The long task of scabbling and shotblasting the hull has been started.

The scabbling bit involves hitting the hull with a range of tools to crack off any bits of rust. This gets rid if most of the flakey crusty bits and allows the shot blaster to get at the harder to remove stuff underneath.

It also requires a hell of a lot of gear… And a lot of gear I never knew existed. Compressors? Air chisels? Needle guns? All powered by a generator that chugs through a lot of petrol.

I can also guarantee that I will either buy the slightly-not-powerful-enough tool to do the job or will not have bought the-crucial-connector-between-the-bits-that-I-didn’t-know-you-needed. Hence I have been to Rye Hire more times this week than I care to remember and have been ping ponging along the road of death to Hastings and back… What fun…