Working Party report by Bob Crompton 30th May 2006

A very quick update on progress as we approach President’s inaugural 2006 trip.

President

On 25th May the Insurance assessor called at the boat for the formal Steam Test, which was very quickly completed with a visual check of the boiler itself, plus testing of the sight glasses and the safety valve.

This last weekend, something over 3 tons of coal was loaded in atrocious weather by a Working Party comprising Dave Stott, Nick Haynes, Martin and Richard Burke and Brian Empsall. Thanks to all.

President is therefore essentially ready to go, subject to me delivering a trailer load of Lighting Up wood from Dave Stott’s favourite wood offcut man to the BCLM tomorrow.

Kildare

The boat is progressing well. The old bottom is now completely cut away and the two new large 10mm steel plates, which make up the new one, have now been slid into place and attached to the knees. In addition the footings are about half complete (stern half).

A few cautions, before we get too excited. Even when the new footings are 100% in place, there is still a lot of work to curve them to meet the rest of the existing plates, particularly at the bow. There is also a small but intricate piece of bottom to be fabricated just inside the forward cabin. After that there is at least two weeks of solid welding for Ian, as the work is simply tacked in place at the moment. 

We have devised a means of increasing the headroom under the cross planks by about 4 inches. This is achieved by dropping the floor by about 1 inch and bracing the boat at the cross plank level which should give us another 3 inches by avoiding the need for chains. Those of us with older, stiffer backs should hopefully feel the benefit particularly at the end of a long day boating

On 19th May, Vic Fageance and I took a propane torch and wall paper scraper to the wooden gunwhales and cleaned off all the excess bitumen and sealant. On Saturday Nick and David then mechanically scraped the surface clean in preparation for treating the oak with Linseed oil. 

The metal gunwhales (normally under the wood) have also been largely ground back, to get rid of an amazing amount of rust scale. This should be completed this week prior to treating the metal with black epoxy tar.

I will be at Dadfords this Friday if anyone can manage a non-weekend session.