Irene Rebuild
Page Two
Irene has remained safe and
secure on her grid. Rebuild
is not going to be a rushed job. We
have decided to progress slowly and carefully to ensure that we finish
up with the best possible result. That
has led to two decisions.
One is to leave the temporary
decking in place over the winter.
Two is to take the
opportunity of an entirely stripped out hull to deal adequately first
with the sound hull that is left. Sound
of course is a relative term, there are areas of rot, weeping metal
fastenings, wasted rivets etc., We
have therefore started by clearing out the hull.
Both the reinforcing for the deck and the spars that were carried
over, the lower deck and framework, half burnt remains of showers and
loos, and dustbins full of charcoal, mud, oil and similar tasty rubbish.
Work has now started to take
the copper off, hopefully in such a way as it will all go back in the
same place. We plan to replace much of the iron through bolting with oak
trunnels. Inner ceiling,
outer planking, stem and stern post all have to be carefully checked and
rebuilt if necessary before the fire consumed timber is replaced.
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23 February 2004
The coppering is virtually
all off. The massive cleaning of the interior continues apace and limber
holes are slowly yielding to the onslaught of high pressure hose and
hammer driven drifts.
Several ceiling planks have been identified as needing replacement,
several have been removed and the fastenings removed (the cooperative
ones with finesse, the others with brutality).
Several hundred trunnels survived the fire underneath the focsle lower
deck, these have been pressure washed and are drying out ready to take
the place of the iron fastenings when the new ceiling is put in.
We have purchased some ancient but effective machinery, thicknesser,
circular saw, band saw, mono pump but need a 3-phase generator.
Irene originally had Greenheart planking for the upper four strakes. We
have located and purchased Greenheart in this country ready for the
replacement in due course.
Ceiling planks are being replaced with Larch – awaiting delivery.
There is a growing pile of oak baulks from the local saw mill ready for
the first step of rebuild, that is the replacement of the burnt frames.
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29th
July 2004
To
date, eight ceiling planks have been replaced, fixed in place by
trunnels themselves wedged and epoxied.
The original iron rivets are almost universally waisted and a
source of danger and leakage.
Removal is not only necessary, but extremely time consuming.
We have finally started what is the genuine rebuild. The burnt
frames are being removed from the starboard side, which appears to have
retained its correct shape. The
decision was made to provide the port side with a mirror image of these
frames and it was with some surprise that we realised there was up to
four inches difference, indicating significant asymmetry.
We have, therefore, scrapped the dubious port side and proceeded
with the plan for mirror image symmetry.
We now have in place all the seminal frames in the front half of
the ship, and the further frames in between should be somewhat less
head-scratching.
In
order to get free access to the space for the frames it was, however,
necessary to remove the temporary deck built in St Martin’s.
A chainsaw was enough to separate it from Irene.
We then built extensive scaffolding and used a combination of
acros, block and tackle, and Turfor winches to raise the deck some three
feet. It is now a roof to
allow work to continue in the worst of weathers.
We continue to acquire oak and we have a large volume of larch
planking and enough greenheart to replace the four upper strakes.
"New framing under temporary deck raised for a weather cover"
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My
wife is busy on her latest addiction, called eBay, acquiring a brass
clock, barometer, binnacle, and blocks.
Our shipwrights under the leadership of John Habgood are skilled
and dedicated. The job may appear slow, but it is careful and accurate.
Everything is being coated with linseed oil or linseed and
creosote. We intend Irene
to last a further hundred years at least.
We have also had help from the Kathleen and May Trust. Sasha Hall, who was largely responsible for KNM’s rebuild, started his association with old wooden ships as Irene’s cabin boy some twenty years ago. We have been grateful for help from the Trust in the way of a steam box, trunnels and enthusiasm.
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