The day we ran out of screws...

As I think we might have mentioned a few times before; when we bought Impetuous she came with a miriad of stuff. As well as the big important stuff like sails, winches and self steering gear, we were also given lots of little stuff; stuff that you might never consider but that really adds up.

The cupboard behind the cooker, for instance, was full of boxes of screws.  During our rebuild the screws moved to one of the drawers in the head, agreeably as odd a home as the cupboard behind the cooker, but they fit there so well.  Actually sitting on the toilet whilst contemplating what screw one needs for a job seems a fortunate duality of a room that perhaps mightn't have one.

When we were readying the boat to leave Texas we made sure we had plenty of all our favorite sizes whilst we still had access to Blackburns', our marine store.  Indeed we no longer had space for all the screws in just one drawer so the jubilee clips (hose clamps); another item that came with the boat in large number; had to be relegated to another place.   Neither of us are quite sure where to at the moment, but we know we have hundreds of the things lurking somewhere.

So today I went to the drawer to find some small screws with which to screw on the Ratan doors that I have just finished making for the galley cupboards. No suitable screws were to be found. The hinges for said doors are brass, obviously I was after a brass screw to suit. A ½'' number 6, oval headed, countersunk, brass wood screw, with a flat head drive to be quite precise.

I had to rob the afore mentioned screws from the inside attachment of other such hinges to carry out the job. This make do attitude I suspect we'll find increasingly necessary, traveling in far away places. It's a sobering thought though. With only a thousand miles under the keel we have started running out of screws.