Now the weekend is out the way, which kept me busy at work (mainly taking out a 12 ton ice rink at work!) time for another update.

Pete and Derek have finished taking out the concrete and they reckon 13 tons came out, I knew there was a bit but didn’t realise quite how much there was. The previous pictures show this in progress, but now it’s complete it’s time to start chopping and slicing, as you can see below!

The bottom has been sliced into manageable sections to allow ease of working, and the first section has been lowered away!

The opposite side showing the rust build up behind the guard, which has been removed for the job:

In a bizarre way it’s nice to see this happening, but also daunting to say the least!

What is nice to see is the thickness of the hull above the new footings, which looks quite healthy, unlike the bit that has come off!

Thanks again to the parental paparazzi for pictorial updates!

Regards

Dan

As i’m now back in Milton Keynes busy at work, i’m very reliant on my parents keeping an eye on things, which, i’m pleased to say they are doing, and the parental paparazzi service is in full swing! Pete and Derek have begun having a litlle smashing session,

Apparently the mix is quite poor, so doesn’t take much to come out, and not as thick as we thought, probably closer to 2 1/2″.

Alot of things are being uncovered, including deflection in the channel knee which BW added in the nineties:

Also, there appears to be some air gaps in the steel:

You can just see the holes in the middle of the picture!

So as they progress at the yard, i’ve been on an overnighter shift at work, as they build the ice rink for “Sleeping beauty on Ice” which is visiting us this week. I spent a bit of time in between catching up on last weeks paperwork drawing up the forecabin stove. I’ve got plenty of bits of steel lying around, including the remains of the RHS tube from the rudder stock which will form the main base of the shell

Overall it measures 8″ x 12″ x 18″ tall, very small, but it’s only a very small space!!

Hopefully the concrete will be out tomorrow, so then hull slicing can begin!

Regards

Dan

Today began with a headache. It must have been a dodgy late night pizza. Or a dirty beer line. It certainly wasn’t the quantity consumed. I think!

The plan this morning was to start welding the other side of the boat, which got somewhat delayed due to coffee and bacon butty requirements. I managed to prise myself off the sofa by mid morning, and has a slow meander down to the boatyard.

I utilised the time to have a cheeky peek at the new bottom, which has been welded into one sheet measuring about 20000mm x 2250mm x 8mm.

Pete had said dock would be floated just after lunch, so i had a good couple of hours to weld my life away…. Then it rained. Hard. I covered the welder over with a tarp and went to sit in my dad’s van, who had just arrived.

The rain passed after half an hour or so, so i jumped at the brief sunshine spell to continue. The wind had blown the tarp off the welder and stereo, but luckily they were both still working, so i turned the music back up a bit and carried on, until i ran out of rods 30 mins later. I had managed to get about 15 ft along the hull, so at least a bit of progress was made.

I had to leave by 3.30 at the latest, as i had promised to be home in time to have dinner with the family as i hadn’t seen them all week. Knowing dock takes a while to float and get the boat on, i guessed that if Pete hadn’t arrived by half 2, then i’d head off. 2.20 and Pete arrives so it was all systems go to clear a path through the boats, as the Cromford Canal society trip boat “Birdswood” was blocking the channel. We then dragged the boat down, and managed to settle her into her new home for the next few weeks. We shut the gate and started to let the water out. It didn’t take too long for her to settle, as she is sitting on two RSJs on top of the new baseplate. She’s not quite square to the new bit, but nothing a couple of jacks won’t sort out.

Having a look at the state of the hull, what was interesting to see was two different sizes of rivets, above the waterline the heads are 1 1/2″, on the chine plates they are 1″, any ideas???? I think they are all original.

Because she is just sat on two RSJs, it created some point loads, and handily, did this:

As the hull settled, cracks started appearing in the concrete, which pleased Pete immensely.

We spent the last half hour clearing out the temporary top planks and cross beams, and I left abour 3.45, for a mad dash bak to MK to my girls and a roast chicken dinner!

Home for bang on 5pm, perfect timing and some quality home time with all my girls!

Next time i go up, the works should be well on the way, fingers crossed!

Regards

Dan

Weather dependant, today is dock day. Weather won. Dock day tomorrow. We spent an hour or so finishing off the RH gunnel, and tacking it into place. Tom left after this for a weekend away, so I popped round to Judith Anne for a coffee or 2. While there, we restacked all the shearing left over from the rebuild so we can build the engine room bulkheads. This took us neatly to lunch time, so much food waas consumed. My mum and dad left at this point, so it was just me and a welder. I decided to continue welding the inside seam on the bottom of the new flat bar at the top of the hull. This took a good couple of hours interspered with rain.

My view for most of the day:

It was then the inevitable time to clean the bottom out. It was a little bit dirty to say the least, so i borrowed the brush from dry dock, which i then managed to snap, so off to Travis Perkins to buy them a new one! An hour later it was done, ready for dock tomorrow, and the next stage of it’s life!!

Regards

Dan

Il Pleut.

Merde!

This caused two problems, one, me and Tom can’t crack on, and two, Pete and Derek can’t prep the bottom and weld it up in dock. So today was spent running in and out of the van in between rain storms!

We began by prepping the hull for the 3″ flat bar on the second side, and levelling it off. Boy did it need levelling!

You can just about make out the cutting line, and it took a while to get flat, but once done, we were able to make good headway until the rain hit again.

Once passed we looked at getting the last bit of flat bar on, which didn’t need much hull manipulation, only a couple of welds here and there. By 4pm we had managed to complete the new upstand, which was within 1mm of the other side, relative to datum lines. We decided to crack on with reinstating the gunnel, as the weather improved in to a nice sunny late afternoon. I started by chopping out all the bits of steel which had been added in to build the gunnel up by the front beam. This took some doing as they had all been welded in numerous hidden spaces! Once off there was severe corrosion on the hull, but nothing a  9″ grinder couldn’t cope with, like the other side, we chopped the gunnel back a bit to the plate join, and that will be filled in later, to blend the gunnel to the guard. We were able to manipulate the gunnel and, luckily were able to get within 1mm height differential compared to the other side. We got the front bit tack welded on, and then moved to the back, as we had joins next to each other. The rear section had already been shaped for the stern by the previous owner, so less work was required there. It sat on beautifully, and stayed in position with relative ease.

As the weather had been so bad, we had a catch up with Pete about dock time, which has inevitably been pushed back a day or so. They have managed to get the bottom into dock, and it is awaiting prep, alignment and welding.

As we aren’t going on first thing it was decided to go home and have some dinner.

We are at a great point though, we have gone from this:

This is a very good step, hull is back at full height, and strength is slowly coming back into the hull, we just need to finish welding the seams, but this can be done on dock.

We came back down a couple of hours later to try out my new toy, an underwater camera. This has nothing to do with the missing drill in a previous post…..Honest!

It worked quite well, and we were able to see the bottom of the cut clearly, and at one point i was convinced i saw it. But alas, no Makita was forthcoming, so we grieved the pasing of the it over a couple of cans of Greene King IPA, a personal favourite of mine.

We should also mention rainwater in the hold. It had collected a bit overnight, so we set about pumping it out first thing. Funny thing is, more rainwater was collected when it wasn’t raining…………..Bugger! This rainwater looked curiously the same colour as the cut water……….Bugger! And sods law says, this new found water ingress is behind a knee…….Bugger! Still, good job its all being chopped off soon!

Tomorrow is a new day, full of rain………apparently!

Regards

Dan

Always listen to your parents. They know best!

I called in at Wickes on the way back from Mansfield to get some wood for the Bulkheads in Judith Anne. I droppped this off at my mum and dads house to be greeted with “you’re not thinking of hanging that rudder are you?” Why yes i Am, was my retort. 20 mins later a discussion over a coffee and bacon butty convinced me it was a bad idea, as having so much weight on a hull who’s sides are as flappy as a flappy thing in flappy ville could prove problematic. So, I, thought we’ll just wind her and start the next side.

Tom was still in bed…….So i fired up the welder and started to look at continuing to weld the 3″ bar on the 1st side. Soon after, In a “What the bl**dy hell are you doing with that welder, i’m a better welder than you, and am older so i do the welding” kind of way, he turned up. Now, he is older, and a better welder, so i left him to weld, and i started to look at taking the upstand off the second side. It didn’t take long, as there was more silicon sealant holding it on rather than metal. I spent the next half hour cleaning the top of the angle with a grinder to remove the rest of the upstand and sealant..

Then we winded her and tied her back up again. This is where the day sort of went from quick to slow! We started looking at the gunnel, and realised that it had been tack welded underneath, as well as the outside. Bugger!

The only way to slice through was with a 9″ grinder, upside down. Precarious to say the least, but after several hours, we had managed to get the angle all the way off. Alot of welds had been done over knees, so were un reachable with the grinder, in the end we had to cut the rest, and then bend the angle to snap them. What then greeted us was a hull side wavy to say the least, with a difference of about 1″ over its length, here’s a sneaky taster!

Utterly demoralised about taking all day to do this, we decided to ping a chalk line for a datum, measuring from the rivet heads (Tom’s idea) as they would have been hole punched off site so would have been generic, and call it a day. At this point it started to absoultely tip it down. So we gave up and went home.

Tomorrow, however is going on Dry Dock day, so more news should follow!

Regards

Dan

Day two began pretty normally. Coffee.

We called at Screwfix to buy 9″ cutting discs en route to Langley Mill, as the 4 1/2″ ones were dimishing rapidly.

Todays job was to start rebuilding the side up. To begin with we had to cut the hull straight to accept a new section of mild steel .

I was hoping the metal cutting circular saw would do this but as it had a dull blade we resorted to a 9″ grinder for cutting and a 4 1/2″ one for grinding. 2 hours later saw this job done so we could look at adding the new steel on.

For this i fabricated two clamps, with a 7″ throat, the idea being it sat over the new 3″ flat bar and trapped it against the top of the hull. Then a clamping bar tightened up and pulled the new section in line with the old.

To ensure aesthetics were adhered to (and my hideous OCD!), we overlapped the new sections in line with the original plates:

We also had to chop back further than the original position of the new angle, as in her past, bits had been added here there and everywhere, and was, quite frankly ugly. This revealed some of the original holes in the plating:

The rubbing strake will be filled in later. Talking of rubbing strakes, as the original has been axed off, i have tried to get some new to add on the hull. Now i can get it, but only in a 10 TON! minimum order. 75 x 8 is not an off the shelf size. But no fear, the new angle is 75 x 125, so i can just use that, and the profile of the original is so flat a blind man on a galloping horsse isn’t going to notice, hopefully! The only discrepancy is that the angle will sit slightly higher than the guard, but i can live with that.

I left the welding bits to Tom, as it keeps him happy, and i carried on with lining up and clamping as required.

Once this was on, we started to look at tacking the angle back into position. We started at the front, as we had an accurate datum, and worked backwards. A couple of hours later, and it was all nicely tacked into position, it needs a good old clean, and the ends sorting, but the main bit is done.

You can’t tell much from the picture but she looks so much better for gunnels at the original height again. Psychologically, this is a big step forward. We spend the remainder of the day musing about hanging the rudder and winding her to start the second side.

At the same time Pete and Derek from the boatyard start dragging the crane out to move the new steel sheets for the bottom around, and they are quite big, i believe each one is 6000mm x 2250mm x 8mm, not something you can just pick up!

We called it a day soon after, and went home, or in my case out for a belated birthday meal with my good friends Simon and Su, it was also Simon’s birthday, so a double celebration.

The night was rounded off with birthday cake and 20 year old Cognac. Perfect!

Regards

Dan

The day began with the inevitable rush hour slog up the M1 from Milton Keynes to Langley Mill. I had planned to be up really early, but discovered the snooze button. The plus side of this was i had time with my girls before i left, as i wasn’t going to see them for a week!.

I arrived at Langley Mill about 9am, after an uninspiring trip up. First things first, put the coffee on. Once done, i helped my dad for a little while with the weather strips on Judith Anne’s engine room doors. Once we did this and coffee was drank, we poled the boat down towards a mooring with a good solid firm edge, rather than grass.

Once there, we started looking t the job in hand. The easy bit came first, chopping off. This was done in stages. The modern angle which had been put on is 15kg a metre, so overall, each side was about 225kg. We started by taking off the upstand. This was quite a messy job as it had been tack welded sporadically then clarted in silicone sealant to cover it. Originally i had planned to use my evolution metal cutting saw, the big daddy one which does 12mm sheet. i thought 3mm would have been fine, run it down the outside of the angle i thought, but no, what i should have done was followed my gut instinct the week previous and bought a second blade, as this one was duller than dirty dishwater.

Tom, my brother is giving me a hand this week, but he had to go that afternoon so we ploughed on with grinders, and once the upstand was off, we had a look at the state of the connectivity between the angle and the hull……… not much. not much at all, over 14.5M (ish!) there was maybe 2 dozen tack welds.

Tom had left by this point, so muggins here was on his own for a bit. I worked down the hull, carefully slicing through the tack welds, and right on Q, my dad cycled round from our mooring to see if i wanted some lunch. I ignored lunch, and used the additional man power to start lifting off the angle, in 6M sections.

I was then able to give the top of the hull a good coat of looking at. It appeared to have been roughly sliced, and the edge was not straight to say the least. So, out came a chalk line and tape measure. We measured down from the underside of the original gunnel, and used this line as a datum. It took a couple of attempts to get it tight enough, but we were then able to see how much we needed to slice off or fill in. Quite alot. But not today, Belated birthday drinks were calling so i hot footed it over to Mansfield via a shower, and spent the night in my old local. More importantly, at the end of the night, the chippy didn’t have any kebabs left. Gutted. You travel all that way for a kebab and end up with chips and gravy!

Ho hum, such is life, time for a hangover.

Regards

Dan