul on the hull and, hopefully, retouching the bootop. The repainting of the topsides isn't going to happen now this year, we haven't got the time to do it properly and it's not worth wasting the paint by slapping a rough coat on (and actually we probably haven't even got time to do that)

If everything goes to plan (aha ha ha), I hope we'll be launching a fortnight on Friday and, probably on my own, making ready for sea over that weekend. Then, somehow, I need to squeeze in at least one sea trials weekend before the big two week cruise at the end of May

I just hope the weather doesn't put the mockers on the plans ... again