Bottom and footings still

Due to sickness I have been unable to work on my boat for the last three days. I have managed to get three out of the four bottom plates fitted into position and the footings are halfway down the boat. Whilst cutting out the footings I have noticed (but also expected) that the plate behind the knees has worn very thin, down to 2mm in some places, this is due to rust been trapped behind the knee. The way to solve this problem is to remove the knees one by one, cut out the bad section and replate it. So I will be doing this job as soon as the bottom is done.

Bottom and footings

Once the gunwhales were tied into the bulkheads at either end I was happy with the shape and decided that it was time to start replacing the bottom. To do this I have lifted the back end of the boat high enough to cut out the bottom 18" drop it down and throw it away. The quickest way to do this job is to use a Stihl saw, but after a few hours of cutting it doesn't feel that easy. I am replacing the base plate with 12mm steel as alot of ballast will be needed once the boat is finished to get it sitting right in the water. The plates have come in a standard size of 2mx4m, this means that i will be cutting out 4m sections of the bottom starting at the back, taking care not to have any joints in the engine room as i will be building integral fuel tanks either side of the engine. Once the old section of bottom was removed i rolled the first plate into position, lifted it on chain blocks and fixed it in the right place.

The swim on Oakley is in remarkably good condition and i have only had to cut out the chime angle. this means only 2" of footings need to be fabricated for the back 8'. I have chosen 8 mm steel for this job as it is closer to the original size of 5/16" but it does make it more difficult to fit these pieces as they do not bend so easy.

Once this is done I am replacing from just above the bottom guard, so the next two plates should be pretty straight forward, leaving me with the front section to do at the end of the week, all going to plan.

straighten hull sides

This week I have managed to get the big dents out of the hull side using a hydraulic ram and a fabricated claw to hook over the excisting angle. Once these dents were pushed out I welded plates to the inside to hold the shape. I then pulled in and braced the sides to a width of 6' 10". Having done this and been happy with the straightness i tacked a strip of 45mm by 8mm down the length of the boat on both sides, this is to build the height of the hull sides upto 4' 9" . On the inside edge of this i have tacked 110mm by 10mm flat, these steel gunwhales will replace the original wooden gunwhales.

Engine Room

I have now cut the engine room cabin off, disconected the engine and removed it. The old engine beds have been cut out and scrapped, this job was not made any easier by the fact that they were covered in 40 years worth of diesel, oil and other grime, making burning a very painstaking job.

Underneath the sterngear BW had poured about 2 cubic feet of concrete, when I started to break this I discovered that instead of stone they had used coins punched out from steel plate upto half an inch thick. I presume this was for extra ballast, what I didn't expect was the 26 tractor weights hidden under the counter, weighing in at one ton.