Things are taking shape down in Rye. The windows are out, the sides and roof are off, and the stern end (check my lingo) is frame-free.

For such an ugly structure, the top frame is remarkably well constructed. Plywood sandwiched with insulation and clad around welded steel. The positioning doesn’t help either – you can’t push for fear of ending up 8 foot below in the mud. Giving it a big push or a couple of petulant thwacks with hammer won’t work (I confess, left to my own devices, this would have been my strategy).

Slowly slowly catchy monkey with each steel having to be cut multiple times to break the structure down piece by piece. This was helped by switching to the spendier diamond blades on the angle grinder (at 60 quid a pop, am not sure these are real diamonds).

Sunglasses on while angle grinding. That’s how we roll in Rye!

Below is only one of the many piles of boat debris to be disposed of. I am manning the skip tomorrow to take care of this. I have special rigging gloves, overalls and a bobble hat (as ever, key concern is not how I will do it but rather what I will wear to undertake the task). Am going to cram as much in there as humanly possible, taking the same approach as i do to suitcase packing for the return journey from NYC. But with splintery wood rather than half the contents of sephora.

Here’s how she was looking at end of day to day. Back half pretty much done…

Final push tomorrow and then we will be all set for the big lift!