From what seems like an age we are now seeing changes to Our Daddy. The first few weeks were taken up working out a plan of works and moving the things we want to keep and removing everything we don't, there was a lot of that! It was also a voyage of discovery, in every locker, beneath every bunk and seat we found things that our part of Our D'. We found the unusual compass which will be renovated, checked and become our steering compass, a fuly working oil lamp in the aft crew cabin, once polished it will look beautiful plus lots of other bits and pieces.
After the survey we now have clear goals and milestones in Our D's rejuvenation back being the beautiful boat that she is, first up after we had checked nails and chain stay bolts was to replace the nails and fill the areas where we had pulled them. We have replaced the chainstay bolts that were removed after coating them in red lead paint and sealing the holes around the bolts with red lead putty, I was amazed that you can still buy all things red lead, but if you have a wooden boat there is nothing to replace it that works as red lead. The hull below waterline has had all the loose antifoul scraped back and any low spots filled and faired back using epoxy fillers for the deeper ones and red lead putty to fair the joints and any areas needing that little bit of fettlin'. She is now sporting her first coating of antifoul primers and the fist coat of primer for the boot top, it is amazing the difference just a coat of paint makes to the look of her...... I hope you agree. Once the outside of the hull is primered up to gunwale then we have milestone 1 completed..... Woop!
A couple of the Spars have also been stripped of paint and varnish ready for their first coats of many, we will be Dutch varnishing the Spars which will make them gleam in the sunlight, it is a slow process though as each layer has to dry and be rubbed down in between..... The beauty of a wooden classic. We still have the gaff and boom to take off the boat to revarnish but they can wait a while as the two yards for the mizzen, the bowsprit and bumpkin are enough to be going at for the moment. We removed the windlass yesterday, after having to grind off what was left of the bolts that have been there for a few years, it was working ok so just needs a service, removal of all the rust, repainting and cleaning out of the oil reservoir, we will also clean the deck under it and paint it which will help in future as the deck is quite stained from previous hydraulic oil leaks.
Steve and I would like to thank Andy, Cameron and Tim for their help so far in preparing and painting what we have so far, Cameron also has a large box of blocks that we have stripped down to renovate :-)
Will post the next update next week, once we are hull primed we will be de rigging the masts and cloaking Our D in tarps while we start on the deck area.
Blog soon.
