Rot, Skinned Knuckles, Broken Blades and More Rot.

As one may gather from the title, it has not been the most rewarding week of boat work.

Firstly, while the Fein Multimaster is brilliant for cutting out the old sealant, the blades need to be regarded as a disposable item, We have just ordered a sixth, which means we have now spent more on the cutting blades than on the tool itself. Even so, it has paid for itself in the time saved.

Secondly, we started to look at the soft timber round the shaft log, and found a heavy steel strap over the top the of the floors supporting the bronze log. Electro chemical decay was well away in half the floor and the shaft log, so we cut all that out, and are halfway through fitting the new timber. So far so good. Part of the access process to the shaft involved removing the aft bulkhead from the doghouse, which showed some "interesting" features. Most notably was yet another heavy steel strap running across the front of the cockpit, only visible from inside. It lies about 6 inches in front of the compass… I did wonder why some of the buoys weren’t quite coming up where expected on the way home from Dunkerque! Moving the compass around yesterday showed some 25-30 degrees of variation. So that steel strap has been pulled out, to reveal that it replaced the main deck beam that ran across the boat in front of the cockpit. The remains of that deck beam, when investigated showed lots more rot, in both the beam and the carlins running forward round the doghouse and aft round the cockpit. So we cut them out too.

Now at this stage, you, the reader is wondering if there is any structural integrity left in the boat. Well, nothing moved or pinged, and the doghouse side are tied into everything else and are 2 inch solid teak… So I think we are OK on that front, while she is sitting happily in the shed. New oak will start going in this week.

So, with 5 and bit weeks to the proposed launch, we are now really hard up against the wall to get her complete. I can see some late nights coming on.

Oh and the skinned knuckles? Swinging a mallet and chisel, while lying on your back, in a quarter berth, with rotten oak falling in your face, makes for some inaccurate swings.

10:46 AM - Apr. 21, 2008 - post comment