It has been a crazy, busy week with lots of work hours to put in, plus visits to see my convalescing mother-in-law (who hopefully comes home in a week or so) and of course a mountain of work on the boat, especially as we are into long hours of daylight. Of course, that means that I wake up promptly at 4.00 a.m. EVERY day as the light streams in and the birds begin to chirp, but that is a whole other post that I simply haven't the energy for right at the moment! In fact I haven't the energy at the moment for things like shopping, cooking, cleaning etc, so if you were considering dropping in for a visit in the next couple of weeks, THINK AGAIN!

In addition to working on our own boat, it is a very busy time for the whole boat club and poor Lars-Göran had to make time to launch several boats for members. Most of these are special jobs for boats that are either awkward to launch or those that take a long time for various reasons and are not suitable for the normal Monday evening launch times (when Lars-Göran also works).

A couple of the more interesting ones that he launched this week, included this lovely, sleek wooden sailing boat that is pictured here. This is a rather special boat, with an Aussie connection, would you believe. I was talking to the owner of the boat last year when he was putting on her mast and he told me that this actual boat won a gold medal for Sweden in the 1956 Olympic Games held in Melbourne!



The owner of this boat is the brother of our friends who restore the old wooden archipelago sailing boats. It must run in the family as this one is also beautifully and lovingly restored and cared for.

The other interesting boat is a beautiful wooden motor yacht called Spirit.



She is owned by a well known Swedish actress and singer who lives here in town. She and her husband, who are both really lovely, friendly people regularly take Spirit out on weekend jaunts with family and friends. It is a very elegant boat and looks so majestic as she motors along the waterways. There is a very active society for owners of similar sorts of boats and we have on occasion seen their meet-ups, where dozens of these classic craft are moored together in guest harbours. It makes for quite a sight. I love the warmth and refined grace of these boats from a by-gone era.

The impetus for us struggling with the work on our classic boat is to get her out on the water as fast as we can. The sea is really beckoning us and it feels so wrong to be stuck on land.



Perfect weather and winds to head off to Gotland, if only we had a sailing boat...

But there is no rest for the wicked and the next step is to paint on the waterline stripes - one the same colour as the hull and then a red "snob stripe" above it. We spent a while at the paint shop collecting colour samples and travelling back to the boat in an effort to match them to the hull, finally selecting a shade called antique white. Paint is another thing that costs an absolute fortune here. The tin was the smallest you could buy (at 470ml or 0.47dl for the Swedish readers) and cost a eye-watering $30 a tin. Thirty bucks for ordinary gloss finish house paint. And we also needed a small tin of red. Not to mention another small tin of varnish at $35 and there was no change from the hundred dollars we offered. This boat just soaks up money and I feel like we are haemorrhaging cash at the moment.

Anyway, the next "fun" job was to tape the hull.



We started with a highly scientific method, but that soon degenerated into the proverbial dog's breakfast so we chose the simple but effective ruler, plus moving the tape up and down until it looked okay. It's not easy to draw a line on a curved surface that looks even and allows for the angle of the hull. Luckily Lars-Göran has a good eye for things like that so I let him go on with it and escaped up to the deck to apply the sixth coat of varnish to the deck rail. Last coat tomorrow and I never want to see that deck rail ever again!

Later, while Lars-Göran began polishing the hull, I sanded the door to the boat (under strict poodle supervision, of course)



All of this supervision is hard work and when I went to the clubhouse for a drink of saft, it all became just too much for our tired little lady who fell in a heap and went to sleep. If this is "a dog's life" then sign me up, please!



After many hours of work, including some fiddling around with the engine, we headed home. Not before we discovered that the engine needs a new fuel filter, fan belt and impeller for the cooling system. Another few hundred dollars to spend at the Solna supplier on Tuesday.



And out in the bay, we saw this sailing boat, yet to be masted and rigged, but still able to be rowed out for a short journey. Now wouldn't that be nice to own, instead of the seven ton money eater that controls us?



Hmm... maybe not. Where would we all fit on such a small boat and of course I need a bathroom, with shower and toilet, not to mention a galley with oven and fridge, a roomy double bed.....