At Deep-Lake on Sunday I had a bad run, a capsize on the gybe-mark and strong winds that refused to let me get the nose into the wind for righting and that reasonably paced wind forced drifting across the lake saw me physically stuffed after a long unsucessfull fight
Crash-boat assisted recovery was needed and he eventually got there after a long period of assistance with another cat. With the boat up n going again it felt sluggish and non responsive for the next couple of legs which I put down to a wet main....

What I did notice whilst hanging out on the trap was the foredecks paint work..... it seemed to be "wrinkling" and then flattening out as the various wind gusts struck !!!
The worst area was almost in the middle between the forestays and the front beam.

After the end of the race I stayed on the water for a play session and made several tuning changes for my own interest and for the learning curve, some of which helped


Back on the beach and a quick prod at the decks showed an increase of "flex" over what it had been, soft was a word I'd have used before but now they were really soft. The deck / hull joint had let go in several spots and I'd managed to push some green paint into the splits during the respray, I'd also sealed up some others with the "tredgrip" paint and a couple that had re-opened several times had received the additional nails treatment combined with a squirt of silicon to keep them sealed.


I was praying that the boat would see the season out and that I could replace the foredecks and main decks over the off season......




Plan B time.......




this took all of ten minutes





The deck literally peeled off like peeling a banana peel
The glue had let go along most of the length and it was really only the nails that were holding it together and keeping the water out !

the actual hulls are in good condition thankfully so its a straight forward deck replacement....

yeah right, the plot is about to thicken