Day 43
Days Remaining: 191

Skinny-Mini-Malloo

Looking ever so slightly like a reindeer - good job it doesn't have a red nose! (D'oh!)

When, in the early 90s I was running in the Field Gun Crew for HMS Seahawk and HMS Daedalus in the jolly old Navy, us Fleet Air Arm types used to sing 'Skinny-Mini-Malloo' whenever we heard one of the Devonport (ie Plymouth) crews sing their famous 'Oggie Oggie Oggie' nonsense.  Always made me smile. It's meant as a total piss-take and I am glad to say it usually worked!

ANYhoo!! Yes. Skinny isn't it! The boat is very narrow. Narrower than the M2. Maybe about the same as the early Ninjas? Maybe even narrower. You can see the rear rack tubes are on and the bow cover is made so all the wand mech and forestay gubbins can keep safe and warm and dry under the front and not get in the way of the air molecules hurtling past at 15 metres/second.

Couple of ups and downs this week so far.

-ve. Got to say that whole front end is taking some time. When you see a Mach 2 with all the wand gear 'tray' open and you think, oh that's clever, it really is! When you build a boat from scratch on your kitchen table and you want to do something similar, you have to do it before you fit the mast bulkhead so that you can put the tubes through that carry the push rod and the control lines etc... It's a lot of faffing about, making components from scratch, making sure it all fits, fitting screws from the back of panels so there's something to mount the wand mech on... It's going to be worth it, but it is taking days not hours... Little bit of project slippage I can deal with though as in the long run I'm not missing a lot with this rubbish weather and the boat will be so much better from day 1 (or Day 60 or whenever it is it gets launched)

+ve... I am pleased to say, dear reader that since I started this adventure I have lost nearly 2.5Kg so I am safely in the low 72s now... Skinny-Mini-Maloo again you see!  Now I've nearly lost the fat % I needed to get rid of, I am feeling a bit more confident about getting back in the boat and putting some shoulder strength back on. Already I'm finding the press-ups and the tricep presses easier but I have a long memory... Mothing is hard work, especially on the arms and shoulders...

AND FINALLY..  a BIG +ve to end on. I finally got round to dropping in on Rob on Monday and we've done a deal for the rig he won the 2013 Nationals with.  Mast and Sail... Great place to start from and a good solid performing set up... No excuses and I'll be able to compare a lot of data.  Another box on the plan filled with a big tick!

D