Tuesday 12 April
This morning began with a committee meeting in the shed. JP, Geoff B and myself were expecting Stefan but unfortunately he texted that his wife has Covid and so he was isolating. It was a useful meeting focusing on the next steps and meeting our requirements for an AGM in July. We were winding up when Lesley arrived with an amazing cake needing a good home.
Nick and Veronica also joined us and Nick volunteered to set the ladies up cutting the scarfs on the remaining two planks. I did some final touches to the plank 4 lands and then helped Nick to set up the pin alignment on plank 5. This one, as far as I can tell worked perfectly, all pin holes present and correct. Geoff had left us promising to work on the next boat and JP went off on a mercy errand to fetch a wet vac for a friends house that had flooded due to a burst water pipe.
I then added some extra clamping blocks to the moulds so that we can pull wayward planks back into shape in this next glue up. By the time we were ready to glue it was time to eat that cake and we didn’t do a bad job demolishing half of it with only 4 of us. I’m sure the sugar content and colouring had something to do with how frenetic the glueing process became.
Nick wetted the plank lands and the scarf joints. JP cleaned up the old glue on the wooden clamps and we just remembered in time to put more tape on the moulds. It was while we were doing this that Lesley noticed it had rained on the end of the planks nearest the door, wetting the wetted (in resin) ends. JP mixed a pile of glue but more glue was needed and still more. Nick and I buttered up the scarfs of plank 5 and clamped them into place.
Then it was on with plank 4 on port and then starboard. Both went on reasonably well and the extra clamps helped to fair the hull. Crawling under the boat to clean up in the dust and with muscle pulling antics to reach the joints has knobs on it. I was down there when a family of visitors arrived (Bridget, Sheila, and Barbara) from the sailing club, who had read about us in the Denmark Bulletin. JP gave them the tour while they were unaware that I was under the boat until I emerged covered in wood shavings. We had two other visitors today, Ed W and Stuart H who both had a good look around and asked the right questions.
At the end of the day we were pleased with the progress made and exhausted by the sometimes slightly fraught activity. JP and I made a quick dash to the Tip Shop to buy a kettle which I had previously spotted to replace Paul’s. We were stopped by a random breath test officer at the school and we noted that it was a good job we hadn’t been glueing in the Whiskey plank today. (There is a tradition in boat building that the last plank is called the Whiskey plank and requires a dram of whiskey to be drunk by the crew). This will probably occur next week on Tuesday all going well. Nick, who has given up drinking, says he will generously donate a single malt whiskey to the cause.
The plan for Thursday is to get plank 5 on. We are also still planning to work on Monday, despite it being Easter Monday.
Cheers Dave