Langstone Cutters RC

Sallyport update

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Rachel

Sallyport update

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Hi all,

Sallyport will be finished by this weekend and I have arranged with Andrew Oliver that Tim and I will collect her on Monday morning and move her into a barn to keep dry until she can go to Northshore next Friday.

I wrote this report last week and much of the planned work has now been done but I thought you would be interested to know what's been happening.

Geoff and I went to visit Andrew Oliver this morning to see the work he is doing on Sallyport. It was really interesting, and I wanted to capture what he told us while I still remember it all.

Andrew started on the inside where the foredeck had come loose. He removed the whole foredeck and added some knees at the top of the cross beams to hold those in place as they were also loose. He thought about replacing the foredeck with new wood but decided that the original wood was still in good condition apart from a few scrapes which he felt were part of the character of an older boat. He scraped and hoovered out the inside to get rid of any water and all the detritus which had built up underneath the foot boards and in the bow which is usually difficult for us to get as it is under the foredeck. Then he replaced the original foredeck on its new supports.

Andrew checked all the rivets and said he was very surprised to find that only ten out of about a thousand needed replacing. He showed me on another boat just how delicate and thin the top of the rivets are and stressed how careful you have to be when sanding to make sure that you don’t rub them down. Credit to Geoff for the care that has been taken in the past under his eagle eye.

Sallyport was turned over at the weekend, and Andrew showed us the work he is doing on the keel band area. He has removed the keel band and showed us that it was more than twice as thick as it should have been with the rust which had built up on it. He explained that when it thickens with rust it effectively pulls it’s own nails out which is why it works loose. Rather than clean up the original keel band and put it back on, where it will start to rust again straight away, Andrew is going to replace it with a stainless steel one ( in two 4metre lengths ) which should last a very long time.

At the bow the wood under the keel band was very wet and had rotted badly. Andrew has cut out the worst section and showed us some of the wood which he has removed which you could stick your finger into and was wet and mushy. He is drying out that area and will then scarf in a new piece of wood ( to say that the shape of the scarf needed looks tricky is a massive understatement! ). Andrew showed us that on one side of the keel near the bow the first plank has come away and you can see a gap through into the boat. He feels that Sallyport will have been leaking from there, but we wouldn’t have been able to see because it was hidden by the keel band. He now plans to rub down the paintwork and remove the existing black mastic so that he can see the plank seams more clearly. If necessary, he will put a thin bead of ARCOL filler ( a high-performance flexible mastic ) in any seams which need it. He is not planning to remove the small area of epoxy on the port side near the bow ( a short section on about three seams ) as he says it is still strong and not coming loose and clearly must have been applied to fix a leak. Geoff explained that he had to use epoxy after lockdown as he couldn’t get mastic anywhere. Once all the prep is done Andrew will paint Sallyport with a colour which he and Geoff have found which is as close to her original blue as possible.

I asked Andrew whether there was anything we needed to be aware of when we do the varnishing and how many coats we should use. He checked with Geoff which varnish he was planning to use and was pleased with the answer. He was happy with the use of hand sanders as they are great for getting into tricky places but stressed the need to be careful to avoid the tops of the rivets. He said that the rubbing down is by far and away the most important part of the job because if you don’t remove the shiny surface the new varnish won’t stick to the old properly ( and so when Geoff keeps saying I can still see shiny bits we really do have to do it again!). He says that 3 coats is perfect provided that each coat is applied while the previous one is slightly tacky which again is what Geoff has always told us, so three days in a row are needed for that job. I asked why some people as suggesting 6 coats and he explained that 6 coats are needed on bare wood, but we already have multiple coats on the boat so three is enough.

We also talked about the foot boards and Geoff agreed with Andrew’s suggestion that we should cut them in half so that they are easier to remove. Then we can clean underneath them more often as Andrew explained that there is a lot of material building up underneath them which can be wet and stop the boat drying out. Geoff plans to cut them in half soon.

It was lovely to see a master at work and the care being taken to repair a beautiful boat. It also made me proud of the work we have all put in to maintain her over the years, especially Geoff.

Rachel

Anne3

Re: Sallyport update

What a fascinating post! Thank you, and thanks to Geoff too (and Andrew).

Wendy and Stephen