There’s always plenty of jobs to do aboard ‘Cachalot’ to make life on board that bit more comfortable as well as improvements to her sailing capabilities.

No. 1 for this year in terms of interior comfort was the installation of a fridge! There was a lot of research and questions to ask: do we really need one? will it use too much power? where will we put it? how can we make it look ‘unobtrusive’ whilst still being accessible? In time for the SYH Classics, all was resolved and we purchased the smallest, best quality one we could find. Tucked away behind the bulkhead, it’s easily accessible, fairly unobtrusive and based on several tests doesn’t destroy the leisure battery! In order to keep an eye on the batteries, now the fridge is installed, Steve also replaced the battery monitor with a much better one.

Another job started whilst at home in Derbyshire was to replace the running backstays with new rigging and better blocks. The backstays had been getting very tangled due to the single block allowing no twist. Using some elm left over from the new rudder, Steve fashioned two new fiddle blocks, replaced the rigging and set it all up ready to test when we go out sailing again.

Arriving at the Tidemill in time for Iris’ 60th birthday party, 14 July, Steve was horrified to find the bilge pump had apparently gone off over 1,000 times in just 31 days! After some investigation, it seems the bilge pump had become coated in mud and was tripping several times an hour. Sadly, this was not the only reason – the seam re-caulked at Larkman’s last month is still weeping . . . hopefully it will eventually ‘take up’.

Next, in terms of comfort, was more work on Bev’s bunk to provide a better night’s sleep as well as good storage behind the cushions. There’s now a much firmer upright for the bunk which means the cushion should stay in place all night with a neat pair of hatches so that stored items will stay in place, stowed behind the bunk.