Last week Thursday, Friday and Saturday certainly were interesting days!
Thursday
After Reuben spent all of Wednesday night dividing up and laying out our boat chines and bulkheads on 8 by 4 panels, Jess and I took our new car (Thanks to Cath who sold it to us super cheap as she is skippering a boat around the country for the Ellen McArthur Trust) to Totton Timbers to buy some Gaboon (Jess first thought it was called Kaboom!) and Marine Ply.
Having strapped the sheets on properly, the little grey rocket was ready to roll with the wood on the roof wrapped in plastic sheeting as it had snowed that morning, and rained during the day!
We had a pretty uneventful trip, and arrived in Poole ahead of schedule. - We met up with the Oval316 guys - Wow! They were super friendly and helpful. First time I have ever seen a waterjet cutter, and it is pretty scary stuff! We dropped off the panels, and decided to have a little wonder around Bournemouth and Poole, as it was our first time ever in the area.
It was amazing to see surfers and a beach a with sand! We laughed a bit at the surfers though, fighting for waves on the 6.5 inch ankle breakers...
Friday
Being typical students, we figured we would leave and head off at around 3pm to fetch the cut panels, nice and early in the day! Little did we realise that most of the working world close a little early on Fridays! So when the panels had finished being cut, Rich and I jumped into the car and sped off to go and fetch the panels. Thankfully, Paul from Oval316 waited over an hour for us to collect the panels!
We cleaned out the cutting shop, and even took all the leftover scrap pieces
Great! All the pieces in the car, we headed back in relief that the cutting was all complete and done! About 15 minutes outside of Southampton, Rich and I are chatting about the boat and trying to count the panels to ensure that we have the right number. We are pretty certain that we should have the right amount, because we even double checked the workshop. Suddenly KABOOM! Glass everywhere!
Rich and look around to try and understand what the hell just happened, and after what feels like ages, we realise nothing to serious has happened, but the sunroof exploded! I suddenly realise that the little rock that I saw bounce on the road, must have got sucked through between the roof and scrap on the roofracks and smashed the sunroof!
From the inside
From the outside
Chris my housemate, and Rich puzzled over how the hell it happened.
Panicked about the sunroof, we head over to Rich's house/workshop/motor guru hangout to ask for some guru opinion. Thank goodness Rich was there, as I would have run around in circles like a headless chicken panicking about informing Jess that her new car had a whole in its head. The gurus confirmed Richs ideas, and we headed back to my house to purchase a Haynes manual and phone up some 'scrapies' and the autoglass repair hotline.
After a couple of quotes over £200 for a new sunroof, Rich phoned up some scrapyards he new about, and we managed to find a place which had a used sunroof for £45, and another yard which if they had one, they would sell to us for around a tenner! My ulcer subsided, and I managed to call Jess to inform her about her week old vehicle!
As it was now too late to head off to the scrapyards, we decided to call it a day.
Saturday
Seeing that Jess's car was injured, we decided to go rallying in Rich's BMW. Quickly speeding past Ocean village, we picked up Karim, and headed to the chandleries and marine outboard stores in the Hamble. This started our engine discussion which hopefully will finish today!
We then headed to the Scrapyard to see if we could find the sunroof. What a weird experience - My first scrapyard!
Karim and Jess weirded out about the strange place.
Car upon car of wrecked metal
Success!! Ten pound solution!
Having found the sunroof, we headed back to the University to continue our discussion on the engine. What a relief about the sunroof!
Monday
Reuben emails us and informs us that we left two panels in Poole! Dow! After all that, we really felt like idiots...
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