Final prep for the big day

Tomorrow we take Herbie on the one hour trip up to Cowley Peachey to wait outside the wet dock until Saturday at 9am when we can take her inside and set to work on the roof. I think we have everything ready including cake and soup etc to keep us going, but no doubt we will have forgotten something. We might need more paintbrushes because at times there could be four of us at work. I've been pondering a way to keep out of each other's way at such times. We will be doing the roof with roller, the wooden handstrip along the roof edge with brushes and the gunwales with roller and brush. My idea at present is to do it like this:-

The roof painter starts at one end of the boat walking backwards as he paints. The handrail painter(s) give him a start then follow along behind. They will need to stand ashore or on the gunwales. Finally the gunwale painter will follow when everyone else is clear. That way no one stands or leans on someone else's wet paint. We're hoping that once we get going, it will just be a couple of hours a day to put a coat of paint on, although I might put in a bit extra doing other bits like the coloured bands at the stern. I think the dock is narrow enough to be spanned by our gangplank so I'll be able to sit on that to paint the stern. Who knows we might even have a go at a squiggle on the bow flashes.

All this assumes we are successful on day one, getting all the old paint and rust off the roof. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pics and a progress report on Saturday night.