Month: November 2025

2025-11-30 – Shocking Discovery

Mark Austen Repairs

Have you ever had one of those light-bulb moments? You know, where something suddenly dawns on you seeming without any lead up or introduction. I had one this afternoon whilst I was continuing the work on removing the centreplate case on Shoal Waters and doing very well.

This is a bit of a long post as I took a shed load of photos, but I’m not sorry about that. What do the youngsters says these days? Oh yes…

Sorry, not sorry.

I’d spent a few moments making a portlight template on the laser cutter and checking the fit.

This was the light I used as a test since it is not quite round as you can see from the top right. The perspex has been cut away slightly so that the light fits by the navigation light. I’ve just noticed that you can see the cabin light on side. I’d been using that to sweep up some rubbish and forgot to turn it off.

I made the template a fraction smaller so that the cutaway was not required and tested the fit. Good enough and so I moved on to the centreplate case.

All was going very well and I found that there is one place that brass screws were not used in Shoal Waters as you can see from the photo. Annoying to find and excavate but the screws all came out easily once the surrounding wood was removed.

All was still going very well and I decided to take a photo of the support under the bridge deck so that I know how to put it back again once the rebuild is under way.

Likewise the port side as this has a stop screwed into the top of the case to prevent the block and tackle used to raise and lower the centreplate from pulling the upright out.

Then I remove the starboard upright and that is when the light bulb went on.

Up to this point I had decided that the original case was two layers of plywood laminated together but this showed me that I was wrong about that. You see, the upright was set into the case through the outer layer of plywood.

This is a closer look. And the light-bulb moment was that Charles would not have cut away one layer of plywood on the case to inset this upright, he would have just put it out the outside. That in turn meant that the entire outer layer of plywood was not original but put there by Charles when he first constructed Shoal Waters back in 1963. Looking at the construction of the cabin shows quite clearly that this outer layer of plywood was put on first, apart from where the bridgedeck support uprights were placed. All the other parts of the cabin that are fixed to the centreplate case attach to the outer layer of plywood and are not inset.

So why is this shocking? Quite simply:

If Charles had not constructed Shoal Waters in this way sometime in the last 20 years she would have sunk and quite possibly whilst under sail.

A bold claim, I hear you say but isn’t that just supposition? Let me show you what I mean.

It didn’t take long to clear away all the beading and other centreplate supports from the top of the case and to then cut the side of the case away.

Like this. A very satisfying moment but I need to show you a closer look at one part of the side removed.

This is the inside face of the aft part of the case side with the top to the left. As you can see, someone has tried a repair job at sometime during Shoal Waters’ life, that yellow gunk looks like epoxy. Still, the part of interest is the smooth area at the top left.

This bit here. That smooth bit is the inside face of the outer layer of plywood.

That is to say that the entire inner layer of plywood, the one originally build by Fairy, in this area has gone.

The rest is in pretty poor shape as well and there may be other areas of the case where the inner layer has completely disintegrated. If this is the only part then when the boat is upright, this is out of the water. but would have been under water when heeled over, that is when sailing.

If the original layer is missing in other places that are underwater all the time, then it is likely that Shoal Waters would have sunk on her mooring.

But, I hear you say, that’s all well and good but how can you tell that the outer layer is not original. Just finding one part where a support has been inset doesn’t mean that the outer layer wasn’t original.

Well, I can’t say 100% that it is not original, but I can say to 99.999% and that is because I own Naiad, a Shoal Waters look-alike built from a Fairey Falcon by yours truly. The hull dates from the same year as Shoal Waters.

So I hopped into Naiad’s cabin armed with vernier calipers.

Here is the width of the top of the centreplate case in Naiad to the outside of the plywood from the top. Just over 31mm

Now, using the proddy end of the calipers I’ll measure the width of the top to the outside of the case.

Like this.

The result is just over 31mm.

So, Naiad, a Fairey Falcon hull built in the same year as Shoal Waters has a single layer of plywood for the centreplate case sides.

Now look at a photo of Naiad’s centreplate case before the cabin was built. The side of the case is unbroken from the tip of the case back to the aft of the case, although you can only see the front part in this photo.

Now look at that part close up in Shoal Waters on the port side where I’ve not removed anything yet.

That is the front edge of the second layer or plywood which stops just behind the shaped part where the mast step goes. It’s not easy to see in this photo due to the lighting, but it is there. All this is pretty conclusive to me.

So, having convinced myself that Charles’ original construction choices prevented a disaster, I carried on.

I removed the layer of plywood that was inset into the hull using a sharp chisel. This after part of the plywood came away but not as easily as first part had. The first part practically fell off and made me wonder if it has ever been glued to the hull or whether the prolonged water saturation had dissolved the glue. This part of the plywood was quite clearly glued in place but even so, the glue line broke very easily without damaging the keel timber.

Looking aft in the slot I can see the back of the case but this slopes away aft and is outside the cabin so I’ll need to partially dismantle the cockpit to get the last part out.

I started by making an incision on the outside where two pieces of wood had been joined.

Then looking out from the inside I could see the daylight through the cut, so I know where I’ll be to be cutting.

I did this bit before taking the side of the case off as I thought I might be able to get it all in one go, that isn’t going to be easy so I just took the side off and I’ll work on the remaining piece of the case another day.

So, a very satisfying day but one that is a little bit shocking at the same time.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-29 – The Need for Additional Bracing

Mark Austen Repairs

Now that I have enough of the starboard side of the centreplate case removed to see how to remove the rest, I need to add some more support under the keel. The case itself adds significant strength to the keel and removing it will remove that strength. The keel is probably strong enough to support my weight once the case it completely removed, but there’s no sense in relying on “probably” when it is a simple job to add a couple of additional supports under the keel.

So I’ve put a sturdy support under the keel mod-way between the two trailer supports, more or less.

That should do the trick nicely and change the probably to certainly.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-28 – Where Does it End (cont)?

Mark Austen Repairs

Now that there is light in the cabin I can continue the removal of the starboard side of the centreplate case and, as the title of this post suggests, I have yet to locate the bottom of the plywood side.

I widened the cut through the base of the case and cut down to a point just above the part that I know is the top of the keel. At this point the plywood is still visible on the inside of the case but it is not securely attached to the keel. Using a flat-bladed screwdriver I was able to prise the plywood of away from the keel and break it off. It is still damp, although not wet any more, and quite easily snapped.

Looking down the slot I can see that the plywood does not go right down to the bottom of the keel, which makes sense since this would make the edge of the plywood touch the water and that would in turn soak up the water, something to be avoided at all costs. So the builders of the hull cut a long and deep recess into the sides of the slot leaving about 6mm of the keel timber intact to form a barrier. Presumably it also forms an edge to locate the case properly.

So, I now have the top of the keel timber and I have the bottom of the side of the case. This means that I can cut away large chunks of the side knowing that I’m not cutting into parts of the boat that I should be leaving intact.

Mind, you, there are screws holding the side of the case down to the keep, so I’ll need to try and avoid cutting those. They appear to be stainless steel and my multi-tool won’t cut through that.

These are the piece of the plywood I removed from inside the keel timber. You can also see from this photo just how effective the cabin light is now that it is installed. This work would have been difficult without it.

The downside of the work is that Charles used something he called Mendix or Mendex spread liberally to cover any gaps in his ‘Clodhopper Carpentry’. I’ve not been able to find out what this substance is, but I can tell you that it is very tough and when cut produces a fine, choking power so I have to wear a breathing mask to avoid breathing this fine dust into my lungs. That means that I need to take regular breaks in the cutting work as this restricts your breathing. Besides that the dust gets everywhere and a break every now and then is needed to brush the dust of and clear up the mess in the cabin.

I usually make a cup of tea (no surprise there) and then resume work once I’ve finished the cup.

Some time later…

This represents about an hour’s work, about all I can do in one stretch. I’m just not used to crouching down into a small ball and then working on something sideways. I need to take a break after an hour. So I need to find some small tasks that take about an hour to carry out in a standing position and do those between hour long sessions cutting away the case side.

So that’s it for today.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-28 – Navigation Light Revisited Again

Mark Austen Refurbishment

The first task of the day was to finish the navigation lights refurbishment and to that end I made a start after breakfast and my first cup of tea. The new bulb holder needed to be put in place and connected, a second mirror reflector cut out and installed, the gasket put in place and the housing screwed back on to the boat.

The new bulb holder fitted well and you can see in the photo that the connections have been made. The negative cable screwed to the fitting using crimped eye connectors and the positive cable connected using a lever connector. The new holder is sufficiently shorter at the back compared to the original to allow the lever connector to be placed between the holder and the cable coming in through the back of the nav light. I won’t detail the mirror reflector work since this have been done in a previous post.

Some lanolin was smeared on the housing which allowed the gasket to be “stuck” to the metal and kept it in place whilst the unit was reassembled. You can see the black gasket in the photo above. This assembly was repeated for the starboard side.

When all was done the lights were tested. Here the port light.

Here the starboard.

It’s not so easy to see from these photos but you can quite clearly see the reflection of the bulb in the mirror reflector when viewed from the side showing the the reflector is working as intended.

And to complete the test, here is the stern light which was already converted to an LED bulb and needed no work.

So the navigation lights are now done and that task may be crossed off the list.

By this point I had to stop and retreat inside. Firstly to wash the lanolin off my fingers, even when cold that stuff is sticky, and secondly to warm my fingers up. It’s 9 Celsius outside today according to my weather station but the wind is bitter. I think I was probably only outside for an hour before I started dropping things due to cold fingers.

So…

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-27 – Gaskets and Bulb Holders

Mark Austen Refurbishment

The 1mm thick neoprene sheet arrived a few days ago and now that the main cabin light has been installed, it was time to make the navigation light gaskets.

Having done the major part of the work earlier with thin plywood to get the fit correct, the only thing I needed to do before cutting the gaskets was to find out what settings were required. I made a simple cut about 20mm long close to one edge of the rubber sheet at various powers and speeds until I got a consistent cut and then cut out two copies of the gasket.

As you can see they came out really well. The only downside is the black mess you get on your hands once the cutting has been done. Washes off easy enough but you need to do that before touching anything else !

After that I cut out the bulb holder shims on the laser cutter. This took four or five attempts to get correct as the fit had to be tight but not too tight. Here I have dry fitted the, to the bulb holder to check that they work the way I envisioned. They do, so that is a plus.

There are three parts to the shim, two outer pieces that are the same and an inner piece. The inner piece fits around the holder but into the hole in the brass support. The two outer pieces go around the holder and are as wide as the support. These will be glued together in the brass fitting and the bulb holder will then be pressed into the hole in the middle, so to speak.

Well, that’s the idea. This is the result. I used super glue to glue everything together and it looks to be pretty good. I probably need to put something on the metal to stop it corroding, some thick grease or similar. Lanolin is probably a good idea, I keep some of that on the boat for greasing shackles.

I’m not sure how the positive wire will be connected to the cable from inside the boat. The negative wire isn’t a problem, it will be clipped under one of the mounting screws as the negative from inside is at the moment. There may be enough room behind the bulb for a lever connector, I’ll have to check that out tomorrow.

There’s more work to be done on the nav lights, I have to cut out another reflector, mount both reflectors and the screw the things together with the new gaskets in place. I should be able to do all that tomorrow around making a cheesecake and wrapping presents for the family Christmas Lunch on Saturday.

We’ll see.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-27 – Rewiring Part IX

Mark Austen Refurbishment

I took a slightly extended lunch break today to work on Shoal Waters. I had been working on a data migration for a client and had started making mistakes, a sure sign that I needed to take a break. I wasn’t working on live client data, just a local copy so nothing was harmed by the errors, but certainly time for a break.

The first task today was to run the cable for the cabin light. I had to widen the hole through one of the coachroof beams which would have been a problem if I had not bought a bendy extension for the drill some years ago. I crimped two suitable eye connectors to one end of the cable and wired that into the switch box, directly to the bus bars. The cable was run pretty much along the same path as the one I removed yesterday.

With the exception of this bit here. Firstly there are two connectors in the line so that I can run another cable into the front part of the cabin later on. Looks a bit messy right now, but I’ll tidy it up once the other cable is done. Secondly, the cable runs inboard along a different beam.

The light, on its base, screwed to the coachroof and the wires connected.

And let there be light !!

It works, and that is a great relief. It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but it does mean that working in the cabin after work is now possible although I’ll need to use a mobile light for some things where this light doesn’t reach.

Such as the main fuse.

Today’s parts delivery included these items excluding the brass holder. Two are replacement bulb holders one of which is too big to fit in the hole in the holder and the other is too small. The too big one will be put into the parts bin, just in case I find a use for it somewhere else, the one that is too small will be made to fit by making some sort of collar. But that’s a task for another time.

Right now, I am talking about the main fuse and that is what that large chunk of plastic, labelled GLOSSO, is, a 10A circuit breaker. This will be placed in the battery box in the positive wire. If anything shorts out somewhere in the rest of the wiring, this will protect the boat from damage, such as catching fire due to a short causing excess heat.

Still, the battery box is small and cramped and the light from the new cabin light doesn’t reach inside, so a torch will be necessary to screw this fuse into the box.

That’s next.

And there we are, main circuit breaker wired in and fixed to the side of the battery box.

I think that completes the first stage of the rewiring. The second stage will be the light in the fore-cabin and the third stage will be the fixing of the solar panel once the coachroof has been sanded, epoxied and painted.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-26 – Rewiring Part VIII

Mark Austen Refurbishment

Unfortunately, the parts I need to finish the installation of the cabin light didn’t arrive until after dark, so that is put off for a day. I did manage to get some work done, just not everything I wanted.

This is the original cabin light switch. It is very mucky as you can see.

And the terminals on the inside are a bit corroded, but it still works. I don’t know whether to be surprised at that or not. Still, it works, so it will be reused although not without a fuse in the circuit, just in case.

This is the reason why you don’t put cable clips into wood with steel pins in a marine environment. Some of the pins have completely wasted away in the wood and others have split the clips.

This one is partially wasted and it split the clip.

The cable was also disintegrating, as I pulled it out of the clips my hands became sticky with decomposed plastic and the cable broke open in places exposing the copper wire inside. I suspect that the cable was pre-1977 since it had red and black interior cables. Still, it will be replaced with newer cable.

I also drilled the holes in the cabin top for the light base screws.

These bronze screws are screwed in from the outside…

… and into the light base on the inside, suitably cut down such that they do not protrude through the base.

I had to remove the polystyrene tiles in that section before doing this. I don’t know what Charles used to glue the tiles to the boat but it is really tough. So far the wood under the tiles ss still good although the paint is coming off in a few places. Eventually the underside of the cabin top will need to be repainted, but that might not happen in this cycle. The aim is to get Shoal Waters back in the water for next season and that will mean not doing some of the tasks that are not necessary.

Still, things are progressing. The marine plywood from Robins Timber was delivered yesterday afternoon, four sheets of 6mm and two sheets of 4mm all full sheets of 2500mm x 1220mm. Most of that is for the new, lightweight dinghy that also needs to be built before Shoal Waters is put back in the water unless her mooring is one close enough to the shore to be able to walk through the mud to board. Hopefully this will be the case. The dinghy will then be used for getting to the boat when she is afloat and also using it as a sled when transferring heavy items to the boat. Simply put them in the dinghy and push it across the mud.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-25 – Rewiring Part VII

Mark Austen Refurbishment

Having found yesterday afternoon that the light faded too fast after work to get anything significant done inside the cabin without interior lights, which I haven’t installed yet, I did some work during my lunch break.

I ran the white cable for the solar panel and clipped it into place. Since the black cables are very stiff I think I’ll not bother to cut them any shorter than they are now, they will not go round a much tighter bend than you see in the photo, and use the cable clips to hold them against the upstand pretty much where they are now. I have some clips that open and close and I may try to use these for the black cables since I’ll need to take the solar panel off periodically and using the nail-on style of clip is not suited to that type of use. The disadvantage of the reusable clips is that the stick on rather than screw on and that might not be a good solution here. I’ll have to see if I can screw them in place anyway.

Some time later…

Well, the answer to that question is yes, I can. The double-sided tape on the clips held them in place and then I could screw them to the upstand without having to try and hold them in the correct position at the same time as trying to screw them in.

Mind you, I did have to drill a suitable hole in the bottom of the groove in which the cable runs, but that was not difficult using new, sharp bits and a drill running at a slow speed.

These are the clips I used. they are called Chfeila clips and I bought them from Amazon I have used them in a couple of places in the workshop now and find them very good. They seem to stick quite well in the dry workshop, but I wasn’t sure that they would in a marine environment, hence the screws. I used bronze screws for the job and that seems to have worked well. I’ll be using these again. One place where it is exceedingly hard to hammer in the normal cable clips is under the bridge deck and I’ll be able to use these for the compass light cable which I have removed.

The next task is to mount the first main cabin light. This will be sited in the centre of the cabin top width-wise and just forward of the companionway. The issue here is that there is a narrow beam running fore and aft, so the light will have to be offset slightly otherise the light and heads will meet in the middle !!!

I’ll need to make a base that will allow the light to be screwed to the underside of the coachroof..

So, armed with light and calipers, I made various measurement and then drew out the required parts on the CAD program.

The drawing for this simple shape takes less than ten minutes to create and once that has been imported into the CAM software and the code for the CNC Router done, another ten minutes, I’m ready to cut.

I’ve cut this out from 9.5mm thick Baltic Birch plywood on the CNC Router, around fifteen minutes to set up and cut out. I do like these CNC tools, they save so much time. Now I’ll be able to install the first light in the cabin, probably tomorrow. The two outer holes are for the screws holding the base to the cabin top which will be screwed in from outside, and the inner two are for the screws holding the light to the base.

If all goes well I should have light in the cabin sometime tomorrow.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-24 – Navigation Lights Revisited

Mark Austen Refurbishment

One of the things I say frequently enough to make my wife roll her eyes is that it’s good to have the right tools for a job. Yes, I can do things without the correct tools, well, some of the time, but other times I can not.

Take this beastie, for example. It’s the winding head of a rope maker Under normal circumstances not only would I have not made this, but I would not even thought about making one. My carpentry skills are just not good enough to make the gears.

However, I have a CNC Router and I started doing mechanical drawings back in Grammar School, although back then it was called Technical Drawing or TD for short. I’ve been using CAD drawing packages pretty much since they first came out for personal computers. So it was an easy job to draw up the plans for one, use a CAM package to create the g-code for the CNC Router and away I went.

Well, the same thing happened to me again whilst I was trying to replace the bulb in the port side nav light.

This light had a gasket, unlike the starboard one which had sealant, and the observant among you may have noticed that this has been cut out of a bicycle inner tube. A pretty good idea, but rough. Not that I could do any better with a sharp knife and a pair of scissors, I hasten to add, but I also have a Laser Engraver/Cutter and figured that using this I could do much better.

I took off the light housing, drew around it on a sheet of paper, photographed it and loaded the image into my CAD program. Using the various drawing tools I created the drawing.

This was exported to the CAM software and thence to the laser cutter. I used a piece of thin plywood to cut out a test piece as the gasket material I ordered will not arrive until tomorrow.

This is the first attempt which is pretty close. The outer edge, the holes and the two vertical straight line are spot on, but the thickness of the upper and lower parts are too thin. Looking back at my measurement I noticed that I’d messed them up.

After revising the drawing this was the second test piece.

This one fits perfectly. When the neoprene arrives I’ll be able to cut out two gaskets for the nav lights that I know will fit and the really good thing is that if I ever need to replace them, I already have the drawing, ready to go and tested.

Time for a cup of tea.

2025-11-23 – Rewiring Part VI

Mark Austen Refurbishment

The task for today was to connect the solar panel to the controller and check that it works as expected.

It didn’t take long do and it looks very rough, but it’s very temporary, so how it looks right now isn’t that important.

On the inside the controller is indicating that the solar panel is connected and is providing power to charge the battery, even in the Hay Barn. This has a clear perspex roof so light can get in but it is not in the direct sunlight so the fact that it is still charging the battery is very good news.

The problem with the solar panel is that the cables are very stiff. I took the top off the connected housing to see if the cables could be replaced but the housing was filled with a potting compound so that is out.

I did have to screw the panel down as without some sort of fixing, the panel would easily blow around in the wind. These screws are in the right place for the final fixing, but not the proper screws just yet.

The panel takes up all the port side of the cabin top but that’s not a problem, it doesn’t get in the way of anything important.

After lunch the next lot of parts arrived and I was able to continue the work.

Two clamps for the battery, some 7mm cable clips and some brass 15mm pins.

Firstly the battery. Looks much better now even if it is a bit over the top. These things are able to take hundreds of Amps for very brief periods of time and are rated at 100A continuous. I doubt that Shoal Waters will draw more than 10A maximum.

Next up is to secure the cables. Not many clips are required here but they will stop the cables from moving around. I remove the steel pins from the clips and substitute the brass ones instead.

The steel rusts easily, stains the wood and tends to split the clips. Here several clips were removed, damaging the wood a little in the process.

These are some of the steel pins that were taken out. Two are rusted enough to have split the cable clip and the over two just suffered a little surface rust.

Here’s a closer look at the new clip with the brass pin. All of the replacement and new clips will be done this way.

I still had enough light to continue working inside the cabin so I pressed on. The side entry, low-profile deck glands were next. That’s a real mouthful, but accurately describes the items. These are only put in place lightly as paint and epoxy will need to be done before these are screwed down properly, but it keeps the cables neat on the outside and also will allow me to make a couple of bearing blocks that will stop the headsail furling lines from rubbing on the deck glands and the solar panel.

Mind you, this cause a heck of a mess inside. The underside of the cabin top has been lined with polystyrene tiles and then a layer of insulating tiles on top of that. Unfortunately, this all has to come down so that I can inspect the surface of the wood and also to put in the backing blocks for the various screws that will protrude through into the cabin otherwise.

Some of the screws may be seen in the above photo, the black one is temporary but the one that will replace it needs a backing block, even so.

I took the time to sweep up the mess as I’m finished for the day. You can’t really tell from the photo but in the cabin the light is getting a little too dim to allow me to continue working. If the lights were working then it would be a different proposition, but those are next to be installed. Having said that, it’s less than a month to go before the Winter Solstice is upon us and the daylight ours will begin to increase again.

The cabling on the inside has become messy again due to the cables for the solar panel now being on the inside, but with that done and the battery cable sorted out, I can run the battery cable and clip it into place followed by the solar panel cables. Although the panel will be removed and replaced at least once during the refurbishment, the cables will be clipped into place in such a way that they may be removed if required. But that’s a job for another day, possibly tomorrow if it’s light enough in the cabin after I knock off for the day.

Time for a cup of tea.