Building ‘Sharpy’ Part 136

Prep for bonding the sleeve to the weight with Araldite

Araldite left to set with weight in place

After epoxy was dribbled into the gaps. The bottom of the hole was sealed with putty.


The building side of my ‘Sharpy’ project is almost finished. Today I aligned the keel weights by enlarging a hole for the aft retaining pin and inserting an aluminium sleeve. To fix the sleeve before filling gaps with epoxy, I bonded it to the lead with Araldite. I may consider adding a sleeve to the forward hole, because then the removable weight can more easily slide on and off the retaining pins – as the threads of the pins run smoothly within a sleeve. Without sleeves, there is a tendency for the threads of the retaining pins to snag on the edges of the laminations of lead that comprise the weight.

Boat name

My boat has been given a name. She now has vinyl lettering either side of her bow. I have named her ‘Talitha’, after one of the words spoken by Jesus when he raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead.* ‘Talitha’ is Aramaic for the feminine form of ‘lamb’ or ‘youth’. He held the dead girl by her hand and said, “Talitha cumi,” which Mark, the writer of the gospel, translated as, “Little girl. I say to you, arise.” Immediately afterward, the girl got to her feet and walked!


In a metaphorical sense, my ‘Talitha’ has been raised from the dead, because now she has been brought to life as a viable creature. In her previous state she was a miscellany of inanimate bits of unrelated matter, without shape or form. She has become a harmonious entity, with a heart and spirit, looking forward to a relationship with her owner, the one who raised her to life for the prime purpose of shared adventures.


*Mark 5:41