I just want to go sailing...

Making some progress on the mast. Have pretty much finished the first repair, and today we pulled off the gooseneck and cut out the rot around there. Thankfully it turned out to be even more localised than the first patch, and appears to have been a result of sealant failing where a packing block mated to the mast, letting water in and pooling.

A big thank you to Darryn Currill for his helping hand!

Rot cut out. Only surface rot (about 5 mm) for most of it, but directly alongside the adjacent stave it went deeper - about 25 mm. The glue line largely stopped the rot from spreading to the next stave, except up the very top.

Initial shaped packers filling the deeper cut-outs, gluing in place. May have overdone the glue...

We then cut back into the blocks again and fitted some nicely shaped dress pieces to create a dutchman repair. Note the strip that has paint on the face - all the timber for the repairs is coming from the old starboard upper spreader that we replaced.

Shaped and almost done. Plugging holes left behind from retaining screws. Soon be ready for final sand and varnish.

The rot at the goose-neck is a simple fix, other than having to under-cut past a stainless steel strap that holds the sail-track to the mast. I plan to fix it with two blocks inserted top and bottom.  It's mostly covered by the packing block that I am also having to fix up as one corner needs to be cut out and replaced.

Cutting out rot at gooseneck. It went up under the stainless strap, but not far, so thankfully I don't have to pull the entire track assembly off - that would be a major!

In other projects, I'm progressing the conversion of the old crew head to a sail locker. Have re-routed all the wiring, removed the washbasin, and turned the space left behind into an access hatch for the locker under. I cut out the lid from one of the locker doors that I removed. I've made a new headliner panel, and this week hopefully will make up the hull liner for above the bench and generally get things to a point where it is usable; painting etc will have to wait until after Christmas, as we are running out of time!

Matching 50's vintage formica.