Winter blues, well thats the colour of the paint these last few days. Blue.

Its wintertime, a bit cold and damp even for much in the way of maintenance work so I've been gradually painting the after cockpit area of Kairos, the launch I live on. Pale blue, sand off until the gloss is off the old paint, or right to the wood where its flaking, then two coats of Altex general purpose primer undercoat, then two coats over that of Resene oil based high gloss enamel.
I gave up painting with a paintbrush, and have been using a short nap roller, cut into three segments lengthwise then into pieces about 60mm wide, and stapled to a stick for a handle.  I am finding that  get a very even finish, none of the orange peel look that a roller on its own gives ( yes I know about tipping it off with a paintbrush to get rid of that) or the streakiness that a paintbrush leaves in these cool humid conditions.
I've had to move everything in that crowded space out of one corner and across to another, do the painting there, then move all the gubbins back along with the gubbins from another corner then paint that, and so on. Iv'e one coat to put on one corner plus a few little touchups to do with a small brush where my "Scotsmans brushes" dont get into the corners. It will be nice to have that done.

There is work going on on the drawing board too, sometimes it takes a while to get the cabin temp up to where the ink of the Rotring pens will dry quickly enough to make working practical, but there have been some days when the sun warms the place up enough, so there is progress not only on a couple of old projects, but a new one as well.  Watch this space for that.

In the evenings, when howling down with rain and wind out there in the dark I'm wont to sit up in my cozy bunk and browse through YouTube, here's one I found that has a lot of familiar stuff in it.
This is the 2009 Akaroa Trad Boat event, and woohoo, two Navigators, a Houdini and, AND, that little gaff cabin sloop with the white hull, blue topside strake, and the red Ensign on her taffrail is now, through some very unexpected events, sitting in the carport at my mothers house not so far from here.  She was called "May" in those days, but to me that didnt fit, so she's now "Spook" of Stillwater.
I've put a carbon fibre mast on her, a carbon gaff, have had the jib recut and there is a new main being built, just slightly bigger than the old one.
I"m working on a better foil shape for the daggerboard, and am replacing the weight taken out of the rig ( about 20 kg which made a very noticeable difference ) with  some more lead in the bilge.
She sails beautifully. I'm hoping that she'll be even better next season with the sails sorted and the rig much lighter, a bit more ballast and some other minor mods.

Anyways, here's the link to the video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foCXFq7SA20