To do list

I have come back from the latest bout of boating with a new list of little tasks, Chertsey for the further improvement of.

They include:
Step
Bedscrews
Primus
Stern tube floor sect.
Sump and pump stern tube
Lace plates
Cabin painting
Window cloths
Mini rugs
Cabin cushion
Boarding under counter
Weedhatch?
Information board
Tiller pin hooks
Engine pipe spline

Some explanatory notes may be required.

1. The step needs its corner rounded off, for easier egress from the cabin - i.e. to get your foot past the stove. This is especially pertinent since buying the boiler, which I keep kicking. When this is done we can replace the current brass edging with a shorter but more rounded piece, which will look nice and be less vicious.

2. Two of the screws have come out of the bed cupboard hinge, meaning that I dare not shut it in case it all bursts out at the bottom. So they need replacing with larger ones.

3. The Monitor stove which I bought unused (but fifty years old) is now getting regular use in the hold. So I thought it would be good to clean up one of the real old Primuses I bought a couple of years ago for display in the cabin, especially if we go to the Black Country Museum gathering in September.

4. At present, you have to take up half the cabin floor to check how much the stern gland has been leaking and empty the basin. (And, of late, mop out the bilge.) A two-plank removable section would make this task a lot easier.

5. But what I would really like to do is make a sump bigger than the existing basin, with a tube in it connected to an attractive manual pump, and this obviate the need for taking the floor up at all.

6. Despite heretofore having a violent revulsion towards them, I have now decided that a hanging up plate or two would be just the thing to brighten up the corner by the stove (you can't buck tradition; these things didn't evolve without a reason). I was doing my round of the charity shops last weekend and I thought, if I see a hanging up plate, I shall buy it. I turned around, and there was this:



7. I need to finish painting the interior of the cabin.

8. The ex-UCC window cloths I bought at the legendary Droitwich tat auction were a real boon, but they are only 3' wide, but come down to the gunnel and protrude below the top cloths. So I would like to get a couple of translucent top cloths, a couple of inches shorter than the black ones. They cpuld then stay permanently in place, and the black ones folded back to let light in, or replaced to look proper.

9. Rather than make a big rug - say 3' by 2' - I thought it might be more useful to make a number of smaller ones. A new one would come out only at night, for bare feet; the next oldest would go on the cabin floor beneath the step, and the oldest would be relegated to the step itself. I'm picturing something about 2' x 18"

10. I need something to sit on on the sidebed, whilst reading under the porthole.

11. A smooth floor under the counter, flying over the structural bits of steel, would make it a lot easier to get stuff in and out of this capacious but awkward space.

12. No, not really.

13. At the moment I have an A4 sheet of paper with information about Chertsey's history on it. I would like to develop this into an illustrated information board, with photos etc. I thought I might start with a cheap plastic clip frame from Wilko's.

14. A couple of hooks in the side of the ticket drawer cabinet thingy would make a good place to hang the tiller pin(s). They keep falling out ot the soap hole.

15. We need to tap a bolt into the exhaust flange and make a notch in the pipe to sit on it so that the bloody pipe stops revolving. Whitby has a notch on the flange and a rivet in the pipe, but I'd be afraid of it coming out and falling in the engine...