November / December 2006.

First job that needed doing on arrival at Swiftcraft was to find out why on the way from Ledgard Bridge, the boat batteries were not being charged properly, even after all day cruising. A quick chat with Gary at LB's traced the problem to a faulty inverter and he would change it for a new one, this was completed by the end of the month.

This was another quiet period for "Ebinka" with only a small amount of work being done. This was because our Australian friend's ex-Heron boat, "Pendragon" was being worked on at Swiftcraft. We were willing to wait because there are only two guys working on boats at Swiftcraft.

Our good news came with a Christmas greeting, saying that the "Pendragon" work was finished and work would start on our boat in the New Year.

January 2007.

Now the boat fit out work picked up a pace and things started to change, first a decision was made on the grey water system. It was decided to install a sump collection system, all drained water from the sinks (Galley & Bathroom) plus the shower tray pumped water would go into a sump and then pumped overboard.

Mid month saw us delivering tiles for the saloon stove hearth and a check over the progress on the boat woodwork, which was now starting to take shape.

A phone call on the 19th from Swiftcraft brought everything back into focus. The shower cubicle was too tall for the space in the bathroom and would need some big changes to the floor and roof. A decision was made to buy a shallower shower tray, the original one was 90mm deep and a 55mm deep tray would solve the height problem.

Then on the 24th with the shower tray ordered, another phone call, this time, the gas hob was not compliant with BSS, no flame failure fitted. Now this was interesting because, we were told by Heron to buy our boat "white goods" and have them delivered to their boatyard. No mention about flame failure devices so I now wondered how the RCD was going to be passed if Heron's had continued with the boat build. There was only one way on this one, buy another gas hob that complied with BSS.

End of the month saw my two sons and I delivering to Swiftcraft the last of the Heron equipment rescued just after the collapse, the washing machine. This machine was now fifteen months old and was still in it's packaging and served has a sober reminder how long things have been going on.

February 2007.

The first part of this month saw slow progress but work on the bathroom was being held up by the shallow shower tray being out of stock at the suppliers. A visit to Swiftcraft on the 22nd and still no shower tray but at least it was now with the delivery company.

The boat by now was showing good progress in the galley and bedroom, with saloon work continuing on the stove area.

Now with the shower tray on it's way we discussed a finish date for the boat and the end of March was set. This would then give us a week before Easter to check out "Ebinka's" systems, to make sure everything was working OK. Then if working, we could head for our home moorings over the Easter holidays.