Sea Scouts Abroad: Further Adventures of the "Olivette"

To-morrow the tide serves, declared Patrol Leader Peter Stratton, stepping back a few paces in order to admire the joint handiwork of the 1st Milford Sea Scouts. We'll launch her while the compo's wet. That's the right thing, I believe.
It was a blazing morning late in July. The Sea Scouts, with the best part of seven weeks' holiday in front of them, were engaged in giving their craft—the 54-foot motor-boat Olivette —a belated refit before undertaking what Alan Hepworth described as the stunt of stunts .
The Olivette rested in her cradle with the stern a good five yards from high-water mark on the gently shelving patch of gravel that constitutes the Keyhaven repairing-slip. For just over a week all hands—namely, Patrol Leader Peter Stratton, Scouts Dick Roche, Eric Flemming, Will Woodleigh, Reggie Warkworth, Alan Hepburn, and Tenderfoot Phil Rayburn—had been hard at work from early morn till dewy eve making the staunch craft look presentable and, what was more, seaworthy, for the undertaking they had in view.
The Sea Scouts were doing the task of refitting entirely by themselves. Mr. Armitage, their Scoutmaster, was away in Town on business, and would not be back until the following Thursday, and it was up to the lads to have the Olivette afloat all shipshape and Bristol fashion on his return.
Roche, Flemming, and Woodleigh had taken down the powerful 50-60 horse-power Kelvin engine, decarbonized the four cylinders, fitted new piston rings, ground in the valves, and adjusted the tappets. At the end of each day's work they were as black as tinkers and as jolly as sand-boys.
Hepburn and Rayburn had been told off to clean down and revarnish the after-cabin and paint out the fo'c'sle; Stratton and Warkworth, with the aid of caustic soda and scrapers, had removed all the old paint from the Olivette's sides, and were on the last stages of applying the final coat of battleship grey paint. Incidentally they had liberally besprinkled themselves and their overalls with paint and varnish, while, owing to an incautious use of caustic soda, that powerful chemical had indelibly stained their nails a dark brown, which were not only disfigured but positively painful.