unusal thing to eat but had to try it either way.
dried, raw springbok!
so my day at the office today.
started with a 20ft climb up a ladder with my tools to baord a 47 feet yacht called Virgin Lucia. My job today, remove the starboard steering box and auto pilot module for an overhaul, the port side was already out and cleaned up.
i squeezed into the aft hold section, the hatch not quite wide enough to take my shoulders unless i hunched up a little bit. the rear section is not big enough to sit in, or crouch in, the only way to work is laying flat out in the hull. the otehr problem is that you cannot sit and then lay down, there isn`t enough room for this, you have to lower yourself in an L shape and then wriggle into position. the section in the centre of the boat is less than 12 inches high, i can´t fit my feet in unless i take my shoes off!
One certanty is that you want to make sure you have all of the tools you need before lowering yourself into position.
my job this morning was to finish hack sawing through the input shaft from the steering box to the autopilot motor. The joint was siezed solid as you would expect for something that spends it´s life on salt water. My colleague ´Murdo´ had got half way through yesterday, today i uad the other half.
i would spend almost one hour hack sawing the stainless steel shaft until finally the motor dropped onto the wooden blocks carefully placed underneath. Next – find the junction box and disconnect the power feed and comand wires.
The box was hidden away perfectly, the only chance i had to open it up was to work via a mirror – absolutely no chance of being able to face the box. Once i got the cover off, disconnect and label the wires and leave a little diagram of how it all went together.
All in all, an hour and a half´s work – i stepped back onto the deck , barefoot and into glorious sunshine.
tomorrow – who knows shich offic ei will be in!
The November Archives 
Have a moan - the beers are on me !!