A family adventure on a £16k Birchwood 33
Refitting a Birchwood 33 for the trip of a lifetime through the French canals
he stock market crash in 1992 got me into boats. My father was a stockbroker at the time and after Black Monday, he decided it was time to escape London and move the family to Cornwall. The following summer, as I turned ten, we had sold up, left London and were living on the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall. Surrounded by sea, I spent more of my childhood on the water than off it.
During the 30 years since, I have owned all sorts of boats, including six RIBS, a 100-tonne fishing trawler and an old 60ft ferry I bought for £900.
When I met my wife, it was the 100-tonne trawler, Girona, that I owned, but I soon learnt wooden boats and family life don’t mix, so I sold it and bought a wedding ring. We now have a two year old and a two month old and I have been boatless for three years (or far too long).
Like many new parents, we fought back against the routine and restrictions that come with early family life. We set off on numerous ‘we’re not going to let it change our life’ holidays and adventures with our first daughter, Bonnie, but soon succumbed to the realisation that we were just doing the same things somewhere else, at three times the cost.
When our second child came along, we decided to try a new tack. The plan was to buy a camper van and explore Europe by road. But then fate stepped in when we bumped into our friend and local boatbuilder Dave Cockwell. “Why not take a boat through the canals?” he suggested. “We did it with a two year old and six month old and it was the best few months of our lives. With a boat, you don’t have to keep packing everything away each time you move.”
My first reaction was that we couldn’t afford it. We had a total budget of £30,000 (£20,000 of which was a loan) and I doubted we could get a suitable boat for the money. However, when I started looking at what our budget would stretch to that was big enough for a family to live on, I found a handful of older Birchwoods, Brooms and Princesses in our price range. We filtered out anything with a flybridge as the air draught would be too high for the canals and whittled the shortlist down to eight boats currently for sale in the UK, including a Birchwood 33 just down the road in Mylor.
We went to have a look at the local boat first and after a cooling-off chat over a cup of tea, we called and made an offer. I’m sure some of the other boats on our shortlist merited a look, but by the time we’d added on travel, survey costs and then the time to get it back to Falmouth to start the refit, you can see why a local boat was so appealing. Not to mention we only had three months before we planned to leave.
We paid £16,500 for Gemelle through Ancasta Yacht Brokers. It was a lot of boat for the money, with loads of practical space. What’s more, I knew the boat and the owners from when I worked at the yard and it just felt right. We listed our house on Airbnb and set to work on refitting Gemelle in time for a Channel crossing in June.
THE REFIT BEGINS
Planning what work we did to the boat was relatively straightforward as we had two immovable factors – the launch date and the budget. For the trip, I needed a seaworthy boat, functioning electrical systems and a pleasant habitable space for our family.
My first priority was the hull. Being glassfibre, the main concern was osmosis, almost an inevitability in a boat of this age. Fortunately, the previous owner had had the hull stripped back, dried, treated and epoxy coated in 1996, so I was confident this wouldn’t be an issue.
The antifouling hadn’t been stripped for years, so my father-in-law foolishly agreed to scrape this off. It took him two days, and after a quick sand, we applied a primer and two coats of antifouling. Meanwhile, my dad (more free labour) cut and polished the topsides.
The anode bolts were badly corroded, so I cut these off and replaced them with new bolts and anodes. I then reconnected all the internal wiring and tested the resistance to all the external metalwork with a multimeter to ensure a good connection. One benefit of re-drilling the anode bolt holes was discovering just how thick the layup is below the waterline (over an inch). I find this industrial style of construction reassuring and for me, it is an advantage older boats have over their more lightly laid-up modern counterparts. Hours: 36. Cost: £360
ENGINES, TANKS AND PROPULSION
The previous owner of the boat sadly passed away last year, hence the sale. I remember taking him and his family out to Gemelle in the water taxi when I was a boy, and I enjoyed having a previous connection to them and the boat. I’m a bit of a hippy and have always felt a connection with boats that is more than just the physical. During the refit, I often found myself chatting out loud to the previous owner as I tried to trace wiring through the bilges.
He was a farmer, and farmers love their engines. Nathan, the head engineer at Mylor, confirmed that no expense had been spared when it came to the engines’ upkeep, as did the meticulous maintenance log. The boat had been winterised with new oils and filters last year so all I needed to do was refit the belts, impellers and air inlets, and the two Ford 120hp truck engines were ready to go.
The metal fuel tanks had recently been replaced with plastic Tek-tanks and there were two Racor fuel filters and water traps on each fuel line as well as two inline filters on the engines themselves. This was reassuring, as fuel quality can be variable on the canals.
Thankfully these old marinised 6-cylinder engines are pretty robust and less sensitive to fuel quality than modern units with electronic management systems and high-pressure injectors. Spare parts for them tend to be cheaper and easy to obtain, too. At 6ft 4in, I was also pleased to find that all the floorboards in the pilothouse are removable, giving me easy access to the engines.
The drive system was one of my biggest compromises on boat choice. With depths as low as 1.8m and the boat drawing 1m, two
exposed props are not ideal (a single engine with a protected prop would have been a better setup for the canals), but I have been reassured by another Birchwood 33 owner on the MBY forum that he completed the same trip with no troubles at all. To mitigate the risk, I purchased a scuba kit from my local dive shop for £140, so I can swim under the boat if they do take a whack or get fouled. Hours: 3. Cost: £240
STEERING
The boat has two helm positions, one in the pilothouse area and one on the aft deck. Unfortunately, the steering system uses Morse cables which are stiff to start with, making the task of turning the wheel more of a physical workout than I’d have liked. However, although corroded, the system is simple, so I have serviced and lubricated it as best I can. I would have liked to replace some parts but time and budget ruled this out for the moment, and being twin screw, I can at least steer using the engines if necessary. Hours: 4. Cost: £0
GAS, ELECTRICS AND WATER
With two large 12V batteries providing the boat’s power and engine starting, the electrics are basic but well thought out. The only significant work I had to do was some re-wiring and the fitting of a small inverter to power a laptop and other small appliances. We also fitted LED string lights under the handrails and inside the cabin to give soft lighting with negligible current draw.
Two large gas bottles power the fridge, water heater and cooker. These are located in a sealed box lined with galvanised steel sheet. There was minor corrosion in the base of the box so I painted it in polyester flowcoat to protect the steel and had a gas engineer service and test all the appliances, as well as fit a gas alarm and solenoid valve.
The 200-litre stainless-steel watertank under the aft bunk was in good condition but I replaced the water hose that feeds the electric pump and fitted a new strainer and filter. We also purchased some 25-litre plastic jerrycans for extra water storage and for collecting water where
canalside hose points aren’t available. Hours: 21. Cost: £610
BILGES AND DECK
The bilges stank, so I spent hours cleaning them out with hot water, detergent and a wet vacuum before flowcoating or painting the dry sections to reduce future maintenance. The deck was in good condition apart from a few gelcoat chips which I touched up with white resin, and a slight sponginess in well-used areas where the glassfibre had delaminated from the core. I decided this wasn’t worth rectifying as it’s still strong. Hours: 16. Cost: £45
PILOTHOUSE
Over the years, lots of different pieces of equipment have been screwed to the roof of the pilothouse without being sealed properly, allowing water to leak through and rot the headlining. This meant unscrewing the roof, removing all the fittings and headlining, repairing and filling all the holes, then screwing the important bits back on and fitting new carpet and trim in place of the headlining. The sliding sunroof also had to be removed, repaired, new glass fitted and reinstalled. I also took off the large A-frame and radar to reduce our air draught as I saw no need for radar on the canals. Inside the pilothouse we took the thick and peeling varnish back to bare wood, re-varnished it and re-carpeted the floor.
The two large canvas covers that act as side doors were mouldy and the zip stitching had failed in several places, so I removed them and purchased a three-part treatment kit on ebay for £38. This removed the mould, restored the colour and waterproofed them.
My father-in-law foolishly signed up for scraping off many years of old antifouling while my father cut and polished the hull – more free labour!
The local sailmaker then re-stitched the zips. Lastly, I bought a bimini on ebay for £120 to provide shade for the outside helm which can be extended fore and aft with extra sheets when needed. Hours: 39. Cost: £378
AFT CABIN
The master cabin bed, dressing table, wardrobe and heads were all in a bad state of repair. The mouldy faux leather was removed and re-upholstered. The wood was sanded back and re-varnished and the inside of the cupboards were stripped and re-carpeted.
We’d already decided to convert the ensuite heads into a small cabin for our two year old so I removed the toilet and sink, carpeted the sides, fitted a new headlining and installed a small bunk. My wife made some new nautical-themed curtains and I fitted handrails over the sliding window. I also fitted vents and a fan and installed CO alarms in both cabins. Bar a couple of small leaks, the windows in this section of the boat were in much better condition than the others. Some small repairs, sealant and a couple of new fastenings were all that was needed. Hours: 47. Cost: £350
SALOON
The first job was to sort out the windows, all of which had been leaking. A helpful man from Eagle Boat Windows gave me advice and supplied all the parts I needed to remove them, strip them down and rebuild them – a long and frustrating job. Due to the leaking, much of the internal linings had rotted so I used the old panels as a template to make new boards and re-covered them. I built a new shelf for the galley and my wife made a curtain to cover the cupboard.
All the internal woodwork had black mould in the grain, so a long day was spent sanding it all back to bare wood before re-varnishing. As I intend to carry on working a couple of days a week in my role as a marketing consultant, I also bolted a flexible monitor and laptop stand to the table. This can be folded away or spun to watch movies.
As with the aft cabin, all the cushions were washed and after watching a few videos on piping, my wife set about re-covering them. She also spent many evenings sewing new curtains to replace the faded originals. This has helped transform the internal appearance. Given that she managed this while coping with a newborn, a toddler and a house that needed to be cleaned, refurbished and moved out of for rental and you get a feel for what the last three months have been like for her. Defying her instinct to nest by doing the opposite has arguably been the biggest challenge of all.
With the refit complete and Gemelle looking and feeling like our new home from home, the onus is on me to ensure that the next three months really are the adventure of a lifetime we’ve been dreaming of.
I remember taking the previous owner and his family out to Gemelle in the water taxi when I was a boy