Sunday, October 31, 2010

More wood




Friday morning I took the 'Watergeus' owners shopping for insulation. I spent the rest of the day putting plywood strokes in with the Hilti nailer or PowerBond. The interior panels will be hung on this wood after insulation. The Dutch word translates as 'ground wood'. What is the proper English term?

Thursday, October 28, 2010

My pleasure

I spent another grey, cold wet day in a rescue boat at the DTP Optimist Camp today - and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The trainers, two of our most talented Laser sailors, with a combined age of 31, pushed the Opti kids hard. Today they concentrated on turning - tacks and gybes - then combined that with yesterday's straight line speed in the races at the end of the day.
What a pleasure to watch these youngsters coaching, and watch the sailors getting better by leaps and bounds and all of us out in the open air all day.
In the picture Em gets the hang of the 'extension behind your back at the end of the tack', another big step forward.
I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow, and miss the third and final day.

In a post on apparent wind 'yarg' writes 'You gotta love those people who can’t get enough of the things they are passionate about'. Thats just about sums up what made my day so good.

This is how you do it

Jelmer and Thomas are this weeks trainers at the DTP Optimist Autumn Camp. Both of them sailed Optimists at National and International level, now they are passing it on.
Here they have a chair on the table to demonstrate to the kids the wrong and right way to sit on the edge of the boat. They have obviously learned how to keep the attention of a bunch of young Optimist sailors.

Another beginning




The 'Watergeus' is a tjalk with a 'paviljoen'. The skipper and his family would have lived here 100 years ago. Now we're going to make that possible again.
Here we are starting with the floor, trying to keep as much headroom as possible.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Hemelbed



Eric's bed, inspired by the roll up roof on a Citroen 2CV.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Training and cake






It took until late last evening before we heard from
Em how well the DTP optimist training had gone.
Far more important was baking a large batch of cakes with last year's main rival/this year's sparring partner Pim.

Location:U T Delfiaweg,Groningen,The Netherlands

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Eisma installation




Not just a carpenter, Peter whistles while he works on the plumbing for a small wash basin aboard 'Vriendentrouw'.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Vriendentrouw


These last couple of [almost computer free] weeks Peter and I have been aboard the Vriendentrouw working on the owners bedroom. I've been getting the floor sorted with heating under the pine floorboards, while Peter has been working on the hull sided.
Now we'll turn our attention to cupboards and a bed.

New keys


When the keyboard on my MacBook started to misbehave I polished my credit card and headed for the Apple shop. Replacing the keyboard means a whole new top case, the Apple guy said. I could feel my credit card shaking in my wallet.
Is your computer less than three years old? he asked. I opened CheckBook and found that I had bought it on the October 22nd 2007 - not quite three years. Then it is eligible for a new top case. Wow.
Six days later I'm the owner of new keys and trackpad. I've upgraded to OS 10.6.3 and it literally feels like a new computer.
Thanks Apple for a great bit of service.

Monday, October 4, 2010