During this year one the brakes seemed to rub and on inspection it appeared that it was not releasing fully. This seemed to be caused by the cable sticking, as if this was given a shake then the brakes would fully release. Once the cable was removed it was clear that the cable was not moving freely in the outer casing. However, after lots of WD40, pulling and twisting etc and finally some grease all is well and the brakes now move on and off with great ease.
Useful things are - a good head torch, so you can see what you are doing and an old piece of carpet to lay on !
The cabin cushions had started to split in a couple of places, especially the "in fill" which tends to get squashed, as its corner is where we tend to sit. A temporary repair was with some gaffer tape. The existing material was quite smooth and clearly getting glue to adhere was going to be a challenge.
Earlier in the year I'd made some repairs to the tender and used Polymarine 3026 - this has seemed to have worked well so far.
Polymarine PVC (3026) Inflatable Boat Adhesive 2-Part 250ml - TCS Chandlery Ltd
So decided to use this with some material obtained from eBay.
The material was sold as :
Water repellent polyester. Medium weight polyester, easy enough to use with a domestic sewing machine and to hand sew but still tough and durable. Suitable for outdoor cushions, deckchairs, awnings, windbreaks, bean bags and much more. Weight: 225gsm.
The Polymarine glue seems to have worked well but only time will tell. In the instructions it is recommended to clean the surface with acetone but on testing I found this attacked the existing cushion covering - so was not used - but was just given a good clean instead.
We are lucky to have inbuild pockets in the cockpit. I have only seen one other boat with these and assume they must have been a factory fit option. They are very useful. The wooden facia needed varnishing and one of the pockets had started to come loose. Once the actual pocket had been removed it was possible to see that there was expanded polystyrene in that part of the hull. The actual pocket was moulded plastic, which is quite thin. It is possible to buy moulded storage boxes/lockers, that can be fitted as ours have been.
