Another busy week on the Tangalooma restoration project. The fin case is now finished, and considerable work completed on the tabernacle. The previous tabernacle was very worn and putting up the mast often involved dragging the foot of the mast over damaged timber in the keel. All is being rebuilt and strengthened.

Great work from Greg who made some knees for the mast supports out of Tee Tree timber during the week. Robert was very impressed. See pictures.

Team France – Julie and Pascal – was back on Saturday to assist with sanding the thwarts and bolting together the tabernacle. Pascal is not only our resident photographer (all photos today are from Pascal). He is also the champion of long-distance drilling. He can drill through ten centimetres and come out exactly where he planned.

On the other hand, I discovered something about sanding. I was trying to sand what I thought was varnish and making no progress. On and on but the timber still had a dark edge section that I could not change. The lesson? Hard to sand away shadows.

Next week should see the boat close to complete if not completed. We have to finish off the tabernacle, do some more work attaching the new ribs to the stringers, more varnish on the outside, sand and varnish the deck, thwarts, fin case and tabernacle, and put back the fittings we removed when the boat first came into the shed.

The plan is to put the boat back in the water on Saturday the 28^th. Hopefully the fence around the ramp and park will be down by then. I will be in Adelaide at that time so if you can spare an hour or so on that morning, please put the time aside. We will let you know closer to the date when exactly it will take place.