Dear Joan,

Paint kettles! That’s the answer to Peter Francis’s worry about how to get a small bucket with an airtight lid into a small boat. Emulsion paint is sold in throw away plastic containers. I use them for long term waterproof storage — for a set of spare clothes and the like. They’re about 4-5 gallons size, which should see Peter through the weekend! Any decorator will have them ready to throw in your direction if you ask. Only drawback perhaps is that you’ll have the name of the paint all over the outside of the container.

Come to think of it, it might not be such a drawback, if as Peter suggests, he brings it all ashore, people will just think he’s spent a weekend painting the inside of the boat!

On another point, my solution to the helm impeder problem is much simpler that the one shown in the winter Bulletin. I’m not a good artist but hopefully the diagram will be self explanatory. A cleat is screwed to the underside of the tiller. It must be one of those cleats that’s not solid but has a ‘tunnel’ running through the middle. Then you simply fasten a length of line to one gun’l, pass it through the tunnel with a shockcord at the end, hook it to the other gun’l. The tiller is free to move normally until you impede it by twisting the rope round one of the horns of the cleat. To immobilize the tiller completely, twist the line round the other horn so that everything is bar taut. Bob’s yer uncle! Ted Jones