Irene Rebuild                                          

 
Page Seventeen

1st March 2008

With Christmas and with the wet January it seems that little has changed about the appearance of Irene Work has, however, continued. More ballast has gone in, the old water tanks have been cut so as to hold the dirtier ballast, without fear of blocking limber- holes. The limbers themselves have been thoroughly cleansed and work started on no less than four watertight bulkheads. We have now received delivery of the four watertight doors to go with them.

Bulkhead Bases

Pitch pine, these days, is a poor reflection on what it used to be. New pitch pine is not a worthy contributor to Irene’s rebuild and old pitch pine can only be used in certain places because of it’s reluctance to bend. The main rail is one of those places. We located suitable second hand pitch pine in Lawsons Timber yard in Lancashire. We are now awaiting delivery. The Lancashire Cotton Mills continue to erupt with goodies in the way of long stretches of pitch pine, and Lawsons provide a worthy service.

The Forward Hatch

Chuggs has been assiduous with his hatch cover. The forward hatch is now all but complete, looks very smart and even fits accurately on the coamings. We have decided on polycarbonate for the window openings. Garth will be working on a mechanism for opening and closing.

Preparing the timber for the next hatch

The next hatch – engine room and galley is underway. The main work down below , however, has been the diesel tanks in the engine room. Farmer Martin’s son Stephen has broadened his experience from cows to construction and from silage to stainless steel. He is now an expert engineer in his own right and has been sculpting most awkward shapes to fit into the space available. To install them Garth has had to organise the lifting of the engines. A trifling challenge that he regarded as all in a days work.

Ben has returned from his global wanderings. Because of the atrocious weather, he has been driven below to make a start on the crew berths in the foc’stle.

Progress too has been made on the mainmast; hounds, cross- trees, trestle-trees and mast cap are all in position.
Irene will be one hundred and one years old on the 29th May 2008. Our annual birthday dinner will be at Bagmill and is open to all members of the Irene Sailing society. £25.00 per head covers dinner with wine plus other drinks before and after.

There will be more footage of the rebuild, including Part 1 of an opus by the Saltash Video Club.

Mainmast head, awaiting fittings

We have decided to hang most of the necessary running rigging from the hounds. That includes topping lifts, main boom and staysail, a couple of burtons, a line for the roller reefing and staysail halyard. Still to come is the crane for the main throat halyard and two more attachments for the main peak, designed with the semi-circular ‘horse’ to distribute the weight without twisting.

On the motor trip to and from Fowey, the Gardners pushed the light hull at somewhere between nine and ten knots, but the port engine was smoking. It turned out that we had a ‘lazy valve’ and Walshes, the very excellent engineering firm from Eccles are honouring their guarantee.

Finally Garth has adapted, by dint of some clever brass-work, an engine-room control to provide both throttle and gear change for two engines.

It seems that a lot of people saw a brief article on BBC Spotlight and a passing comment about an apprentice has led to a rush of enthusiasm. We now have two full-time youngsters, a retired architect and a very competent boat –wright, rebuilding our RNSA dinghy.

Even the missus has been bowed over the sewing machine, making a wheel cover and cover for the bell.
 

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