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.