Irene Rebuild                                          

Page Fifteen

25th Sept 2007

Well, the party’s over. The push to her hundreth is at an end. The Summer ? is here and the team has diverged in various directions. Ted and Issi’s contract came to an end, John opted for a three month sabbatical, Chuggs inherited a dilapidated cottage and is busy restoring it. Ben has had two deaths in the family and a duty to be in London from time to time.

That leaves an active team of three part timers. Garth, our excellent engineer, Ben, similarly excellent shipwright and a bumbling old man who clears up from time to time. Nevertheless progress has not stopped. The rudder, that had been offered up, has now been taken down, properly shaped, the gudgeons bedded and fastened and the rudder finally now in position. Ben took the opportunity, also, of rebuilding the big Kevel that goes round the Counter and into which the metal work is attached by the fixing brackets and blocks for the steering chain.

------------Garths chain blocks---------------------------------The steering engine

At the other end we have fitted four bands on the bowsprit. Then with a combination of skill and luck managed to raise it into position. The digger first deposited the heel on the top of the stem post, block and tackle from the Samson post aided by the digger pushed the bowsprit back to where we could get a couple of turfer winches to pull the heel down. Ben then cut a mortice in the Samson post to take the prepared tenon. With block and tackle and some vibration from a heavy maul she slid backwards (or should I say he, seeing that it was the tenon that fitted neatly into the mortice.)

--------------------Manoeuvring the bowsprit--------------------

I would think that probably put the centre of gravity forward enough to let the stern end of the keel lift off, but to help it further we have put a ton of chain on the foredeck.

Fitting the fiddlehead

The Fiddlehead etching has been prettied up with gold leaf and is now in proud position ‘supporting’ the bowsprit. Garth has painted the starboard side, in between tweaking up the engines with the help of Walsh – the excellent Manchester firm, who have delivered two beautiful old Gardners as sprightly as new.

Two lovely Gardners - note the beer can

By contrast Halyard Marine, mentioned on page 14, have been even worse. They wouldn’t take our order until we had paid up. The promise was five weeks, which I thought was pretty poor service but a positive theft of the interest on the money that they had been paid. In reality Halyard Marine took nine weeks to deliver. We shan’t use them again.

Ben has fitted the barrel on the windlass axle and with the help of the team, it is in position on the bitts.

The Windlass

Down below, Garth has been making templates for the diesel tanks to fit into the large space underneath the engines. The Irene’s entry and run are both very fine. This means that internally the planking is almost vertical fore and aft and therefore very close to the Kelson. Over the years those deep, thin bilges collect rubbish and worse nasties and it is impossible to keep them clean and keep the bilge water running through the limber holes. We have, therefore, cleaned and dried as much as possible and filled them with pitch, so that any water entry will run over the surface of the pitch down to wider limbers and patent limber holes.

The main news, however, is that the end of August springs refloated Irene off the grid.

With the important work above the waterline complete it was possible to remove the remaining scaffolding. We replaced the tripods supporting the hull on the starboard side with shores, which if the vessel floated would simply come loose and float themselves. The large fabricated angle iron wedges were carefully undone, the bearing surface greased, ropes put on to hold them in position and more ropes to pull them out of the way. With other restraining metal cut away it was now up to the tide. High water at Bagmill is ten to fifteen minutes later than the official Plymouth breakwater high and by that time the bow was up. We attached more weights to the bow sprit and I was delighted to find that the stern was up now half an inch. Half an inch, however, was only half an inch and it certainly wasn’t enough to fill me with confidence. By the time, however, I had returned to the group at the bow, it was clear that Irene was floating freely and had already decided on the short voyage off the grid.

------------------Off the grid-----------------

The whole exercise had attracted a lot of friends and neighbours, all of whom were recruited into warp pulling. Irene was taken down the creek and moored within gangplank distance of the quay.

We celebrated late into the evening.

 

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