Turning the Boat Over

With the undercoat on and the hole drilled for the rudder shaft there were no more excuses for not turning the boat over. There were a couple of things to make however: a couple of big pulley blocks and the frames that would support the boat after it was turned.

Here's a photo of the pulley block. The sling that will go round the boat is 50mm wide so the pully is quite big. The whole thing is made of scrap ply, the pivot bolt is 16mm diameter and the eye at the top is an 8mm stainless eye bolt. The whole thing is plenty strong enough to hold the boat up.

Testing the block and strap. it all looks OK at this stage.

I made a couple of cradles to support the boat. Once again, I dragged out the plywood sheets that the boat was lofted on and took the shape of these cradles from the lines drawing. They fitted perfectly.

Now there are no more excuses. This morning I set about turning the boat. The steps in the process are quite simple. Put the slings around the hull and over the pulleys, lift the boat enough to remove the building frame, rotate the boat in the slings being careful not to hit the floor or overhead lights, put the cradles under and lower the hull into them.

First step, slings in place and ready to lift the boat up off the building frame.

Up in the air. The sheet is to stop the chains from my 1 ton chain block marking the undercoat.

Building frame removed. The boat is fairly stable in this position but it is top heavy so a bit precarious!

When given a little push it quickly moves to this position where it is very stable and needs quite a lot of effort to turn it the rest of the way. It is close to the floor and only just clears the underside of the pulleys.

This is when I encountered the results of my first mistake. These slings are actually tie down straps so they have the clips and ratchet to pull them tight. I didn't think carefully enough about the positioning of the clips and ratchet and this photo shows the problem. For the boat to turn any further the clips have to be moved. This took quite a while to organize: lower the boat onto a couple of stands to take the load off the slings and move them around the hull.

Here it is turned the rest of the way over. I could have used some help with this but managed it with levers and sky hooks. At this stage I had to lower the boat onto stands again and remove the pulley blocks to prevent the boat going back to its half capsized position - that seems to be the position where it was happiest.

Sitting in its cradles, all the lifting stuff removed and looking like a fantail launch.

First real view of the inside of the hull. There's some foreshortening in this photo which distorts the shape of the hull. It looks like a fairly easy cleanup job in this photo but all the damage where the plastic nails came through the ply and splintered the face veneer have to be filled and leveled. Not really a problem as the inside will be painted covering the filler in the holes.

Undercoat and Rudder Bottom Bracket

Here's the hull with 2 coats of International Paints PreKote undercoat.

I put the first coat on with a 25mm diameter foam roller and tipped it off with a brush. When it dried I found that my tipping off had left brush marks; I think that this was down to the brush not the paint - the brush had done a few miles on previous jobs! After a couple of hours sanding I put the second coat on with the same type of roller but didn't tip it off. Good result, the hull will only need a light sanding when the time comes for more paint.

Yesterday I picked up the bracket that bolts under the skeg to hold the bottom of the rudder stock from the stainless steel fabricator - bending 50x10 SS bar is beyond my capabilities. With the bracket temporarily in place I hung a plumb line from it to mark the position of the hole in the hull where the stock passes through. Once marked I made a dimple to start the drill in.

Here's the setup to drill a pilot hole through the hull and inner keel; that's through about 55mm of timber. Now the pilot hole is in I will make and fit a block on the inside to carry the upper bearing for the rudder stock. Once that block is in place I'll extend the hole through with a hole saw.

First Coats of Paint

It is a relief to have reached the end of the filling and sanding cycle although it might only have been replaced by the painting and sanding cycle. The painting began with the bare woodwork on the stem, keel and skeg. Two coats of primer, the first thinned with about 10% thinners.

Then 3 more coats of primer over the whole hull except for the stern tube hole, the area where the rudder shaft will pass through the hull and a strip around the sheer where the gunwale will be fitted. Light sanding after each coat of primer mainly to remove the dead flies and other debris. Here is a photo after the second coat.

The hull looks very different now it is a uniform colour. Once again I am surprised how many blemishes show up after a coat of paint!