Monday 16 January 2023
Paul W was already in the shed when I turned up wondering if he should continue with his oar catchers. Having now used St John we could see that an extra impediment to climbing into and out of the boat was not going to be welcome or helpful. We also rarely have the oars resting on the opposite gunwale and so far there has been no damage to the impressively hard Awlgrip varnish. So we ditched that project and Paul started by sanding the rowlock blocks to round off all the sharp edges left by our belt sanding last week.
JP came in with his rapidly improving hand after his operation. He found a couple of jobs he could do left handed and we discussed how best to tackle the reaming out of the rowlock holes. I had started with a bastard file to open out the 19mm hole to over 20mm so that the tapered reamer could make a start. JP found a ratchet grip that would go over the Morse taper square shaft in Harry’s other shed and we started to drill but couldn’t keep the hole straight. I called in JD who kindly dragged himself away from cleaning window frames. On sussing out the problem and not finding a suitable bit in Harry’s collection he went home again for reinforcements at which point JP made tea.
Peter K joined us for tea and Paul brought out some delicious homemade shortbread. Peter K said his goodbyes as he is off to Perth and then Tasmania where I’ll join him for the Tawe Nunagah 23 Raid in small boats, sailing up the D’Encastreaux Channel to the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart.
Another problem I was trying to solve was getting a nut on the U bolt trailer eye in the bow after we had painted the thread. Again JD came to the rescue bringing a small wire brush from home and pointing out that I was trying to get the wrong sized nut on the thread.
Ted and Annie dropped in to say “Hi and goodbye”, as they were on their way back to Perth after a property inspection. Ted is going to row in the Augusta Regatta.
We worked out that if we opened half the rowlock hole to 21mm the reamer would go far enough in to be held at the desired angle of the hole. JD drilled the holes out with a power drill and then we manually reamed using the ratchet tool and a lot of weight and a bit of speed with a constantly shifting position so a smooth hole could be achieved. It all went pretty smoothly after realising the wooden pins weren’t all the same size. We stuck to one “master” pin as our model and reamed down to the same depth with the morse taper with a bit of tape around it to mark that depth. Now we will have to adjust the other pins.
JD also fixed the rudder pintle angle so that the rudder slid on and off easily. I had already screwed on the rudder retaining clip to stop it floating off. Thanks to JD for solving a multiple of problems. He had brought in some fresh beans from his garden for us and they look magnificent. We all kindly refused Kay’s generous offer of a sandwich and JD went home.
Paul and I finished sanding all the gunwales before Paul departed. I then vacuumed the boat ready for more deck paint and varnish. The last job I did was to glue a strip of wood on the underside of the cox’s seat to stop it sliding forward.
On the way home I dropped into Denmark Signwriters to get them to print our logo on our burgee (flag) which JB had made. I also tee’d them up to put the name on the side of the boat on Friday. This means we will need a lifting team on Friday morning if you’re available.
Cheers Dave