Last Tuesday I had my arthroscopy operation on my left knee. It was completely painless and over in less than a day. I went in at 9.30am and was home in bed by 3.30pm. I was fairly tired and slept the rest of the day but the next day I was up and about and by Wednesday afternoon I was back at work. My knee is still a little sore but even now a lot better than it was and I expect the remaining pain will soon ease. I was also doing a little on the boat by Wednesday. I managed to glass the 2 remaining panels, both big panels, the chamfer panel on Wednesday and the outboard panel on Thursday and today (Friday) I managed to fit and glue the outboard panel. Over the weekend I will fit the chamfer.

I have a follow up with the surgeon on Monday morning. I am hoping that by the middle of next week the swelling will have gone down and the remaining soreness and tightness in the joint will have subsided and it will be back to normal. An arthroscopy operation is performed through 2 tubes into which one side is inserted a video camera and the other side the tools needed to do the cutting, stitching, etc and the surgeon watches a video screen to know what to do. The pictures on the right were taken with the arthroscope. Fairly gross! Now there are some photos I never expected would have been on the site!

I had to glass the 2 panels on the same side of the hull due to them both being against the wall on the outboard side of the hull and there being a lack of space on the other side of the hull due to the port hull being there. Once the hull panels are all on, all the work on the inboard side is done on scaffold boards on top of the bridgedeck returns so the lack of space on that side wont be an issue. The chamfer panel will need to be moved to the other side of the hull by walking it outside then back in on the other side of the hull.

So I glassed the chamfer first, then layed the outboard panel on top of it the next day and glassed that. It was then a simple task to lean the outboard panel on one edge on the 44 gallon drums and lean it against the hull and attach 2 ratchet straps and lift it the short distance into place. It took about an hour or so each to glass the panels and about an hour and a half to fit the outboard panel. As with all the others I screwed it down, unscrewed the rear half to apply the glue, re screwed it down then repeated on the forward half.

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For the keen observers you will note that the chamfer panel has to be turned around when I move it to the other side of the hull, the bow is at the stern and visa versa. You can see on the panel a line I have marked from the stencil offcut from the port hull that needed to be removed to make the panel fit. I will cut that out before I fit it as it should be identical to the port hull. The offcut will then be glued to the top of the panel where the strip planking starts. I wont do that though until I start the strip planking.

I should be able to attach the chamfer over the weekend, it is a bit more complicated than the other panels because of the strain the various twists put the panel under but I should be able to get it done this weekend. Then I have to glue/fill all of the panel joins.