For some reason I did not check the weather forecast first thing as I usually do and this turned out to be a mistake. I was in my office working when I heard the sound of rain tapping on the skylight. I hurriedly checked the forecast only to find that it was saying that it would rain for most of the day. I had left Shoal Waters partially out from under the cover and she was going to get wet.
Not that this is a problem per se, but I can’t work on a wet hull standing in the rain. So I went down to the hay barn, took the trailer off the blocks and pushed it back into the barn such that Shoal Waters’ prow was again under cover.
I climbed into the boat, pulled the pin in the sampson post, checked that the bearers had stuck, they had, then went back out and tried pulling the post out of the fordeck. I was able to get it out entirely due to having shortened it by about 4″ when cutting it down to size.
This is good news as I could work on that in the workshop.
Here is the sampson post being worked on. I used the portable heater to blow hot air on the post for a while and then slathered the top of the post, that part that is not below the deck, with the medieval wood treatment/polish stuff.
It has soaked in quite well, but I left it in the heat for another hour or so before checking to see how well it was doing.
The working part of the heater was close to the door, still out of the rain, but close enough that the exhaust could be placed outside.
Time for a cup of tea.
After the hour had elapsed I checked the post and found that it was going well. I rearranged the post and heater such that the post was upright, more or less, and the hot air directed at the mortice. I need as much of the finish to soak into the end grain f the Oak at the bottom of the mortice and the only way to do that is to have the post upright. It also help the end grain at the top of the post.
I further directed the hot air with two “wings” of plywood. Again, I left like that for a while before checking it again.
Time for a cup of tea.
After some time I used the hot air gun to really heat things up for a minute or two, wiped off the excess and this is the result. Not at all bad.
The day started very foggy and just a little chilly, so outside epoxy work will have to be delayed until the fog lifts and the very least.
The first thing I did this morning, before breakfast even, was to remove the Oak from the cramps and then to trim off the excess epoxy.
These two were cut to the required angle ready for various adjustments and dry fitting.
Time for a cup of tea.
The drop nose pin arrived in the post just after lunch which was a very fast delivery.
This one is 8mm in diameter and has a working length of 80mm.
I carefully drilled an 8.5mm hole in the sampson post and made two bearers out of Oak. These were glued to the king plank using the Sikaflex adhesive and the pin fits through the hole and rests tightly against these bearers, preventing the post from being lifted out. However I don’t know if the bearers will have stuck to the king plank as it was only when seeing the photo that I realised just how dirty the plank is. I’ll find out tomorrow.
The post has some clear tape around the point where the adhesive is to prevent it sticking to the post.
Just before I stopped for a tea break I spotted a new inhabitant of the workshop. This large spider has spun a web under one of the skylights. The web was not there first thing this morning. I’ll navigate around the web as best I can for the moment, but sooner or later I’ll have to move something that will break the web.
Time for a cup of tea.
Once the sampson post had the retaining pin inserted, even though the bearers are still being glued, I could put the bowsprit in place and position the gammon iron. This is what it looks like with the gammon iron at its lowest and the angle looks just fine.
There is a good clear gap under the bowsprit which will allow a rope to be put under it when rigging the staysail.
With the position sorted out I trimmed the Oak I laminated yesterday and cut this morning and then epoxied it to the hull. I dry fitted the spacers with 2″ stainless steel screws but only used 1″ screws to hold the spacers and the gammon iron in place whilst the epoxy cured.
I’m, thinking of adding two more screws to give five per side to add extra strength to the gammon iron. I’m also debating whether or not to replace the stainless screws with bronze. The are larger in diameter, no.12 instead of no.8 but the same length. I think I’ll see how the stainless screws hold up and replace them with the larger screws if required.
I decided that the last task of the day would be to put the waterproofing strip onto the underside of the forehatch.
Oh, and I washed the curtains. There are only four remaining of the seven original, so I’ll see if I can find some matching material and make new ones. I doubt it, though. As far as I can tell from old photos, these are the original curtains of sixty years ago. Finding a match is probably impossible !
Although the aim in the next few weeks is to get Shoal Waters ready for her next leak test, when there are delays I turn my attention to other tasks that are not on the critical path. Currently I’m waiting for a drop-nose pin to arrive so that I can finish fitting the sampson post.
The first order of the day was to fit the bobstay fitting. I decided that, rather than use sealant on the back of the fitting, I would use butyl tape instead. The six 1 1/2″ no.12 bronze screws are more than sufficient for the job so the adhesive properties of the sealant would not materially add to the strength of the fitting but would made it much more difficult to remove in the future.
Butyl tape was wound around each of the screws as shown.
Each part of the fitting was put into place and the screws tightened up a little at a time.
This allowed the butyl tape to stay in place until all six screws were nearly tightened all the way down.
This is a few turns into the process.
And here the butyl tape has started to be compressed by the fitting as the screws are tightened up further. The screw holes had been chamfered slightly and this is where the butyl tape is pushed down into the chamfer and then down last the screw thread a little. The rest of the tape is squashed tight around the screw forming a watertight seal.
As the two parts of the fitting got closer together I put the bolt through the larger of the two holes at the front. The correct holes were not aligned enough to use that untl the sides were almost fully seated.
Once they were seated correctly, the bolt was moved to the correct hole and tightened up.
Time for a cup of tea.
After my tea break I put the hinges back on the galley locker door that received a coat of varnish yesterday.
The door was then screwed back into place in the galley. However, now that the hinges are free from varnish and other grime and opens and closes easily, the door rattles as it does not have a back stop.
Well, it didn’t. I put one in. There’s nothing I hate more than things in a boat going clink. clink, clink as the boat rocks whilst I am trying to sleep.
Due to the restricted access I couldn’t quick get the stop block close enough to the door to prevent the rattle.
But some neoprene tape stuck to the block did the trick.
And here it is, the refurbished galley locker door. I’ll clean up the mess later.
Moving back to the sampson post, I need to treat the upper portion with something other than paint but still be able to put a bead of butyl tape around the deck joint to stop the water getting in. I decided to try the medieval beeswax finish to see if that would work. I heated up the end of the old post with a hot air gun, then applied some of the finish and applied heat again until no more of the finish soaked into the wood.
The finish is equal parts of beeswax, turpentine and linseed oil and should polymerise leaving a non-waxy finish. This is the result after leaving it overnight.
I put a new piece of butyl tape the the surface and I’ll see if it has stuck sufficiently later.
Time for a cup of tea.
Now I need to think about how to stop the chain bucket from forcing the sampson post out of it’s fixings. As it stands the bucket sits as shown in the photo above. Whatever I come up with has to be very robust as the chain is quite heavy. I’ve parked this one for now and I’ll think about it over the next few days.
Now that the sampson post has a mortice and the bowsprit can be located on the foredeck, I turned my attention to the gammon iron. The first thing to do was to cut two notches in the side of the rubbing strake.
This allows the legs of the gammon iron to rest against the hull.
Two pieces of softwood were cut at an angle and screwed to the legs to make two shims that fill the gap between the gammon iren legs and the hull. These are templates just to check that the angle is correct.
The fit was as good as I’m going to get, so on to the real shims.
The real shims are made of Oak and I laminated some pieces together to give two pieces of timber from which the shims will be cut. Once cut and shaped, these will be epoxied to the stem. The gammon iron will be screwed to the hull though these shims which should provide a strong fitting for the bowsprit, forestay and staysail.
Time for a cup of tea.
The next part of refitting the gammon iron is to rebuild the deck at the prow. This came off when the old steel gammon iron was cut off and I’m fairly sure that the join between the main part of the deck and the small piece at the very tip of the prow cracked at some point and from then on let water in, both salt and fresh from any rain. Over time this would have caused the rot that was found in the top of the stem and the planking.
I cut a new piece of deck from a piece of 9mm marine plywood and after checking that it fit correctly I slathered the top of the stem with thickened epoxy having first coated the underside of the new deck piece and the edge of the existing deck with neat epoxy. When the new deck piece was screwed into position, the excess squeezed out, and there was quite a lot of it, and was removed before it fell on the ground.
The finish is quite rough as it is difficult to get a good finish like this, but this will be sanded smooth once it is cured. There is more epoxy filler work to be done when the shims are put in place.
The 9mm plywood was chosen because is it thicker than the existing deck and I made sure that I didn’t screw it down too far. This new deck is about 5mm higher than the existing deck and this matches the mortice in the sampson post being 5mm higher than before.
The final rise of the bowsprit will be determined by the height that the gammon iron is fitted when I get to that stage.
This is a 5mm 316 Stainless Steel Split Connecting Chain Link and is used for connecting two lengths of chain. In this case the anchor chain.
The old anchor chain was past its useful life, being very rusted at the bitter end and the working end was showing signs of rust, so it was retired and I found the two 15m lengths of anchor chain that bought a number of years ago. This had been sitting in storage waiting for something to require it.
The two halves of the link are joined together such that the ends of the chains are joined and then the small pins hammered flat like rivets to hold the link together.
So, Shoal Waters now has a new anchor chain and I need to stretch it out on the drive at some point and mark it.
For the moment it is sitting in one of the buckets I bought recently for that purpose.
Time for a cup of tea.
The last task of the day was to put another coat of varnish on the forehatch. As I walked down to the workshop I could feel fine rain on my face. I quickly took Shoal Waters off the blocks and pushed her back under the roof. Then I did the varnish !
The main task of the day was to take the sampson post and cut it to size, shape it and add the mortice.
Having cut the post such that 8″ extended above the deck, I cut a significant chamfer on the four corners and the top. The hole for the crossbar was added, it is a little loose since the bar is Imperial and my drill bits are metric, but that will be sorted out with a little sealant.
The corners of the rest of the post were given a lesser chamfer which is to prevent whatever coating I use below the deck from wearing thin around a 90º corner.
The result is above. Not at all bad.
This is the result when put into the boat. The whole thing so far took around two hours as I’m being very careful such that I don’t mess anything up as that would probably require starting from scratch and I don’t want to do that.
Time for a cup of tea.
Once I had finished my tea break I started on the mortice. I used tape on the post so that if I messed up the measurements, I could remove the tape and start again. I didn’t but that might be because it didn’t matter.
The next part, cutting the mortice, took some time. This is because I’m not a finish carpenter and I rarely make mortices by hand. The cut-off mixing stick was used a a depth gauge, the correct depth being that pencil mark, and I made sure to sharpen the chisel several times during the operation as Oak is tough.
The fit is very good. I did make the mortice 5mm above the deck level so that there is plenty of room to put a bead of mastic around the joint between the deck and the post to prevent water ingress.
Notice I didn’t say sealant.
That’s because the sealant is also an adhesive and I want to be able to get this out regularly and adhesive would prevent that.
Only one more thing remains to work on the sampson post before it may be coated with something and that is some way to prevent the post from popping out of the footer whilst in use. I intend to use a drop nose pin below the deck for this purpose and that task will have to wait until the pin arrives.
I finished the day by sanding the forehatch and the port galley locker door and applying some varnish. In keeping with the Charles Stock paint and varnish tradition, only the loose varnish was removed, the test was just sanded.
I have to confess that, despite being a really nice day to be outside, I did very little work on Shoal Waters, But, mid-afternoon I had an order delivery and that got me going.
The first thing was to move the boat out from under the cover.
This was necessary since the new sampson post won’t go into the boat as it is too long. As you can see.
However, once that was done I could side the post through the deck, put the footer on and put it into the correct possition.
I put the old post top on the deck as a comparison. I have plenty of post extended above the deck, so making the new post 8″ will not be any cause for concern.
The next part of the task was to drill the pilot holes in the hog. I marked the aft edge of the footer before taking the post out, put the screws into the footer, put the footer into the correct position and then tapped the points of the screws into the hog with a drift and hammer. Then it was an easy job to drill the holes after that and screw the footer down for a dry fit.
The post was slid into the hole and down into the footer. It was a tight fit but it went in.
I mixed up some of the special epoxy that was delivered this afternoon. This is G/flex from West System and will work on White Oak timber due to it not being a rigid epoxy when cured. It has a slight flex, hence the name, meaning that the problems that a “normal” epoxy has with Oak does not occur.
Then it was back into the boat, smear the epoxy on the bottom of the footer, seat it in position and screw it down. You’ll notice that the inside edges of the top of the footer are chamfered.
The bottom of the post is now chamfered also and I took a fraction of a millimeter off each side of the post at the bottom so that it was not such a tight fit.
Doing this meant that I could put the post into the hole from the outside, slide it down and into the footer without having to move it around a few times until I got the correct position. The chamfers allow the post to be misaligned by about 10mm and it will still locate into the footer.
That’s all for today, I’ll continue on with the sampson post tomorrow once the epoxy has cured.
It is a beautiful, warm day today albeit somewhat windy and I’m on annual leave for today and only working three days a week from next week until the end of the year. I hope to get a lot done.
The first task was to deal with the compression post. A couple of days ago I took it out completely.
It was screwed onto the “instrument panel”, but the screws were small and originally brass. The are also under the clock. so that had to come off.
Fortunately, the screws were not too badly decomposed and I was able to get them out meaning that I could reused the holes in the board and the post.
I constructed a new footer for the post out of Birch Plywood as you can see here. This is screwed in place and has sealant underneath. There is also a long bronze screw through the footer and into the centerplate case. The compression post in Shoal Waters serves two purposes. The first is to transfer the weight and the downward force on the mast when sailing to the centerplate case and thus to the hog. In the original Falcon dinghy, the mast was stepped directly onto the case, but with a cabin and tabernacle in the way, something has to stop the top of the cabin from being crushed.
The second purpose of the post is to hold the block through which the centerplate uphaul is threaded so that the plate can be raised and lowered from the cockpit. The new footer stops the base of the post from moving and the screws sealant securely fix the footer to the case.
The post is now fitted with two new stainless steel screws at the top.
With the bottom of the post in the new footer.
Moving on to the sampson post, I cut off the sloped end of the old post, completely removing the part that still contained the broken screws.
I then cut that same angle in the remaining part of the post so that I had a new piece with the correct slope but without the screws.
I cut off the bottom to form a piece that will be the retaining piece fo the bottom of the new post and marked out where the mortice was to go.
And then promptly cocked up the whole thing. Cutting a good mortice on a workpiece that has a slope is for the experts. That excludes me entirely.
Instead I cut four pieces of Oak and glued them around end end of the new post, with plastic sheet to stop the glue from making the whole thing one solid lump. While the glue was drying I cut a new angled piece from the old post.
Time for a cup of tea.
The new buckets arrived and I put one to use immediately.
Armed with a bucket of cold water, a stiff brush and a cloth I started cleaning up the bird sh*t.
Nice clean thwarts.
And no more droppings on the top and side of the centerplate case.
Time for a cup of tea.
Having given the glue about an hour to get sufficiently dry to allow me to continue working, I took the retaining wall thingy off the new sampson post.
This is how it will fit on the sloped section.
The old post wasn’t quite square as you can see from this photo, but that is fine as it means that I do not need to drill drain holes in the walls. If water does get into the footer, I don’t want it to stay there.
I used the messed up part as a base in the drill vice.
Putting the new piece on top means that the surface I need to drill is perpendicular to the drill bit.
The clearance holes for the screws were then easy to drill.
The wall part was drilled with clearance holes, smeared with sealant and fitted together.
But no sealant on the side that doesn’t quite fit.
Now then. What is this thing in the bows? It has a significant notch in it which suggests a way for water to drain away, and it is in front of the sampson post. I’m tempted to think that it is designed as a ledge on which the anchor chain bucket would rest with the aim of preventing the bucket from forcing its way down between the hull and the sampson post due to the weight of the chain.
I’ll investigate a bit more once I get to the stage of dry fitting the sampson post.
Time for a cup of tea.
The last task I set myself for the day was to fill in a few gaps. The two major problems with Shoal Waters are that the vast majority of the original screws were brass and that the glue was a hard glue. Over the course of 60+ years of sailing in mostly salt water the brass has decomposed by the zinc leaching out of the brass and leaving the copper behind and the glue has become brittle.
One of the things that turning the boat over a few times in the recent weeks is to crack the glue in a number of places causing gaps to appear. My solution to this was simple. Fill the the cracks with a soft sealant and to double up the screws with stainless steel ones.
The first of these was the last task of the day.
There is a bead of filler between the hog and the hull forward of the compression post and, as you can see from the photo, this has cracked.
I used a wooden spatula to fill the gap with Sikaflex and then wiped it down with a wet cloth to give a smooth finish. The excess will be sanded away when the bilge is repainted.
I ordered some oak last Saturday, pretty much as soon as I had determined that the old sampson post had to be removed and had to destroy it in the process. That timber arrived this morning.
Two pieces of really nice construction grade Oak.
I could not buy a single piece the correct size or larger, not because they were not available but because the delivery cost was prohibitive. In one case the cost of the Oak was £35 with a delivery cost of £89.
Buying two smaller pieces and laminating them together was far less expensive, just £10 delivery. Much better !
I started the laminating as soon as I had unpacked the timber. It didn’t take long as I used Titebond 3 for the adhesive rather than epoxy as epoxy and Oak don’t go well together.
The timber was Planed All Round (PAR) and dead straight and square, so the glue up was easy.
Later on in the day I was able to remove the planks and cut down the timer to the correct size.
I made a test piece, the short bit of wood you can see in the photo, to make sure that the cut was correct. The two pieces I glued together were 60mm wide, which is just smaller than the hole in the deck which is 62mm or thereabouts. Once I had the test piece cut and made sure that it fitted into the hole in the deock, I cut the new sampson post.
Now I have to decide what length to make the post. Looking at the old post, you can quite clearly see the mortice (slot). Originally, this would have been completely above the deck level and the line where the orange paint ends is where the deck would have been. The post above the deck measured 8″ at this time.
Subsequently, the bottom of the post was cut shorter and the height above deck reduced to 6″. I have enough timber to make the post the same height as the original 8″, but here’s the question. Why was the post cut down? If it was because the foot was damaged or rotted for some reason, then the new post can be 8″. However, if that height of the post was too high, then making the new one 8″ may mean that I end up cutting the now one down later on when I find out why it is too high.
The clue is, I think, in the fact that the post was shortened but cutting it off at the bottom. If the post was too high, then it would have been much less trouble to just cut 2″ off the top. That would not have required the post to be removed. Just tap out the bronze pin, cut off the top with a saw, drill a new hole for the pin and done. Instead, the post was removed, the bottom cut off, then post put back in again, the lower part of the mortice, now below deck level filled to the level of the deck and the tenon cut down on the bowsprit.
My presumption is that the foot of the post had to be removed and it was not the height of the post above deck that required the adjustment.
One other possible reason for this adjustment is that the mortice as originally cut and the position of the gammon iron, through which the bowsprit extends made the bowsprit point down instead of up, following the line of the deck. It would have been harder to reposition the gammon iron than to shorten the post and move the mortice down.
Still, I think I’ll make the new sampson post 8″ and see how that goes.
The other thing I ordered was a new tarpaulin that is 5m x 3m. This is to cover the boat whilst it is in the Hay Barn. Not to keep it dry but to prevent something else.
Bird droppings. This is the top of the centerplate case and it has a lot of mess on it.
The thwarts and side decks are also liberally coated in bird sh*t and I will soon be repainting and varnishing and this sort of addition to the finish is not required.
I’ve used bungee cord and small hooks to fix it in place. For those times when I need to paint areas that are touched by the tarp, such as the topsides, I shall hook it up to the rafters a bit. Enough to keep it clear of the paintwork but still low enough to keep the birds off.
This is the anchor chain bucked which needs to be replaced. There’s one split on one side…
… and one on the opposite side. I would guess that this was caused by having to force the bucket between the hull and sampson post a few times as the sampson post could not be easily removed. So a new bucket is on its way. Now why would you need to move the bucket in and out so often?
Good question. The answer is that the chain is usually put into the bucket wet and often muddy. So, at the end of the season at the very least, you need to putt out the chain from on deck then take out the bucket and wash it out.
That neatly brings up the next topic, that of how to install the new sampson post so that not only is it watertight at the deck, but also not too difficult to get out.
The bare section of wood you can see here is the point where the foot of the sampson post was before and you can even see the remains of the two busted screws. I think that I will make something to epoxy and screw down to the hog at this point that is no wider than the bare patch, but possibly a bit longer fore and aft. In the top of this footing will be a recess into which the foot of the sampson post will locate and stop it from moving around.
If I make this fitting too wide, then any water that gets into the front of the boat will not easily get past the fitting. I need to leave a respectable gap between this and the hull for drainage.
I will need to shape the bottom of the post, but that is a small job and the result should be more than sufficient to hold the foot in place. The timber is 60mm x 40mm and I can reduce this by half at the foot.
Another task I undertook was to remove the curtains. These are threaded onto short lengths of curtain wire that have hooks at either end. These hooks locate into small screw eyes. Unfortunately, all these are steel and the hooks and eyes have rusted. So down they came. I’ll wash the curtains and make new ones where they are missing, using bungee cord instead of the curtain wire and hooks.
These are the remains of some of the eyes. The length of line came away when I pulled on up in the forepeak.
There were three up here, but only one remains in position. The screws were brass. I’ll replace these with small stainless screws. There’s netting on the other side of the forepeak and I think that also has brass screws which will need to be replaced.
The next major task for Shoal Waters is another leak test and that means completing all those things that might leak, such as the pintle fitting on the transom.
The first fitting to reattach is the bobstay stem fitting. This needed three hands to get in the correct position, two to hold it and one to drill the pilot holes, so whilst Tina was about I borrowed her for a few minutes to get this in position. Then I decided that one inch no.12 screws were too short for this, so I put in the four screws that I had and ordered some one and a half inch screws.
So far, so good.
Time for a cup of tea.
Next up is the pintle fitting on the transom and this was a lot trickier. You can just see from the above photo that there is a gap in front of the pin, between the pin and the gudgeon fitting meaning that the fitting needs to have a spacer put between it and the transom to move it backwards slightly. I used some washers for this.
You can see the effect in the photo here. There is a gap between the fitting and the transom and the gap around the pin is even showing that the pin is centered . Mind you, I did have to drill out the hole as it was oval after many years of use.
Having got the adjustment done I sanded the fitting, and bedded it using butyl tape. The holes in the transom were countersunk and as well as the tape around the edge of the fitting, I also wound some tape around the bolts. This was forced into the countersunk holes as the bolt was tightened up from the inside ensuing that the whole thing is watertight.
On the inside, I put some butyl tape between the washers and the transom such that there was a watertight seal on this side of the bolt as well.
The next task I decided to work on whilst I await the arrival of the screws for the bobstay fitting is the completion of the repairs at the prow. First up in this task is to replace the rubbing strake that came away when the prow was cut back to good wood.
The hull was cleaned up and a line draw on the hull where the new piece will go. On both sides the part that came off was a short section where the rest of the batten was too short to reach the bow.
I cut two laminates of the Sapele I had left over from the Naiad rebuild and having cut them to length and planed them to width. I glued them together.
Time for a cup of tea.
After a tea break I shaped each piece to fit the gap.
The new pieces were held in place by two screws and once the dry fit was complete I moved on to the epoxy. Yes, that stuff again.
Neat epoxy was brush onto the expose wood of the hull, the ends, sides and back of each new piece. Thickened epoxy was spread onto the hull and the pieces screwed into position.
The squeeze out was removed and the new pieces left for the epoxy to cure. I used the fast hardener for these for no other reason than it wasn’t necessary to use the slow stuff. It is a beautiful warm, sunny day with virtually no wind. This was a short job so I didn’t need the extra working life of the slow hardener.
Time for a cup of tea.
The forehatch needed some work and since this will take some time due to varnish and paint drying, I decided to start it now.
The forehatch on Shoal Waters is not hinged and is held down by two bronze toggles mounted on the inside on each side of the hatch.
There is old neoprene tape stuck around the inside edge of the hatch to prevent water ingress but this has come off in places and left a very sticky mess behind. I removed the seal, needing to use a chisel in places.
I’m not sure what the bungees were for, I’m guessing that at some point there was a curtain between the two so that you could stop the daylight from shining on your face if you were trying to sleep.
Still, I brushed it down and washed it ready for the next stage.
Time for a cup of tea.
One of the things that inverting your boat does is to move all the detritus inside to one place. Time to clean it all up !
In the cabin I found acorns. It seems that one of the local squirrels decided that Shoal Waters was a good place to store these when she was upside down.
During the clean up I noticed that the base of the sampson post was loose. The bucket forward of the post is to hold the anchor chain. Unfortunately, the bucket is conical and the weight of the chain forces it down into the boat putting a lot pressure on the post.
It looks like there were two screws fixing the post to the hog but I suspect that these were brass as they are not doing anything now.
I also noticed that the base of the compression post was loose.
Here I’ve moved it and you can see that the glue that had been holding it in place has cracked. I suspect that inverting the hull has caused this and one or two other glue crack that I’ve noticed. Nothing awkward, I just need to put some bronze or stainless screws in a few places along with some new glue and that will fix the problem.
Back to the sampson post and you can see that the seal around the post and the deck isn’t, so this needs to be removed and fixed.
In the end I had to cut the post at deck level and chop away the post through the deck and king plank. There were two screws through the sides of the king plank and into the post stopping the post from lifting out. But, the screws were brass and I couldn’t get them out.
Here is the hole and you can see the remains of the screw.
Likewise, the screws in the base have snapped off, probably due to the anchor chain the the bucket pushing against the post the whole time.
Lining the pieces up is looks as though the sampson post was a little longer at one point. The mortice for the bowsprit extended below the deck and you can see on the post where the deck used to be. I think that the foot of the post rotted at some point and was cut off making the post shorter.
I suspect that the tenon on the bowsprit was full width until the post was shortened and was cut down as the mortice was not shorter being partly under the deck.
So, I’ve ordered some oak timber to make a new sampson post and I’ll put a hole through the post and the king plank with either a bolt through or a bronze pin. I’ll also make a footing for the post on the hog. This will hold the post securely in place, but allow its easy removal if required.
It was another beautiful day, sunny, dry and no wind. Today I hoped to get Shoal Waters onto the working trailer and back under cover for the rest of the restoration work. All I needed to get done under the waterline has now been completed and I now need to be able to work on her without her being exposed to the winter weather.
Not that it is very Autumn or Winter weather right now, more like Summer.
The first order of the day was to raise the hull up in the strops another six to eight inches or so, the intention being that she will not bump the concrete when we turn her the right way up. I used the railway sleeper block as a guide and raised her up one of those. This is the result.
You can just see on the horizon a pall of smoke rising straight up. No wind. None at all.
Here’s a shot without the boat in the way. As I said a lovely day.
Shoal Waters is quite high up in the strops right now but quite stable. The blocks are “just in case”.
Once that had been done I turned my attention to the trailer, clearing away all the stuff that has been left around it because there’s space with the boat there. Here it is, ready to be wheeled out when the hull is the right way up again.
I cut off the very last cross bar at the end of the trailer, it serves no purpose now, is very rusty and lowers the ground clearance by about three inches. I took a grinder to it and it was soon gone. This make the trailer easier to wheel in and out of the barn as it no longer touches the ground at the back. We will see if that is the same once the boat is on place.
Time for a cup of tea.
Task completed. Shoal Waters is now the right way up again, on the working trailer and back under cover.
This is the hull in the fully vertical position, and doesn’t that bottom look fine ?
Back in the barn again.
It was 18th July that Shoal Waters was inverted on the hard standing, nine weeks and four days ago with work being carried out almost every day during that time. What remains to be done is almost trivial in comparison.
Now I need to get her ready for another leak test, but there’s a bit of work needing to be done on the centerplate case that I stopped after the first leak test
It is a beautiful day to day, the sun is shining, the temperature is set to get up to 20º C or more and there is little or no wind.
As soon as the tasks allowed we lifted Shoal Waters off the overnight blocks and tipped her over onto her starboard side.
This took very little time since we had done the procedure tentatively yesterday so today we knew what to expect. As it happened the entire thing took five minutes, maybe ten, but not more. Most of that was removing the various support blocks away from the working area and resetting the inversion strops such that the ratchets were on the other side of the hull and up as far as they would go.
The tipping part of the procedure took about 30 seconds. This is such a good system.
Time for a cup of tea.
At the next break, lunch as it happened, I did the next part of the process, the penultimate epoxy work under the waterline.
The lower side of the slot as seen when standing by the hull was cleaned up, removing the squeeze out sealant, sanded, to provide a key, air blown, to get rid of the detritus, taped, to keep accidental splashes off the copper epoxy and neat epoxy brushed onto the join between the hull and the side of the centerplate case.
I mixed up a fairly stiff thickened epoxy batch and this was applied to the join. Peel ply then added to that and finally, another batch of neat epoxy mixed and brushed onto the peel ply.
I used the fast hardener for this task as I would like to have this cured enough to apply the final coat of epoxy to the work done yesterday and today this afternoon. This will be copper epoxy. That will leave the second coat of copper epoxy to do tomorrow.
Time for a cup of tea.
After work ended for the day I inspected the state of the epoxy and found it cured enough to be able to apply the copper epoxy. I removed the masking tape and tidied up the epoxy as there were some straggly bits here and there. The area around where I wanted to apply the copper epoxy was then rubbed down with the stainless scrubbing pad, but I got a little carried away with that and did as much of the hull as I could reach. It was going to be done tomorrow anyway and it was such an easy job that I just kept on going.
After donning my overalls and nitrile gloves I mixed up a small batch of the C-Guard and applied it to both inner sides of the centerplate slot.
I also covered the few drips that I made with the neat epoxy applied earlier after scrubbing those with the scouring pad. You can see the scouring marks on the hull quite well with the sunlight in that direction.
I’m please with the result and I shall keep an eye on the temperature with the view to applying a second coat when it gets to around 15º C or so. If the copper epoxy is cured enough by that time it will be recoated, if not then I’ll wait until tomorrow. This evening would be preferable as it would mean one less turn of the hull.
Time for a cup of tea.
I was able to get another coat of the copper epoxy applied before the got dark and too cold and once that was done we put Shoal Waters back in the same position she was last night. I also scrubbed the portions of the hull that I was unable to reach earlier.
And here she is, ready for the night.
That completes the under the waterline work I needed to carry out on the hull, tomorrow we shall attempt to put her back on the work trailer and in the Hay Barn. Work from here on can be carried out at a slightly less frenetic pace.
