Year: 2026

Despite the weather being warm enough to carry out epoxy and varnish tasks, once they are done they prevent other work from being carried out. I have already put my hand on wet varnish whilst getting out of the cabin and with the epoxy being at clodhopper foot level it would be far too easy to knock the epoxy pieces askew without noticing and ruining the work.

The first piece to done is the leak patch, working from inside the cabin outwards. It was a straightforward glue up, the only part of the task that required care was when drilling the pilot holes for the screws. No point in doing all this if the pilot holes go right through the hull !

Time for a cup of tea.

Then it was the turn of the cockpit/cabin bulkhead. These were dry fit with cramps to see if I needed to brace the bottoms of the workpieces. The pieces were fairly stable with just the cramps, so I continued without any further bracing.

The epoxy for this part was an exercise in mutually exclusive requirements. The thickened epoxy had to be sufficiently stiff to hold its shape when applied and not sag, but not too stiff that it could not be applied using a piping bag. As it turns out, there is no overlap in this case and I had to settle for a slightly sloppy mix. I found that applying the peel ply did give the epoxy sufficient support to prevent sagging. Brushing on some neat epoxy also helped to distribute the epoxy over the joins and give a smooth finish. But it is not an easy job to apply the ply in such a confined space not with the shapes of the workpieces.

Still, it wasn’t too bad as far as I could see. I did check again later in the evening and found that the epoxy was curing and hadn’t sagged, or not that I could see with a torch in the dark.

Time for a cup of tea.

The result this morning, having removed the peel ply, is better than I expected.

The parts that will need some extra work are the bottoms of the infills as you can see here on the port side.

This side isn’t so bad, but both sides will need some sanding to remove the lumps and possibly some more epoxy to fill any remaining gaps. This is important at the bottom as this join should be watertight between the cockpit and the cabin.

The leak patch cured well but will need some attention.

Specifically along the lower edge and ends where there is a gap and along the top where some squeeze out has occurred and where a bead of epoxy needs to be applied so that any water that gets in does not get caught in the top of the join but will be encouraged to drain away into the bilge.

Time for a cup of tea.

During my afternoon break I decided to work on smoothing out the rough sections of yesterday’s epoxy. Working in such a confined space is quite hard unless you have one of these:

This is a flexible extension to a rotary tool, made famous by Dremel.

Here the offending squeeze out on the leak patch has been removed using the Dremel.

/and likewise on the infills.

The epoxy is stilla bit rough, but if you run your fingers over it you do not get cut by any sharp bits and that is good enough.

Likewise on the starboard side, no more rough bits.

Time for a cup of tea.

Another grey, foggy and slightly chilly day. I have to say that I put off going outside until it warmed up a bit, which it didn’t, so I went out anyway, just much later than I would have otherwise.

Time to remove the portside outer rubbing strake. This came off as easily as the starboard side. This strake had also been repaired and this major repair seems to have been done twice. Once using a hard filler of some kind and the other using grey butyl tape. Both were easy to remove.

I number of other repairs have been made using bronze gripfast nails like these. Although they look like they are degraded brass nails from the copper colour of the heads, they are still strong and they are gripfast. I don’t think you can buy copper gripfast nails. You can get smooth shank copper nails, called clouts, for fencing and roofing and wot not, but not ring shank copper nails.

There were some copper fastenings in this side and these had degraded.

I ordered some 1″ bronze gripfast nails to use for the replacement outer strake and there’s an amazing difference in price. I thought I was onto a winner at £8 for 200 nails but then found that these would in Australia ! The postage was a lot.

So, I got some on order from Classic Marine. More expensive, but will arrive in days instead of weeks.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task is to make templates for the repair of the bulkhead between the cockpit and the cabin. This had to be cut away in order to remove the centerplate case and now that this has been replaced, the bulkhead need to be repaired. And for that I need templates.

The template was made from various pieces of cardboard stuck together with hot glue. It looks a bit raggedy, but the essential dimensions are present.

I used a piece of 9mm plywood that I took out of Naiad when I rebuild her and this is the result.

It is a pretty good fit and the gaps are because the cuts I made were not straight. These will be filled with epoxy.

I tried the cut piece on the other side, just to see how close it was and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a pretty good fit.

The widest mismatch was at the bottom as you can see here.

However, that did allow me to make an infill for that side without having to make a separate template. Again, any gaps caused by accidentally curved cuts will be filled with epoxy.

I chamfered the back edges of the infills, the sides facing the cockpit, and these will be filled with epoxy . Fitting these pieces by putting epoxy on the edges first and then trying to get the workpieces into position is just going to be messy, so I shall put the infills in place having coated all the mating edges with neat epoxy and clamping the tops to the underside of the bridgedeck, and then I will pipe thickened epoxy into the chamfers.

But, that is a task for tomorrow. It’s getting cold and dark and not conducive for epoxy work.

Time for a cup of tea.

Now that the nights are drawing in, as the saying goes, it is becoming more difficult to work on Shoal Waters after work unless it is work done in the workshop where I have good lighting. Although Shoal Waters does have fairly good lighting now and I wear a head-torch as well, it is just not safe to use sharp tools in such conditions and it is also starting to get cold once the sun goes down.

So, it was fairly imperative to get the remainder of the epoxy work done whilst the daytime temperatures are still in the mid-teens. Here is the half bulkhead piece dry fitted and it’s pretty good.

Using the largest round-over router bit I have I rounded the edges of the top section for comfort and to match the other side.

And fitted it in pace with epoxy. I made the thickened epoxy stiffer than normal so that it had the effect of holding the piece a little in place as clamping is not really possible. The two red cramps at there to stop the workpiece from falling forward or aft and are protected from the epoxy with plastic film. As usual, the wood was coated with neat epoxy before assembly where the thickened epoxy was to be applied.

The result the following day was very strong and only a little sanding was required to smooth the epoxy down. One disadvantage of the really thick epoxy is that it is nearly impossible to get a smooth finish when applying the stuff !

Next task was to make the patch to go over the leaky hull. I made this up from smaller pieces of marine plywood as I don’t have enough left to make this from one piece.

Whilst that was curing I took the time to remove the outer part of the rubbing strake that has been repaired in a number of places and is coming off in others. It came off quite easily.

The strake was made from what is known as half-round battens which is not half round at all and has a feather edge on both edges. These are fragile and break easily.

The outer strake goes over the chainplates as can be seen here.

This is one of the repaired sections where you can see that extra glue has been forced between the two strakes. This part was also screwed on with stainless screws, the rest of the strake being held on with bronze gripfast nails. Well, it appears to be bronze, it isn’t steel, iron or brass, that’s for sure.

I also dry fit the centerplate case top. This needed adjusting in a few places due to the new dimensions of the case, but nothing major.

Most of the screws were brass and have snapped off, so I used stainless screws to replace those but in new holes.

The main part that needed adjustment was the notch in both sides that goes over the half bulkhead as this is in a slightly different position than before.

I don’t think I shall glue this on as it was before, instead I shall run a thin bead of sealant over the joins on the inside to prevent water ingress, and leave the holding to the new screws.

The downside is that I cannot fit this in place yet as the half bulkhead needs to be varnished first as the top covers part of the currently bare wood of the bulkhead. So that got done next.

The patch came out well.

The epoxy spread where the patch rested on the plastic film and required some sanding.

The result is good enough for the job.

Boths sides are pretty flush with each other. I cut the ends to fit the space.

Here is the patch dry fit. This will be put in place with thickened epoxy and screwed but not until the screws arrive. The trouble is that the screws I have are either too long, too short or not stainless. The patch is 9mm thick, the hull is 10mm and the nearest stainless screws I have are 20mm or 12mm. So, I have 16mm screws on order !

And the small patch cut and dry fit as well.

Time for a cup of tea.

Having cut out a template for the top half of the half bulkhead last night from a piece of corrugated cardboard, I now needed to make the real thing from marine plywood. Unfortunately, none of the remaining pieces of plywood were large enough to get the piece out in one go, so I had to glue two pieces together.

Not difficult, just a delay I had not thought of.

This is the workpiece in position for a dry fit.

These are the three holes that I filled with epoxy last night.

A closer look at one of them shows that some of the epoxy had seeped into the hole. The concave surface of the epoxy will be filled in when the patch is applied.

I removed the excess epoxy, gave the area a good sane and liberally applied some penetrating epoxy to soak in an seal any remaining gaps.

I hope.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task was the top of the half bulkhead. I rummaged through the wood pile and found some Oak for one side and some Sapale for the other. I didn’t have enough of either to do both sides. Well not without a whole heap of gluing !

This is the oak being glued on one side.

And once the glue had set up for about 20 minutes, I glued the Sapale on the other side. Once that has set up I’ll bring the whole thing into the house and put it on the Rayburn to get warm so that the glue properly dries.

The floor of the battery box was looked at next. Here you can see that the front inboard edge is unsupported.

I shaped a piece of Oak to make a support and used sealant to glue it in place. I’ll put screws in tomorrow when the sealant has cured.

Time for a cup of tea.

The last task for the day was to remove all the cramps from the workpiece before taking it into the house.

This is the Sapale side and faces aft.

And this is the Oak side and faces forward.

Time for a cup of tea.

I took a slightly longer lunch break than usual to get the starboard side of the half bulkhead started but found that I kept on kneeling on the gripfast nails.

So I pulled them out. The middle one came out much more easily than expected and this it the one that I think is leaking.

The holes are quite narrow and plugging it is going to be tricky if tried as-is.

So I drilled out the holes to 6mm and a depth of 11mm which should just protrude through the hull and into the blige runner.

Later on this afternoon I shall fill the holes with neat epoxy using the slow hardener so that the epoxy has time to run down the holes and spread out at the bottom to fill in all the nooks and crannies. It may take more than one fill to do the job, we shall see.

The half bulkhead was done next. Like the port side the edges to be glued were coated with neat epoxy before thickened epoxy was spread on one piece and the two mated together. The bearer, which was cut in half during the removal, was used to hold the workpiece in place by clamping it tightly the the piece still attached to the section of the bulkhead that remained attached to the hull. A straight batten was used to line the two pieces up.

I used the fast hardener for this job as I want to make a template for the remainder of the bulkhead later on this afternoon and the epoxy should be fairly stiff by then.

I hope.

Time for a cup of tea.

With the sealant having been left overnight to cure, it was time to trim off the squeeze out.

This is an easy job when the sealant is still recently cured and just requires a sharp chisel and a little care.

The white sealant that you can see in the photos is the sealant between the two pieces of wood and is not squeeze out.

I removed the main cabin seat out at this point in order to replace the brass hinges underneath that have become exceedingly stiff due to old, dried varnish.

It did not take long to replace them with stainless steel hinges and screws.

Here, then, are the two main cabin bottom boards trimmed and in position. The two inspection hatch covers have also been trimmed to fit the new arrangement.

The bottom of the battery locker did not need to be trimmed at all, but may need a taller spacer underneath as it rocks a little. I’ll see if this is a problem once the battery is put in place, assuming that I can get it to fit in the space.

On the starboard side the cabin bottom board extends right under the bridge deck.

This is the cabin seat in the upright position. Originally this was also a quarter berth extending under the bridge deck and into the starboard thwart in the cockpit. But this was removed when it was needed no longer and is now storage.

The lifting seat remains however.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task after the break was to fix the supports for the aft bunk boards. I decided that there was no practical way to put these in place with using screws, so glue and screw it was.

I was able to use three screws, bt the fourth, for which I drilled the hole in the bearer, was not used as it would go right through the case and into the slot for the plate.

But this part of the bearer just supports the inspection hatch, so glue and one screw will be sufficient.

I took the time at this point to adjust the floor of the battery locaker.

Now the floor rests on the hull as expected. Mind you, I will have to find a way to stop the battery from moving about in a rough sea.

Time for a cup of tea.

The final task of the day was to fix the port side of the half bulkhead back in place.

It was a very tight fit and that meant that it would scrape off any epoxy as it put into position, so I sanded it such that epoxy could be squeezed into the gaps with a spatula.

The result is a little rough, but that will be cleaned up with some sandpaper once the epoxy has cured. The primary requirement here is is preventing the centerplate case from moving, not to look pretty.

Time for a cup of tea.

The original bottom board bearers were cut away during the removal of the centerplate case sides and now need to be replaced so that the bottom boards are correctly located.

After measuring carefully several times the required bearers were cut from Sapele.

Four of the bearers had chamfers cut into one corner such that the bearers sat over the Sikaflex sealant used on the case assembly.

Time for a cup of tea.

Pilot and clearance holes were drilled in the correct places, countersunk where required and the bearers fixed in place using screws and sealant.

The sealant was used in this context as an adhesive rather than a sealant.

Two shorter bearers were fitted under the bridge deck. On the starboard side this is to support the aft end of the main cabin bottom board.

On the port side this is to support the bottom of the battery locker.

In the main cabin, the bearer consists of two pieces. The lower one, the same size as the runner at the bottom of the centerplate case and fitted alongside it, is the bearer itself upon which the bottom board rests.

The second piece is fitted on top of the runner and prevents the bottom board from moving sideways.

All this, despite the dearth of photos, took a surprisingly long time, most of the day in fact. The measurement and the cutting had to be done carefully since these are the last pieces of Sapele that I have in the wood store and if I messed these up, it would require buying more.

The screw holes were drilled with pilot holes, clearance holes and countersinks where required so that none of the wood split as the screws were tightened up, including the hog to which the bearers were fixed.

Finally, the assembly was carried our carefully as the sealant gets everywhere and causes a right mess if rushed. It is also expensive and I didn’t want to waste any !

Still, this completes the bearers for the main cabin area. I still have to fit the bearers for the aft end of the bunks and that will be tricky since none of my cramps will fit and I don’t want to use screws if I can avoid it as these would be directly into the sides of the case.

That is tomorrow’s task, that and the sole bearers in the cockpit. There’s no working in the cabin right now as that would be asking for trouble. One moment’s inattention and stepping on the uncured sealant and it gets all over everywhere.

Time for a cup of tea.

Now that the leak test has been completed, it is time to start putting Shoal Waters back together again, starting with the gammon iron.

I cut a triangular section of Oak and shaped both ends and cut it in pieces.

The tend parts that were the shaped ends were drilled for retaining nails and some G-flex epoxy mixed up.

These pieces were glued onto the hull below the pieces of Oak that were put on before as part of the gammon iron seating.

The nails were required as there is no way to clamp these into position whilst the epoxy cures.

Once the epoxy has fully cured the Oak will be shaped and some thickened epoxy used to fill in any odd corners and form a smooth shape at the prow.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task was to trim the Sikaflex sealant from around the centerplate case. This was a fairly easy task using a utility knife and a sharp chisel.

Before any more wood is added to the case sides, it will be sanded smooth.

Time for a cup of tea, it’s cold today!

The bottom boards were then retrieved from storage and brought to the boat. It was fairly easy to figure out which part went where.

But I did notice that all the boards were numbered.

The centre piece for the fore cabin was put in place and checked for fit. The front end rests agains the sampson post which has been altered but the fit still seems to be good.

The two pieces that hold the bunk cushions were added and, again, checked for fit.

Next were the two mid-sections and here it starts to get tricky. These rested on supports that were glued to the centerplate case sides and these have not been replaced yet. That’s the reason for doing this bottom board fitting. I need to put in the supports and for that I need to see where they need to go.

The two half-bulkheads needed to be adjusted as the new case is a little wider than the original and thus the parts that were cut out not longer fitted. Also, I cut the curved part off the starboard side as I want to rebuild this part to the same height as the port side. This was done originally, from what I can see, and then cut down to the curved shape. I presume that this was to make getting into and out of the bunk much easier.

This is how the bulkhead looked before I cut it out and you can see the top of the original version just under the bookshelf.

The numbers on the bottom boards identified the small hatches, each of which is made to fit the gap in the board and none of which is the same size.

Time for a cup of tea.

With Shoal Waters back under cover I could start investigating the last leak before repairing it.

The first task is to remove the gripfast nails but there is a problem here. Extracting those from wet wood that has expanded due to soaking up water is well nigh impossible without damaging or destroying the wood. So, the wood needed to be dried before attempting this.

The heater was set up and hot air allowed to blow into the cabin.

The end of the tube was pointed at the hull to be dried and left there for an hour or two.

The result was quickly apparent but it will be some time before the wood is entirely dried out.

Nevertheless, there is a crack in the hull.

It is quite hard to see in a photo, so here is the photo again with the crack highlighted. It is also not evident in the photo that the hull at this point bulges in slightly. However, it does look as though the crack extends under the thin strip of wood that remains, so this will need to be cut away and the hull underneath checked.

Time for a cup of tea.

The next task was to cut away the lower batten.

This was glued and screwed into place, which was good, but the glue was brittle, which was not so good.

The crack extends just a little under the batten, so it was worth cutting away.

Now I have to wait for the wood to dry fully before continuing with this task.

Another small task to do is to cut a little away from a locker lid as the new hinges on the vertical locker door fouls the lower lid.

However, there were two problems with removing the lid. Firstly, the hinges were gummed up with old varnish and secondly, two of the six screws were steel and rusted. So, new stainless hinges and screws.

I didn’t bother with hidden hinges, but put them on the top of the lid. Here they are easy to remove and do not split the grain into which they are screwed as the previous screws had done. The ease of removal is the most important point. Getting the lid off for varnishing means that the screws and hinges will not gunge up in future. Well, not unless someone is being lazy!

I noticed that the poop deck had a split corner when I used it this morning, so that was repaired. Squeeze in some glue and clamp it closed.

That’s it for today, it gets dark early these days and I am restricted in what I can achieve as a result.

Time for a cup of tea.

Work on Shoal Waters has progressed slowly over the past two weeks and for two reasons. Firstly, I have been preparing her for the next leak test and secondly because we went down to the sailing club and hauled Naiad out of the water and brought her back home for the Winter over one weekend,

I also carried out a few non-leak test tasks while I awaited the arrival of various small parts, such as no.12 silicon bronze screws and M4 stainless screws.

The gas stove was one of the tasks. The upper part, normally unsecured, was very difficult to clean when bolted to the stove as I had done. This meant rearranging the bolts such that the nuts were at the top.

I had wanted to use wing nuts here, but there isn’t enough room.

Underneath the bolts are fixed to the bottom of the stove as shown and it is a more satisfactory arrangement. I will try to find a way to use the wing nuts as they do not require me to use a spanner to get the top of the stove off.

I decided that I would add two extra screws to the gammon iron on either leg, midway between the lower three holes. I also decided that 2″ no.12 silicon bronze wood screws were the correct size and ordered those.

These arrived a few days later.

The curtain bungees were put onto the underside of the forehatch. Much easier to do it with the hatch off.

The two major problems that Shoal Waters has is that most, if not all, of the original screws were brass and the glue used as part of the glued and screwed construction was one that was not flexible. The brass has degraded in the marine environment and the glue has become brittle over the years and cracks easily.

For this reason I decided to double up each of the brass screws and the gripfast nails with M4 x 25mm 304 stainless steel screws with a modified Truss head, which looks a little like an integrated washer. These are a few. The reason for using these screws and not countersunk ones is that with the extra wide, flat head there is more gripping power when the screw is fully home and will not wedge the wood fibres apart as happens with the countersunk screws.

I bought 100 of these screws and found that this was not nearly enough. The main cabin took 50 for both sides and the ones in the cockpit used 80 more. I had to buy a lot more of the screws. I’ve used 130 so far and I still have the forecabin to do, probably another 50 and as many again to complete the cockpit.

Today it was time for Leak Test 2. I took Shoal Waters to one of the local boatyards and used their ramp to put her in the water. For a charge, of course.

The ramp is very steep which means that launching is very quick and the rear tires of the car do not even touch the water. Getting the boat out solo is another matter entirely. Took me the better part of two hours.

Cockpit dry. Well, no leaks. It was a little wet from the rain last night.

Main cabin, starboard side, no leaks. This was the side that leaked the most last time.

Main cabin, port side. No leaks. There were no leaks in the forepeak nor in the aft locker.

But there was one small leak here. This is a reinforcing pad for the starboard bilge runner and as you can see, the wood is cracked.

Now, the bilge runner on the outside of the boat at this position is the place where there was significant damage to the runner, enough to split the wood on the inside.

I needed the hull to dry out, so cut away the broken part of the reinforcing batten and was relieved to see that the hull appears undamaged. The batten was fixed to the runner through the hull using gripfast nails and it looks like these are now no longer gripping fast and possibly leaking. Once the hull has dried out I shall repair this and stop the leak.

Time for a cup of tea.