Julian Megson Ocean Ventures

With less than 3 weeks to go before Ragamuffin goes in the water, we are almost ready.

We decided at the last minute to do a total rewire of the electrics. It was quite a big job to rip out the whole lot and replace it with new, but it was definitely worth doing. Now there is a lot less cabling and the layout looks logical rather than the tangled mess it was before. Before it would have been almost impossible to quickly fix any problems had there been an electrical fault which is the last thing you need at sea.

Ragamuffin is starting to look really good. She’s painted and anti-fouled at last, thanks to a break in the weather. The only thing missing from her appearance is the white lettering for her name, and some white pinstripes which will finish the job nicely.

She was turning quite a few heads this weekend. I didn’t realise this but it seems that quite a few people at the boatyard have been following her progress. I had lots of lovely comments from people passing by. I must admit when I stood back to admire Ragamuffin I felt really proud of her. I can barely believe she’s all mine.

There are still some jobs to do, but these will have to wait until later in the season. I really wanted to run all the lines back to the cockpit for safety reasons and to make trimming the sails a lot easier. To do this I need some clutches and a couple of winches, but at the moment funds do not allow. So until that is sorted I will not be sailing single-handed but hopefully it won’t be too long.

Finally I want to say a really big thank you to Duncan. Without you the boat would not be ready to sail. I really appreciate all your hard work and the enormous amount of time you have put into getting Ragamuffin ship shape. I hope one day I will be able to make it up to you.