Working Party report by Bob Crompton 12th June 2006

Time marches on but we are making progress.

Ian Kemp has now largely finished the main part of the new bottom with just seam welding to be completed on about half of the seams. The new kelson extends up to the aft end of the front cabin and the footings are in place to the same point. The footings have also been rolled and pulled in at the front to meet up with the bow section.

There is an intricate piece of work to be done as the footings and bottom meet in the forecabin made more difficult by the lack of headroom in the cabin itself.

In addition we have found a new job which is to replace two small rusted through sections of the forward bulkhead of the back cabin where the gunwhales meet it.

On Friday, Nick Haynes, Dave Stott, Richard Prince and I met at Dadfords and spent the hottest day of the year to date re-attaching most of the wooden gunwhales. Prior to this David had finished the grinding off of the underlying metal and treated it with two part epoxy paint while Nick and I had sanded and treated the wood parts with raw linseed oil.

The process was to cut strips of sheathing felt a little wider than the gunwhale (curved at the front of course), lay these on a bed of mastic, place the wood in position and then bolt up the assembly with new galvanised bolts.

Once all set the felt will be trimmed off flush.

Later on the same day Ian finished preparations for riveting new sections of butt strap to the new footings. These are continuations of the butt straps in the side plates above, which are simply a joining plate for two sheets of wrought iron, riveted on both sides of the join. As the new steel footings are longer than the side plates, we don’t strictly need them but to preserve appearances, particularly on the inside, we have drilled and riveted them on.

So on the aforesaid hottest day of the year, three of us inside the boat with an impromptu hearth were heating rivets with a large oxy propane burner (Dave) to nearly white heat, placing them in the prepared holes with tongs (Nick), holding them in with a large lump of steel bar (Yours truly) while Ian thumps t’other end with a pneumatic hammer to form a slightly domed, countersunk rivet head on the outside of the boat. Great fun, but very noisy and warm.

Friday saw the port side largely done and this afternoon we are assembling like the witches in Macbeth to have another go, this time at the starboard side.

These reports will halt for a couple of weeks while I am in France at Le Mans and then in the USA for some teaching, however there should be plenty of news when I get back as President will be ‘oop North with lots of new features to report on in the engine room.

Bob Crompton