Time to plan the next stages of the restoration of Mai Star II.

Now that the Christmas break is drawing to an end. It is now time to plan the next stages of the restoration of Mai Star II. 

One of the first jobs when I open the boatyard on the 4th of January is going to be to recover the boat with the temporary framework with a new cover after the framework is repaired.  During this last year the framework got damaged and had to be taken down and put to one side and put in storage and a cover put over the boat while I was engaged in working my day job as a boat builder running my own yard, so Mai Star II was put on the back burner for the year while work in the yard had to be done first to pay the overheads for the business, then all the  Covid restrictions made it difficult to get work done as suppliers were on short time and delays in get equipment and materials from other parts of the world. This all as made for an interesting past year working in a small boatyard by yourself without the company of other people to bounce your ideas off.  

This a photo of the cover before it was damaged and had to be taken down. It will be put better than before with changes made to the design that will help safeguard from getting damaged again.

Once the framework is repaired and re-erected and the design for holding it together is re-engineered so that any amount of wind and weather hitting the framework and cover will not break the joints where the framework connects together which was one of the problem which made it break in the first place through this last year. Most of the problem was the lack of welding on the spigots on the uprights which were just tack welded together. This time when I have the parts of the framework in the workshop, is to weld a complete weld around the spigots so that the joints are stronger than before and also fit spilt pins to the joints so they can not and will not move apart when being hit by high winds and rain. 

So with this work in mind, it is now time to bring the parts of the framework into the workshop and clean up the parts of the framework so that I can make a start of welding up the damaged parts of the framework, so I can re-erect the framework over the boat and get the cover over the boat to help dry out the boat so that the work can start again. 

So during the last few days of the Christmas break it is time to draw up a restoration schedule for Mai Star II like the one I have set up for my other restoration project on my James Silver Motor Sailer Chance. That way making the best of my spare time when I the chance to take time off from working my day job being an owner of a small boatyard.

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