Moving on… part 6  nearing the end now!

After all the excitement and hassle getting the new engine in place and running, things have now slowed down.  The work in the wheelhouse is now finished and all the new panelling is varnished.  Gives a nice warm feeling to it. Made and fitted a bifold door from the wheelhouse into the cabin, such as that is. 

It’s great having that large cockpit which can take 4 rods when out fishing, but if I had my ‘druthers’ I’d rather have had another couple of feet added onto the wheelhouse.  Or maybe have the wheelhouse 2 feet further aft to give room for a proper loo. But as we don’t go far, it’s OK.

So the next job was the dreaded antifoul. Mind you.. before this latest series of gales, I had arranged for the local metal fabricators to come to the boat and measure up for a new rudder skeg. At some point last summer the old one dropped off.  I thought we had touched something a bit harder than the skeg would stand ‘cos it broke off and vanished.

Here's a coupkle of pics showing the new propellor  and it in place. The rudder is now repaired and it can be removed without hassle by just undoing the 4 bolts,,2  top and 2 bottom and sliding it out backwards.

this pic shows the prop in place and the rope cutter adjusted and fixed in place.

In the pic below you can see the new skeg, and the way the rudder can now be removedd easily

But back to the story. Fine days, and under the boat I went with the little chipping hammer and scraper at the ready.

I had noticed that over the years the layers of AF had thickened somewhat. Rather like my waistline with advancing years, and in places were lumpy and looked badly attached. My little hammer soon found out that a few raps was enough to shower me with large flakes of old paint.  So one thing led to another (as the actress said to the bishop) and two days later it was ready for a good power wash.  Now last year I had used one of those domestic ones with fair results but this time I was lent a semi commercial one.  Wow, the crap did fly, in all directions.  Next day showed that more of the little hammer was needed, so the same plan was followed with another power wash after.  Some of that stuff is really really stuck on. So after a discussion with Kawasaki we decided that at the moderate speed we travel at, a bit of rough would probably make little if any difference.  Time will tell.

However. During the above I saw that some of the oak keel band had been damaged and broken off when the skeg left us for other climes. So how to fix it? There is a gap of about 5 feet to be replaced.  So I got a nice piece of oak 4 ins wide by inch thick as this seems to be the size of the original, and had the same firm that made the skeg make three U clamps. I then made housings for the clamps in the timber to stop it moving at all.  Now when the missing piece of oak was in place along with all the rest of it, it was held in place by through bolts. But many years had taken their toll and there was no way I could get at the buried heads of those as they were glassed in under the hull void infill, so the protruding inch had to be ground off.  As they were loose it made a path for any water in the bilges to drain out very slowly. This was OK when the boat had dried out, ( being on a half tide mooring) and the leak was just as slow when she was afloat,

The boat does not have a self draining cockpit, so any rain water goes straight into the bilges and has then to be pumped over the side. There is an auto pump installed as well as a couple of man sized manual ones.

Now of course, that leak will be stopped both ways so when it rains, as it does here frequently, I will have to keep a close eye in things down there.  It would take a massive canopy to cover that vast area of cockpit, not to mention the expense of having one made.

The skeg was fitted like a jigsaw puzzle,. Clamped up bit by bit and tack welded (The neatest little arc welder I have ever seen) and then removed and the final weld done back at the works. I collected it the next day and fitted it. Now that was a job in itself because as you know ( well of course you do) welding on one side of a joint will tend to bend the metal towards the heat. Just a bit, but enough in this case to make the U clamps close that fraction to make it a really tight fit. So tight in fact that I had to use my little trolley jack to get it into place, and lined up with the existing bolt holes through the hull.  But its all in place now.

With this done, all that remains is the T cut back and polish of the hull. A thorough wash down of all the upper works, a paint of the chipped safety rail and some of the bulwarks.

Last but not least to replace all the interior stuff stored for the winter and then we are ready for the lift in on 7^th April.

So just a couple more entries to show the fitting of the oak keel band and then when she is back in the water the sea trial will take place. Now won't that be interesting!!!!!!!

Watch this space.