Work continues in the pointy end…

Once again, I seem to have allowed far too much time to pass since my last update, so I’ve got a lot to update you on! The Christmas period provided me with some buckshee time off, as the base in Kyle effectively shuts down, and the Serco boats revert to a shipkeeping routine, which on the whole is looked after by those who live locally. As a result I had an extra week or so to play on Serchthrift, with a few days off, staying with my Godfamily in Edinburgh for Christmas. Then, after a week back at work following the two-week Christmas hiatus, I was back on my three weeks of leave, which provided me with a two-week period to work on the boat and a week visiting friends and family, and attending the Association of Sail Training Organisations (ASTO) conference in Portsmouth. This two week period was slightly disrupted by taking the car to the garage and storm Eowyn, but some useful work has been done, upon which I will update you in the following paragraphs.

So I left you, I think, marvelling over the beauty of my almost-recognisable heads compartment, and I came back to this over the Christmas period. The bulk of the cabinetry work and plumbing having completed in the compartment itself, I started work on the fiddly job of fitting trim around the door frames, both of the heads compartment and of the main bulkhead. I tackled the easier parts of each of these first, using some of my stock hardwood (sapele, I think – red stuff, anyway) and milling it to the right dimensions for the door sills and the upright parts. I say the easier parts, but each section was of a slightly different profile, but it all involved copious use of the table saw and router table. These parts were glued and screwed in place, with the screw holes to be plugged later in the process for a nice finish. I am describing the process slightly out of sequence, as I did the main bulkhead door first, and then the heads (which is complicated by the fact there will be a sliding door, so one side of the frame and sill have to remain flush with the bulkhead so as not to snag the door) – however, the process was much the same for both. Once the uprights were in place, with a carefully cut mitre at the top end, bearing in mind the obtuse angle between the upright and the “lintel” trim, I set about laminating the latter piece. Because this is a “U” channel, there were two ways of going about this – firstly, I could have laminated a solid piece to the curve of the door top on a former on the bench, then routed a channel to fit the thickness of the bulkhead, rounded the edges, cut the mitre, then glued and screwed it in place before fitting the uprights, but for some reason (and I’m not sure what my thought process was) I opted to laminate them in situ. This involved fiddly work with some very thin and narrow strips of wood, cutting them to the correct length, with mitres, and fitting and lining everything up and clamping in place whilst the glue dried. It was fiddly, but probably involved less waste than laminating off the boat and routing the channel. It involved screwing some custom-made clamping brackets made from plywood in position to hold everything together whilst glueing. Ultimately it worked and it all planed and sanded to look like it was supposed to be there, but I’m still not convinced it was the right method. I have two more curved doorway tops to trim later so maybe I’ll try the other way and see which was better!

During the Christmas period I also set about putting a couple of coats of varnish on the new woodwork in the heads, and doing a topcoat on the bulkheads and cabinets. However, in the near-freezing temperatures, the coatings don’t dry very readily, so I’ll leave the final coats until it is warmer.

Once these doorways were done, I moved on to the door for the gaping opening in the forward bulkhead. This opening had to be trimmed with a frame, and then the door itself similarly trimmed. Before going too far with this, I first had to cut a few ventilation holes in the forward bulkhead and bulkhead 2, so I get an air flow through the forepeak (otherwise closed off, with just the foot of the foremast in there) via the chain lockers. There will be a vent trunking (unusual in a small boat I know, but I want her to be properly ventilated) from the dorade vent on the foredeck running through bulkhead 1, so I cut an aperture for this above the opening, then some vent holes through lower down in bulkhead 1 into the chain lockers, then in the partition between the chain lockers, then finally a rectangular opening in bulkhead two which will be trimmed with a nice brass grill. I will attempt to route the air from the vents in the heads and above the forward berth (cowls will face forward, into the wind on the mooring / at anchor), into the chain lockers, then through the forepeak and back out through the foredeck vent (which will face aft). This, if it works, will avoid muddy smells from the chain locker being blown back into the accommodation.

As you can see in the photos, I was also starting to build the bunk cabinetry. The first job here was to finish the lining / ceiling planking, and then template for the oblique section of the soleboards. This can be seen in the right-hand photo above, as can the original soleboard, which I had to cut into three sections, one which is fixed and screwed down to the sole bearers, and the other two of which are liftable. The next stage was to construct the hardwood framework for the lockers under the head end of the bunk. This was a nice joinery job, complicated only by the fact the frame is not square to the bulkheads at either end, so the uprights had to be bevelled to fit. Fortunately it is the same angle throughout, so I cut a quick bevel guide so I can easily set my various saws to the correct angle repeatedly. I also started on the framework of the bunk base itself (which forms the top of these lockers and some cave lockers under the foot end of the bunk, over the stbd chain locker). This was softwood which is painted for durability, and involved cutting lots of half-lap joints at the same angle so it all slotted together. In order to facilitate the mass-production of these half-laps, I decided to refurbish my table saw sled, beefing it up and replacing the sled guide strips (which slide in the channels of the table saw) to remove any play and make it more accurate. I then screwed a batten at the correct angle on the base of the sled so the saw cuts the joint at the same angle repeatedly as you run the sled backwards and forwards, leaving just a little tidying to do with a chisel at the end. Unfortunately I haven’t taken any photos of the sled or to illustrate this process – something I can hopefully do (or even a video!) at some point, because it is difficult to describe to a reader who might not know what a table saw sled is (there are plenty of videos on YouTube though if you want to educate yourselves).

Anyway, the frame was all cut, assembled to fit, then disassembled again for painting. Once painted it all went back together, and I was able to measure up for and cut the bunkboard. This is yet another piece of my reclaimed teak lab worktops, and had to come from the very longest piece I had, as the bunk is actually 220cm long! As it happened, my neighbour in the shed had, some time ago, discarded an old bit of nasty ply bunkboard, which ended up on my timber stack, and I was able to use the curve on this as a template to cut the lowered section to a nice profile in my teak board. Getting this board all neat and tidy was a job for my new saw guide track, for which I have a base both for my circular saw and for my small trimmer router, and gives you a dead straight line, saving a lot of faffing with planes and sandpaper! After a final sand to remove the old varnish and schoolboy scratches (mostly, although I do like to keep a bit of character!), I offered the board up to the bunk frame, drilled for the screws then screwed it in place.

I have included as part of this bunkboard, instead of needing a leecloth or leeboard, a (eventually) hinged flap, which is the cutout from the lowered part, and fills the hole to prevent the occupant falling out (you can see me demonstrating this in the photos – the flap that is, not falling out of the bunk).

Finally during my last leave, I cut and fitted the first deckhead lining panels, again in the forecabin. These were templated as usual, with hot-glued hardboard strips, and cut from 4mm ply. This is quite flimsy stuff but once screwed in position seems to be pretty firm. Once again, this had to be painted on both sides before fitting – the hidden side being almost more important to protect than the exposed side. These boards had to be cut with apertures for the foredeck vent as well as the spurling pipes (the main one on the windlass base, and a secondary one on the port side for the second anchor chain, if I decide to use two anchors).

This was about as far as I got before I came back to work, and in the couple of weekends since, I spent one weekend doing stuff in the garden (mainly involving removing dead stuff and Gorse, and burning it), and this last weekend I did a few hours each day on the boat, progressing with a few things, starting the lockerage on the port side of the forecabin, plugging the screwholes in the bunkboard, and other bits of tidying.

In the meantime I have been finally progressing the procurement of some Douglas Fir to build the foremast. This is coming from my friend Pol Bergius, who has a sawmill in Perthshire and was also the gentleman who sold me the mainmast. He tells me he will be milling it in the next few weeks, and will stack it under cover until I’m ready for delivery, which will be once the other boats have come out of the shed in Kilmelford in the spring. During one of my leave periods in the warmer months I will hit the masts, grafting on the small extension to the bottom of the mainmast, and reshaping it so it fits my partners and step, also routing a cable channel down the length of the mast and running cables for the VHF and GPS/compass aerials, as well as for the masthead and deck lights. This channel will then be closed by glueing in a spline and planing / sanding it fair, before glassing / epoxying the whole mast. The foremast build will be complicated, as I intend to build it by the birdsmouth method, using 8 staves cut to a taper with a “v” section in one edge, so it all glues together in an octagonal section, before planing to the round. You can read more about this method here. At some stage this will require a gang of helpers to assemble for the big glueing-up operation, as it is quite some task to slather the staves in epoxy and get them all assembled and squeezed tightly together in the time before the epoxy goes off! The benefits of this method are that it makes for a lighter, hollow spar (I’m keen not to have too much weight so far forward in the boat), and it is theoretically self-aligning, so the requirement for an accurate jig when assembling and glueing is minimal. I will put a summons out via my social media nearer the time, but friends and family are welcome to make the journey north to assist if you wish and are able!

The mention of social media brings me to another thought… for years I’ve been watching various YouTube video channels of other boatbuilders and picking up tips and techniques, and am conscious that many of them fund their projects through their videos and content on YouTube and Patreon. I am not inclined to do that, as the effort that goes into making and editing video content is almost equal to that which goes into the actual boatbuilding. There is, however, another site called BuyMeACoffee, which enables admirers who are so inclined to leave a one-off donation, or even a regular monthly donation. Sometimes this has incentives attached, like extra content or other treats, which again generates extra work for the creator. Anyway, I was wondering if any of the thousands (!) of my readers might be interested in adding to my coffers, if only to the tune of a couple of quid. Feel free to drop me a comment if you think this is an idea which might fly. I am somewhat reluctant to put out a begging bowl like this, but if people enjoy reading my blog and want to help me in a small way, then I would never turn down extra funds! You could of course wait until I publish my bestselling book, but that could take a while…

In other news, just to add to my activities this year, I have managed to arrange a trip on VIC32 in May, which I am looking forward to, having missed out last year due to the vagaries of the Ocean Spirit programme. I am also in the process of getting involved in the Sea Cadets and their flagship TS Royalist, and hope to get some sailing in her in due course. I shall report back on my progress as and when it happens. Until then, I must bid you all adieu and go and cook myself some dinner…