Two Steps Forward (January 2012)

Two steps Forward.......

We had a great day on Wednesday with me and Stuart driving up spikes we got 24 done, a record. Making a start for a repeat performance on Thursday, everything went wrong. First of all the big drill that we were using to drill spike holes broke. The auger was in the wood so I put the Makita cordless drill on it to extract it, and the auger snapped. Stuart gave it up as a bad job at this point, but I foolishly persisted, using a huge old drill that is really intended for jobs like cutting sterntube holes. It was hard to keep such a heavy drill straight and I succeeded in breaking the other auger.

We've now replaced the augers, but if you happen to have a heavy duty electric drill that you never use, we accept donations!

Just to add to the joy of January, when I got home from work on Friday I found that I'd given myself a bad back, so I'm relegated to blogging today!

The good news is that we should get the next phase of funding soon, so the "Hazel" project won't run out of money in March as I had feared. There's still a shortfall in funding though, so don't be shy about donating



Spiking up (December 2011)

Spiking Up.

We now begin the long slow task of spiking up the bottoms to the garboard strakes. About 400 holes to be drilled from the top of the garboard through the 9" width of that plank and through the 3" thickness of the bottom boards. A big 10mm square spike then has to be driven up from underneath (an excellent job for anyone wanting to increase their arm muscles) to pop out at the top edge of the plank where it will be bent over. That bottom is not going to fall off!


Comment from: ashtonboatman [Member]

Just a note on boat jargon. Sorry, I forget that not all readers speak boat. The garboard strake is the first plank of the sides of the boat. This is attached to the flat bottom of a narrow boat by big iron nails or spikes driven up through pre-drilled holes through the bottom boards and through the width of the plank. It's hard work.