Work on getting Naiad ready to launch is progressing albeit slowly due to the cold and stormy weather we have been experiencing recently.

Still, things have been getting done.

Naiad has been moved out of the hay barn. It's a little difficult to raise the mast when she's in there.

She has been moved to the concrete hard outside the workshop and the trailer chocked up to prevent movement. The trailer wheels have been checked, the bearing races needed to be tightened and greased and the tire pressures checked.

The mast has been dressed and mounted and the spars attached.

This odd looking construction is the travelling spar support. The boom crutches are not really suitable for long-distance travelling as they are too high.

I wanted to reuse the luff of toehold jib as it was in fairly good condition and I didn't have any stainless steel rope to make a new one. Here is the old job with the luff cut off.

By using a hot knife to cut the sail cloth I achieved a good cut with sealed edged.

As you can see, the luff is in good condition compared to the old sail that is tearing apart.

Clyde had to inspect the work and leave his mark of approval.

I remembered that I had to put some zinc paint on the gooseneck fitting so I took a few moments to do that. making sure that the paint did not drip onto the sailcloth on the work surface below.

The hot knife used to cut the sail cloth was literally a hot knife. I used an old re-enactment cleaver, sharpened the edge and then put it into a flame to heat it up.

Here one of the second-hand sails I bought a few weeks ago has been laid out. The lead weight you can see preventing it from all falling onto the floor is the third point of the triangle, more-or-less.

A view of the same but from the other end.

The luff of the new sail had to bereaved and that involved a seam-splitter. A very useful little gadget.

The new sail cut and held in place with weights. The section at the bottom right of the photo is the five reinforcing patches from the new sail. Five is too much for the new jib so I'll only use two of them, but since they are already cut to the correct shape I didn't discard them.

The newly extended cockpit covers dried and hung up in the workshop and given a liberal coating of Fabsil using a spray bottle.

The extension has worked well, its purpose is to cover the hatch.

A view of the completed cover and modification. The canvas is not blue but grey. The low light conditions jus made it look slightly blue.

So, as you can see, things are progressing.