Decisions Decisions

Sep 13^th

We had a Rustler packed weekend – the Rustler Owners Dinner on the Friday night. Saturday was spent finalizing our electronics at the Southampton Boat and measuring various bits of South Island which was the Rustler 42 at the show (much to the amusement of David from Red Ensign). We were trying to work out where to put the liferaft. Chris who was on the Rustler stand had made us think. The standard place is the coachroof – but when he questioned whether you would really want to be launching a liferaft from the deck – it made us think. He was right you wouldn’t. The obvious answer would be put it on the pushpit but we would struggle as we are having davits for a dinghy…..

Sep 16^th

Monday we were down at the yard. Progress on our Rustler has deliberately been slowed up to allow R29 to overtake our build – we weren’t in a hurry to get her.

So there was little progress on the hull but they have started laying down the fiberglass for the deck.Currently it is upside down and will stay that way until the deck is ready to be released from the mould. So whilst the hull hasn’t made progress the workshop has various bits of our internal woodwork being worked on.

The saloon table looks amazing. We dropped off the wine glasses to make sure they fit in the table.

With Nick and Adrian at the Boat Show, Simon showed us round.

We then had time to pay a visit to Gavin at Penrose sails to look at canvas work and came away with a couple of samples for the canvas work. The narrowed the choice down to mint, oyster (off white), light grey and light beige.

There are many decisions on a boat – one important one was the upholstery. Being in Finland was a definite disadvantage as it wasn’t a case of being able to browse through catalogues. We had to describe what we wanted in a mail. We gave an indication of colour palate, feel and texture and over a series parcels of samples being sent over and clear feedback on each one as to what we liked about a sample and perhaps more importantly what we didn’t like. After a couple of months we had narrowed it down to about 5 potential ones. But there is only so much you can do remotely, so on this trip we took a detour to the Lang and Potter factory in Plymton and met Mel to finalise the fabric. We had a bit of oak from Rustler to see how it would match. Here is what we have chosen

Mags went back to the Boat Show to check on a couple of issues with Nick and Adrian. Of course she took the opportunity to check on a couple of measurements……. After all you can never have too many! But it did allow us to build a 2d paper model of the back of the Rustler at home…. which was enough to prove to us we wouldn’t be able to fit the liferaft on the pushpit….… we really didnt want it in a locker but it did look like it would fit between the stern locker lids.