THE
MAINSHEET

Autumn 2011

Contents

Vice Commodore's bit  

Additional lockers

AGM, prize giving, party

Annual dinner

Annual warning

Bewl Water

Bodgit diaries

Cheats Christmas lunch

Development plan

Flotilla sailing adventure

Gilbert & Sullivan

Kempton Park fireworks

Newsletter printing

RYA manifesto

Sailing beyond the end

Sailing club robbed

SigneT Nationals

Social calendar

Stevens story

Store & changing rooms

Swinging sixties Mike H

Swinging sixties Mike B

Home

Bodgit Diaries (The ongoing story of DIY folk)

I knew I shouldn’t have let Bodgit Senior off the leash. I turned my back and he was straight onto a yacht and off around the Scottish Island distilleries. The good news was that he brought back some samples. He knows which side his haggis is battered, or should that be buttered.

Having got a special dispensation from the Management Committee Bodgit had a bonfire to get rid of all the material cut down from behind the dinghies. Now such things tend to fuel Bryan Clements pyromaniac tendencies so he was reminded why the club banned bonfires a couple of years ago. That seemed to work and by the end of the afternoon there wasn’t much left except a pile of very hot ash and a somewhat ‘flushed’ Bryan.

When I got back from the SigneT Nationals I found that Bodgit senior had manufactured and installed the drawer above the dish washer racks. The kick boards under the kitchen units had also been finished. He doesn’t hang about!

A new batch of lockers had also arrived. Four ‘pay as you use’ for the foyer and two conventional for the Ladies changing room. These were installed  that same evening.

With winter round the corner and several end of season social events coming up Bodgit has re-installed the patio on the quarterdeck.

With Mike Chips help another source of galvanised steel gratings has been found. These will be used to re-construct the downstream end of the launching ramp which will start towards the end of September before the river gets too cold.

September 28, 29 and 30 were blisteringly hot days as Bodgit & Co. started work on the downstream side of the ramp. Two scaffolding A frames were set up, one in the river the other on the bank adjacent to the end of the ramp and cross braced. A chain hoist was then attached and the whole ramp was lifted clear of the water. A support structure was put in at both ends of the ramp and the ramp was then lowered, still clear of the water so it could be worked on. The damaged wooden and metal coverings were then partially stripped off to expose the support structure underneath which was in surprisingly good condition.

Construction then started on the new supports which would hold the new gratings. Initially this proved challenging to say the least but it’s at times like this when Bodgit senior goes into deep think mode usually lubricated with tea or coffee and a sticky bun.

Anyway after several hours of cutting, grinding, welding, drilling, bolting and sweat ( I did say it was hot) things were looking good by close of play on the 30th with the first two gratings lowered into place.

Many thanks to Stuart Schaffer who helped out on the 30th.

Mike (Over Easy) Baker

 

Downstream ramp lifted out of water to repair Downstream ramp with new grating and Nigel Knowles

New gratings fitted

The ramp lifted out of the water