Not even a year has gone by and here I am again. :-/ Shortly after the last post I was found to be ill, and it has taken most of the time since, but I appear to be largely functional again. Adding to that, most of our summer stayed above 100 F. (38 C) and I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to working in that kind of heat, especially belowdecks. During the interim, I bought a custom extrusion from a flagpole manufacturer. It is 41 feet long, 1/4 inch wall, 6063-T6 aluminum. The lower 8'6" is 10" OD untapered, and from there it tapers to 6" OD. This will be my mast. Last week I cut a hole in the foredeck for partners per Paul's design (Thank you so much, Paul). I've been paralyzed for weeks trying to decide how big a hole to cut, and finally settled in 12", one foot. This will leave, as roughed in at least, an inch (about 2.5 cm) all the way around, which is quite a bit of space, but I intend to reinforce the deck all the way around the hole wiith a few layers of fiberglass cloth and epoxy. The deck as made is FRP with an end-grain balsa core, so I think it needs some beefing up. I've made two crossbeams out of common.US 2x4 lumber, maybe Douglas fir or some similar white softwood. It's not durable in water so I hope I can keep them dry. After I put the crossbeams in I will put one running forward. Seablossom has a very stout Samson post made of 2 of some sort of durable 2x4 that is rooted at the forefoot and runs up through the deck; I will brace the partner beams against that. I had to cut some more out of her interior to provide space for the crossbeams. Another cabinet. OK, locker. :-) I haven't made a lot of progress on the diesel either. I paid somebody to look at it last summer - some of you may remember - and they ran new wiring from the alternator, key switch, and starter. And boy did they do a crummy job. As I looked in through the engine room hatch the wire sagged down from the deck above, all the way through my work space, hung down into the bilge about a foot, then wound its sloppy way over to the side of the compartment and finally vanished back into the jumble. As a sign of my lack of proper commitment to the boat and this project, I've been working around this messy obstacle, all the while muttering imprecations at the slob who charged me $300.00 US for this hassle. Finally this week I admitted to myself that he wasn't going to come fix it, and I could either live with it forever or fix it myself. So I fixed it, and am feeling.considerably better for the job. So that's the tale so far.