2014 Annual General Meeting

The Society held its Annual General Meeting on Saturday the 12th. A gratifying number of members took advantage of the beautiful, sunny day to elect new members to the board, return some long-serving members for another term and say goodbye to a few retiring members.

Elaine has served on the Board for at least a decade and has done yeoman duty as Secretary and, when needed, as Treasurer.

Less official, but no less valued, perhaps even more appreciated, Elaine has ensured a steady stream of her delicious baked goods flows into the Society lunch room and into volunteers' tummies. She has also kept the Murakami garden in show condition and generally improved the place with her sunny disposition.

The Society, deeply appreciative of her long and diligent service, presented her with a retirement gift. We hope she will like the secateurs. She has told us that despite stepping away from Board duties, she plans to stay on as head weed puller and chief Cookie Baker and Bottle Washer. (Come on guys! Wash yer own cup, eh?)

Thanks, Elaine.

The very welcome first day of spring

With improving weather we can expect operations to begin moving outside and we ought to be able to start leaving the big door on the Richmond Boatbuilders open more often.

Daisy is getting her new hull colour here.

She came in white but, the longer we looked at the pictures in Wooden Boat Magazine the more we thought blue, as her original designers suggested, was the way to go.

Here I'm inspecting the application of the first coat and lamenting the quality of the underlying preparation. It looked so perfect before the shiny paint started going on.

Iona update

Iona has been moved into Richmond Boat Builders and her survey has commenced. The previous job of recaulking has not held up well and the hull will need a lot of attention. She also sports a moderate list of deficiencies: she has developed rot on wheelhouse sides and roof; her transmission is seized.

Here we see a crew pulling out her transmission. Though it only weighs 207 lbs (according to the manual) it is in a tight spot and is extremely awkward to manhandle. It comes out easily with a good come-along.