Drizzly Day 11th August 2011

Drizzly Day

I had a few jobs to do in Ashton before starting work on "Hazel" today, and had a pumping crisis to deal with at Portland Basin as "Elton" was trying to play submarines as a result of a faulty pump. When I eventually arrived Stuart was already busy strengthening up the moulds for shaping the fore end planks. I had a look at the job of fitting the stempost, which I had removed a few days earlier to do a bit more work on the hoodings where the top strake fits in.

I trimmed a bit of old planking away to make it possible to slide it right up to the end of the new keelson, then thought about bringing it over and offering it up. I wouldn't be able to carry it on my own and Stuart was still busy with the moulds, so I decided to go and work on the sternpost.

After a little while alternately cutting with the power saw and hacking bits out with the adze to rough out the hoodings on this post.

Ryan arrived, apologising for his lateness. He and Stuart had been to a charity pie tasting at the buffet bar the previous night. http://www.beerhouses.co.uk/pub/stalybridge-buffet-bar/
He got stuck in to sorting out the electrics on the 3 phase table saw that we recently collected from Ashton Canal Carriers. http://www.brocross.com/canal/joel.htm

It is run from a 3 phase converter, enabling it to run from a single phase supply, but had been running backwards. Ryan tried swapping wires around until eventually it ran smoothly in the right direction, then blew a trip to cut power from the whole boatyard.

Giving up on this, there was some discussion about other jobs that Ryan could do, but none of them were quite ready to be started. I had reached the stage of preparing to cut another slice off the sternpost with the chainmill, but decided to leave this and get Ryan to help offer up the stempost. In fact all three of us worked on this and soon had the stempost in place and fitting quite nicely. When Stuart checked it though it was way off centre at the top. This seemed to be because the right hand (starboard ) side of the bow had moved and was pushing the stempost out of line. Ryan and I started cutting away the other side so that we could get a prop in place to adjust the side of the boat. Part way through this job Ryan's mother arrived and we stopped for tea and a chat. When we had finished, Jessica, Adeline and Elouise, Stuarts wife and two daughters arrived and we were surprised to see that it was nearly time to go home.

All day the grey sky had been crying a constant fine drizzle over us. It was the sort of rain that gets you really wet without you really noticing until it's too late.




The Lost Knee

The Lost Knee.

Stuart was busy cleaning up, organising and labelling "Hazel"s wrought iron knees while I worked on the new sternpost. He started to look puzzled. We discussed shotblasting and rustproofing the knees, still in remarkably good order after 97 years. Obviously the number of knees was an important issue in pricing the work on them. There should have been 26, 13 for each side of the boat, but Stuart could only find 25. A search of the boatyard ensued. "I did hear a plop" said Stuart, "but it didn't sound big enough to be a knee". He started investigating the canal alongside the boat with a rake, but found only bits of stone. We went home with the missing knee on our minds.

Tuesday was a rare day as neither me or Stuart could be there. I had a meeting to go to and Stuart a funeral. On Wednesday the hunt for the missing knee resumed, Ryan entering into it with his usual enthusiasm. He progressed from using a rake to a grappling iron. After many fruitless throws the iron was thrown once more, but Ryan forgot to hold on to the piece of string.

There was now nothing for it but to get in the water and recover the grappling hook, whilst at the same time feeling about for the knee. We lit the gas heater in the main container and Ryan stripped off, emerging clad only in his blue overalls. He leaped with gusto into the water and began feeling around with his feet. He soon found the grappling iron, and a G clamp, which Stuart thought was probably what caused the plop that he heard, but still no sign of the knee.

Eventually the cold and frustration at finding only bits of stone drove Ryan out of the water to dry off in the container. I began to wonder how much our excellent blacksmith, Ed Sveikutis, would charge to manufacture a new one.

As going home time approached Stuart elected to have one last go at finding the knee. He got in the water, wearing red overalls, and worked outwards steadily from the previously searched areas near the bit of boat that the particular knee came from. He moved into increasingly unlikely waters until he reached nearly to the fore end of the boat, far from the source of the knee. He bent down, reached his arms into the water and triumphantly lifted the piece of curved iron out of the mud with a yell, before climbing out on to the bank with his prize.

How the knee got there we will never know, but at least we now have a full set again.