oliver

We've come into possession of an old sailing dinghy because the price was right. I'm wondering what it is. It's 4.5 metres long, modest rig, fibreglass with bouyancy tanks and fairly deep cockpit, pivoting centreboard with lanyards to pull it up and down. There's a kiwi logo on the main and no sail number. It's some kind of quiet family sailing dinghy, we'll try to rig it and take it out this summer to find out more. I think you can see photos here, tell me if that didn't work. Anyone know what design this is?

Saturday - re-jigged the front lawn so I can get the boat (trailer sailer) in and out without a crew of spotters, including removing a stupid little gateway and a scruffy wisteria, much to the disappointment of my ex M.I.L when she heard about it! There will be a hedge I think, softer to clip with the boat than a fence. Sunday, took the trailer sailer that all this was in aid of for the first sail it's had since Waitangi weekend in Nelson. It's been under repair in my carport since then. We left Seaview about 10, left Somes to port and Ward to starboard then back to Seaview, gave a couple

Yes, the consequences of an apparently little problem on a wooden boat can be severe - a small cabin/deck leak on my dad's classic wooden boat caused a bit of rot in a carlin. Once he'd cut down to the carlin, and got into repairing that, he ended up chasing that "little bit of rot" to the point that he now has a whole new cockpit. It's a nice cockpit, and he's just got back from a week in Abel Tasman on the boat so it all worked out OK, but still it was a job that wouldn't have got so big on a fibreglass boat, and his was a boat in apparently pretty good shape. Similarly, a leaking stanchion

Which is exactly what I did. So did I, and as I've been busy or out of town every weekend for weeks it was bloody epic. Emptying the catcher every few widths of the lawn. There's still a bit of lawn to go actually, I should really go do it. I did also glue the new ply patch into the deck of my boat, next weekend maybe it'll get faired and possibly glassed too, and this afternoon we're sailing with sea scouts.

Last weekend's achievements: the kids and I got the ferry on Friday morning, picked up a trademe trailer sailer in Motueka Friday afternoon, sailed from Nelson into Tasman Bay on Saturday, back on the trailer then drove to Picton Sunday, slept in the boat, ferry on Monday and home. It's in the carport now for some cockpit repairs. I've cut out a small area of soft ply, thankfully not spread far at all and we should be back on the water relatively soon.

Hooray chooks! Mine are Helen Cluck, Doris and Mrs Brown.

We had our regular Sea Scout sailing this afternoon, bit of a disappointing turnout of kids today after they nearly all turned up on Thursday. We had a good sail anyway, out to Somes from Petone, with those who were there, and gave the new (old) Naiad we bought from the Cadets for a rescue boat a good testing. It's nice to have a decent boat for that job, the previous one we had was decidedly sub-par.

Trundelled round a mountain bike race this morning, didn't crash or collapse, then provided ballast, advice and wake up calls to the young skipper of a Sea Scout cutter while he tried to avoid colliding with the Lowry Bay Yacht Club race this afternoon. Was cool.