9th May 2010

I'd not spent much time on Sabrina over the last couple of weekends but managed to rebuild the rear hatch cover.  The cover was still covered in vinyl and I assumed that it should be ok and might just need a little filling, but like most things on her once I'd striped off the covering I found that the plywood was shot so I decided to cut a new piece from an off cut that I had.

The problem that I wanted to avoid was having to shape the roof, all the edges on Sabrina are curved, its one of the things that I love about her.  My woodworking skills are not bad, but if I'm not "in the zone" then it doesn't always work out how I expect, plus once glued, it ain't going to come apart again.

However it worked out and I was more than happy with the result, photos will follow when I mount it.

11th April 2010

I've spent most of the day cleaning up the rot behind the cockpit and cutting out the rotten piece of wood, as you can see from the following photo the rot is very bad:

I've spent so long cutting rotten bits out I decided to start putting something back together, there is a small locker below the wheel, all the ply had rotted and also one of the uprights.  The problem that I keep facing is find timber of the right thickness, 1" thick hardwood for example tends to be 22mm thick so I end up having to buy 2" (44mm) and planing it down.

I  made the new upright by doing that and then using a rebate cutter on my router, one thing i would say about doing a wooden boat up is that its a powertool-holics dream.  My current favourite tool is the thicknesser planer.

When I dismantled her I got a little impatient when doing the wardrobe in the front cabin and managed to break the upright that supported the marine ply, so I used the same method as with the locker to make a new upright.  I used a jigsaw to cut the base that clamps to the floor and am more than pleased with the result.

14th March 2010

I decided that today was the day to take off the front cabin that I had assembled as it was only dry fitted and to glue it and screw it back into place.  I started by carefully removing all the timbers off the front and then sanding the old paint off of them, its quite a large area the front cabin, but head height is restricted:

I started using brass screws when I first started doing her up, but they are too soft for use with a electric screwdriver, so I switched to stainless steel, there are harder, but their heads have a habit of twisting off so everything is drilled, counter sunk every 4 inches.  You can see from the following photos that the panels at the side have taken on their curve shape:

You can see the extent of the wood that has had to be replaced by the colour difference, I've used about 10 sheets of marine ply and will need at least another 5 to complete her.

While clearing out the bilges I found a small patch of rot, that turned out to be a huge patch of rot, about 4' x 2'.  It appears that this is an area that had been patched as the screws holding the rotten panel were stainless steel and the rest of the boat seems to be either copper or brass screws.  I was very disheartened when I found the patch as I had no idea how I was going to fix it.

But thanks to Karens support I've managed to work out how to do it and am not as phased as I was, although it did feel at the time that it was going to be the end of the Sabrina.

The back cabin had become a dumping ground for bits of the boat, its getting tidier since removing the sea toilet, more photos to follow:

13th March 2010

I'd decided that it was time to remove the old sea toilet that was in the boat, the hole in the bottom would need to be filled, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.  My plan is to replace the porta potti that was in the bathroom with a composting toilet from The Canal Shop they do a converted one that seems ideal for our boat, the model I'm looking at is Separett Mobile Composting Toilet.

The old sea toilet was a bit of a pain to remove, but I got there in the end, now that the room is empty I'm using it to store the wood that is waiting to be used on the boat.

As Karen my partner will testify Health and Safety and me do not mix... when using a lump hammer and a spanner on a metal toilet shaft you really should wear gloves:

February 2010

I managed to get the remaining vinyl off the boat today using  a heat gun and several stripping knives as I kept breaking them.  Don't know my own strength sometimes!

Once it was stripped I could see the extent of the damage and like most things on the boat far worse than I expected, 40 years have not been kind to the old girl.  I cut the worse part of the rot out, using a circular saw along the joists of the roof, using the screws as my alignment. I then used the saw to cut out the inner parts of the root then using a chisel removed the remainder on the joists, you can see the extent of the hole below:

You can see from the photo below than the ply making up the roof had rotted through a couple of layers and in some cases just de-laminated:

My plan was to mix up a batch of epoxy filler, wet out the roof, pour the filler over and  then over plate the whole roof with 12mm ply, creating a sandwich.  The resulting structure should be solid as a rock and last another 40 years. This seemed to work and I'm more than pleased with the result, I need to fill the edges and sand the edges to create the curve of the roof on the new ply.

While going over her I also found that the deck by the bathroom and also the panel that made the side of the bathroom, plus the timber running up the hull was rotten.  After several hours with a hammer an chisel I'd got the worst of it out.  I'd spent sometime in the past removing the front deck and it took an age, I realised that there must be an easier way, then it hit me, pull all the nails and screws out and use a power plane to remove the timber, then sand it.  

Then it was a simple case of cutting a new piece to length and then use a router to trim the edges, the result is a perfect fit, glue it and screw it in place:

As you can see from the following photos, there the panel was quite large, nearly 4' wide, you can also see the rotton part of the rear panel on the port side:

August 2009

I did very little to Sabrina during 2009, I met a new Partner and we had a damn good time instead, plus we didn't have a mooring for the boat.  However that all changed in August 2009 when a friend of hers saw a sign for a new marina that was being built just outside Audlem. Karen and I arranged to meet the owners at the site one Sunday, we stood on top of a large pile of clay in a recently dug out field, the Marina wasn't even a hole in the ground.

We both stood there and listened to total silence and we were sold, we signed up there and then, planning to have the boat ready for when the marina opened in March 2010.

We have since visited the Marina on each and every open day watching the progress, ever concious that the Sabrina is not getting worked on, but the weather has been horrendous, with Snow and rain preventing any real progress.

If you are looking for a mooring then I cannot recommend it highly enough, its Overwater Marina, the owners are a wonderful couple that make you feel welcome.

The marina is being built more like a large lake, with soft edges than your traditional box shape for parking boats.

10th April 2009

I've been very remiss lately on spending time on Sabrina, mainly due to my longterm relationship breaking up in 2008. Not the best year of my life, still I have a new partner and she is 100% behind me getting Sabrina repaired on back on the water.

We have spent the weekend pumping her out, she had over 1' of water inside her, it took 3 hours and she didn't look in too bad a shape (little did I know how bad things were).

To stop her filling up again I decided to build a canopy for her out of 8' lengths of 3" x 5" timber and securing a large tarpaulin over it using shock cord, this was to prove invaluble and a lot more sturdy than I was to realise.

Below is a photo of the canopy a year later, its still standing to quote Elton John.