Earindel Blog August 2013

August has proved to be rather more productive, I have even managed a couple of full days which has really paid off with some real progress on difficult but essential structural jobs. All the main floors have now been fabricated and installed working from bow to stern.

Whilst I am the first to appreciate the elegant wineglass shape of the Folkboat, working on the floors and ribs in the bilges at the stern of the boat proved to be a miserable job. Balanced on your knees on 20mm ribs while standing on your head, working at arm’s length is no fun and my bruised knees, hands and arms bear witness.

As I worked my way to the stern I started looking at the brass through bolts that clamp the keelson and the sternpost together, the main timbers have shrunk as they have dried so I thought I would try and tighten the bolts, big mistake. The brass nuts proved to be completely corroded and crumbled to dust as soon as the spanner was applied! Not sure why I was surprised as it seems all the brass fixings on the boat are completely shot and will need replacing.

Some of the through bolts are accessible at both ends and some are not, without dropping the keel. I drove out each through bolt out through the stern post with the intention of replacing them with s/s studs. In line with the general theme of unintended consequences on Earindel this action opened another whole can of worms. The shrinkage cracks in the sternpost now opened up due to me banging out the bolts, the wood was sound, just now in several pieces!

Sit down, open a beer, have a little cry and reflect again on why I ever started this….

After having a good poke round I decided that both the keelson and the sternpost could be saved, I carefully cut out a section of the sternpost to find that the timber was sound but the ‘shakes had been there for some time and had old dried out filler in them. It looks like the wood had been cut from the heart of the trunk as the stern post has radiating cracks along its length. Again the wood was sound so I prepared it and glued and screwed it back together with the trusty epoxy. It is now stiffer and stronger than it ever been.

The keelson had a single vertical crack that passed through the stern post mortice joint and disappeared into that part of the keelson that is hidden under the boat. Head scratching time again, no books tell you how to solve this one. Finally I managed to hold the crack open enough to inject some epoxy and clamp the keelson together and left it overnight. In the morning I drilled a series of holes and inserted oak dowels for the last 300mm along the length of the keelson. I now need to rebuild the extreme heel of the keelson as on Earindel the bottom rudder pintle fixes at the heel rather than a hole bored into the tail of the keel. Before I do this ….I need remake the keel joint… to do this I need to drop the keel!

Having stiffened up the hull with the new floors and I thought this would be a good time to drop the keel, prepare the hull and keel and reseal the hull/keel joint. Back to the internet to read up on the job, you would think that there would be lots of good advice on what should be a simple job. Well, there is certainly lots of opinion!

I am sure for experienced boat builders splitting the keel/boat joint is bread and butter stuff but the prospect of holding the 1 tonne keel in position while jacking the 1 tonne boat above was proving a little daunting.

Some of my reading suggested that jacking the boat from the hull planking using the screws on the cradle will work, however, there was a worry that keel would not come away clean so at best the planking would be distorted, at worst a hole would be punched clean through the hull.

Questions:

 How to raise the boat and maintain structural stability?  How to maintain alignment of the keel and Hull?  How to prevent the 1 tonne keel toppling over once the hull is raised and the bolts removed?  How high to raise the boat and how to safely prop it as I shall be putting my hands into the joint?  What do I need to do to prepare both the hull and the top of the keel prior to the re-seal and what tools do I need to prepare the joint?  What to use to re-seal the joint?  How much beer do I need to set aside for the job?

In the end the job went remarkably smoothly, I built a jacking point on the stern post and at the bow and gently jacked the hull away from the keel whilst using the screws on the cradle to stabilise the hull.

A simple support each side of the keel clamped to the cradle prevented the keel toppling over.

Opening up the joint was not straightforward as the bitumen felt in the joint effectively stuck the two parts together, I had a worrying second or two as the jack was lifting the both the boat and keel but after a little levering the joint finally parted. The boat was jacked in 25mm steps until I could get the pieces of 4x2 as shown in the picture between the joint. Finally the cradle screws were adjusted to ensure no load was on the hull planks. Two keel bolts have been left loose in position to act as guides during the operation.

The old felt was stripped off and apart from a few spots there was remarkably little rust on the top of the keel. The underside of the keelson was in amazing condition (I expected to find soft wood at the least), the whole joint was very damp so it will be left for a week or two to dry out.

The next step is to paint the top of the keel with a rust treatment, epoxy seal both sides of the joint and finally drop the boat back onto the keel sealing the joint with a proprietary mastic. Following advice from various association members I am still researching the best materials to use for this job.

All in all a satisfying month with good progress.