After this morning’s rain cleared the sun has come out and brightened the outlook somewhat.
As it happens we had a large tree removed from our backyard because it was too close to the neighbours residence. That inspired the adjoining neighbour to have his similarly large tree removed which has opened up our back yard to a lot more sunshine. Our tree was over thirty years old and growing vigerously while the neighbours tree was much older and a bit worse for wear. After the tree was felled the tree rings told and interesting tale. For the first two thirds of the rings there was no fire damage but after that there was repeated fire damage over many cycles until 35 years ago when the area was urbanised. I speculate that the tree predated agriculture in the area by as much as 50 years and then possibly 100 years of agriculture. It is a shame I could not save a section of the trunk and have it polished to date it properly.
That was Thurdsay’s distraction while the evening before was the second twilight race at GFS. Courtesy of a generous handicap we were second in that race. We had our moments with a good first windward work until Long Nose where we were caught on the wrong shore for the breeze direction but on the subsequent run down the south of Cockatoo Island we got a private gust with some staying power that caught us up the the fleet. Nevertheless our two second places will cause us some pain in the handicap department. Well done to Irikandji who sailed a steady race and won by a large margin.
Back at the boat yard I call home I have been a bit quiet on reporting activity as it has been repetitive planking of the radius chine and all weather affected. It is finished although a week behind my self imposed schedule and I really did not compensate for the lost time with a lot of interior work. I did some cleaning up inside which will be useful but it was hard to get motivated when it was cold and damp.
For the record here are a few photos from planking the radius chine to a bit of interior fiddling.
