Thursday 9 June
I brought in some big blocks of Jarrah this morning to lift boat 1 and its frame about 15cm off the floor so it wouldn’t be so hard on our backs, especially Adrians, to reach into the middle of it. Adrian arrived and helped me lift it, one end at a time onto the blocks. Then Adrian went straight back into filleting with his pudding mix of resin and bulking powder.
Our Albany contingent arrived almost together. John I sanded the remainder of the gunwale blocks while Colin, who we were glad to welcome back after a long break, grappled with shaping the rudder blade. He used a jigsaw to cut out those MDF moulds that JP had scribed on Tuesday and then he began planing the shape into the glued cheeks of the rudder.
Meanwhile Veronica and Paul W went on finessing the keelson. We were going to glue the first planks on to boat 2 today but the temperature was only 14 degrees and dropping as the forecast rain approached. It just didn’t feel like a good glueing day and Veronica was happy to go on planing more off the keelson and stems. Tomorrow its forecast to be 20 degrees so JP, Paul W and anyone else who would like to join us are planning to go in at 10am and glue the planks on.
Harry came down to the shed in a very sheepish fashion sporting a black eye, a patch on his forehead and plasters on his hand. Apparently he had tripped on a small step going into Aldi in Albany, obviously in a hurry for a bargain woodworking tool or a jigsaw puzzle. He got a ride in an ambulance to Albany hospital but today he seemed to be recovering well. He came back after lunch to use the heat gun to bend the arms on a pair of old glasses so that they wouldn’t slip down his nose.
Dr John used a belt sander to taper the thickness of the gunwale battens down to 9mm as per the plans, at each end and had to duck home for a decent metal straight edge and some biscuits. At my request he also donated a bar of soap which we will use to lubricate the temporary fixing screws so that they don’t get stuck in the epoxy.
I was mainly running around but after the majority had left I was able to get the veneer battens prepared for gluing on the top of the plywood end grain on the gunwale of boat 1.
In other news our webmaster Peter Kovesi, has again been showing us what adventuring in a small boat could be like if we were organised enough to do it. This time he has been travelling up the east coast crewing for Stef Van Den Hoek in her Drascombe Longboat that she had stored in a barn in Victoria for a few years. After evicting the chickens and dusting it off she drove it up to Bribie Island for the 23rd Bribie Classic Regatta where Pete joined her. It was very wet but they still got the Best Sailboat Trophy. They then went on up to the Whitsundays, stopping off to sail out to Great Keppel Island and then Humpy Island. From Shute Harbour they sailed out to South Molle Island and around Whitsunday Island camping on beaches or sleeping on the boat. It looks idilic but Pete tells me it was often very challenging with 2-3m tides, rocky beaches that you couldn’t let the boat dry out on and sailing conditions that were sometimes quite tough. Luckily Pete was in very good company as Stef has a wealth of sailing experience from dinghies to square riggers and a Yachtmasters Ticket to boot.
We first met Stef in Scotland where Pete, Jim Black and I had arrived 5 days early to take part in Sail Caledonia, a sail and oar “raid” across Scotland ( www.sailcaledonia.org ). We needed the extra days to familiarise ourselves with the Drascombe Lugger we had borrowed. We also thought we would be the only Australians taking part. But on launch day Stef rocks up from Perth, a smallish double ender dinghy is delivered and a crew who hasn’t done much sailing appears and she takes it all in her stride and makes it look easy.
Cheers Dave