Petestack Blog

Some things have gone wrong! I’ve got perplexing new deck leaks (discovered on Saturday) from things already fixed, and nearly took my finger off with the trolley jack removing the trailer wheels to get the tires replaced when I thought to concentrate my single-day weekend effort on that instead… (more…)

Couldn’t throw myself at Fly quite as planned this May Day holiday weekend after hurting my shoulder on Thursday night (more likely playing manhunt with S1 at Outward Bound than jumping/sliding down the Allt na h-Uamha — aka Laggan gorge — with them!), but one of the less physical things I’ve got done is fitting a stay to the chart table lid. (more…)

20 months ago, I built Fly a proper little roof so we could work inside with the hatch open in any conditions. Today I finally took it off when it became more hindrance than help as I sought to get the decks properly clean for the first time in eight-and-a-half years, and here’s the result after a similar effort to October 2010’s six hours of hard scrubbing: (more…)

Last April (just over a year ago), I wrote:

It wasn’t a great winter for Fly. Consistently cold temperatures, flu and other things contributed to losing most of December, January, February and March, so we find ourselves coming into spring well behind a logical projected schedule from the summer and autumn.

But it’s different this year when so much work since suggests expectations of a 2018 launch to have been optimistic at best. (more…)

Twig was here today, so we started with the tricky two-man job (one to hold and one to do!) of fitting my speaker boxes, and what a satisfying result after the three-month gestation of these things: (more…)

Now replaced by final version.

Think I’ve been working alone weekends and evenings for four weeks now while Twig’s been busy with other things but, while some outstanding tasks still require both of us and/or his expertise, this also means I’ve had the run of the boat to get other stuff done without us getting in each other’s way. And, since I’m now both on Easter holiday with plans for a concentrated push and expecting him here tomorrow, tonight seems a good time to sum up my remaining recent solo work… (more…)

A slightly artsy title here (both punning and recalling instructions to racing crew), as well as not completely true when nothing like all the trim’s on yet, but perhaps marginally better than ‘More Tricky Stuff’, which was all I could otherwise think of… (more…)

While I’ve spent many hours (most weekday evenings and all weekend) on Fly since last weekend’s blog, more of that time’s probably been spent thinking through tricky stuff and making sure I get it right than actually doing. So no prizes for speed with what you’re about to see, but still considerable satisfaction on not only avoiding most of the potential banana skins but also making a good job of some tricky parts… (more…)

Quite a lot happening to Fly since my last blog, but it’s not all on camera yet so there’s some you can see and some we can just talk about… (more…)