Lockdown DIY
At times like this a ‘new’ old boat is just the job for keeping busy and raising the spirits
During the recent pandemic lockdown it has not been possible to get to the fleet, which lives 320 miles away from Lockdown Central. Gloom descended.
Then, while taking the governmentapproved daily exercise in the entirely deserted hills of home, I chanced to spot a Drascombe Lugger. It was slumped on a trailer at the back of a set of stables, infested with cobwebs and the marks of passing birds (the Lugger, not the stables).
I bought it for just about nothing, and caused it to be dragged the half-mile home, and began to lash it up with stuff that was lying around in the shed.
I have an uneasy relationship with the physical world. Hammers are for smashing thumbs and drills for perforating water pipes. But a challenge is a challenge, and must be met by any means possible, which normally means bodge and lashup.
To get in training we started on the mast, which was skewbald with antique varnish, grim blackened Woodseal, and naked timber grey with exposure. The idea of stripper, sandpaper and cabinet scrapers was too tedious to contemplate. Then someone suggested the spokeshave, set shallow. Years of neglect and misguided titivation were soon fluttering on to the shed floor in delicate scrolls, exposing clean bright wood, and we were able to lift up our eyes unto the hull.
This was built in the late 1970s of top-quality marine ply by the Elliott brothers, Drascombe builders extraordinary.
Someone had cranked up the trailer rollers so the weight of the boat had sat on planks rather than the keel, and the planks were showing signs of strain on the inside.
We therefore went looking for epoxy, and found in the shambles of the shed vast amounts of the stuff, dating back some ten years. Ancient epoxy is said to be slow to harden, and none too strong when it does. So we mixed up very small amounts in little yogurt pots, threw away the samples that stayed sticky, and got serious with the stuff that still worked. We squelched marine ply patches on to cowpats of this, screwed them down to keep them in place, and went on our way rejoicing.
The centreboard pivot bolt was mild steel, appallingly rusty. When we finally knocked it out, using WD40, heat, sockets, Mole grips and finally a large hammer, it was worn to the shape of an hourglass. There were no stainless steel bolts in the shed, so, wincing, we ordered a duplicate in 316 stainless.
This is a nicely-built boat and most bolts and screws are bronze, so no rust there. In the rig, however, ancient galvanised shackles were getting ready to weep iron oxide all over the sails and rot the halyards to piecrust. By this stage the sun had come out, and it was pleasing to root for Dyneema in the serpent’s nest of string at the back of the shed, and subsequently sit on the step in front of it making soft shackles, channelling an antique fisherperson mending nets, and humming shanties in a coarse undertone.
Soft shackles fill their proponents with a mystic zeal, and you can see why. They are by all accounts as strong as steel, but without the clatter. The general principle, as all the world knows, is to make a sliding loop at one end of a bit of Dyneema and a knot at the other. The knot is shoved through the loop, which is then pulled tight. The crucial part of this process is the knot, a diamond knot, hellish complicated. Here at Lashup Yachts we prefer the knot known as the Enilwob, discovered half a century ago when we were failing to tie a bowline. The integrity of the thing is guaranteed by giving the free ends a good melting with the flame of a cigarette lighter, or possibly the candle you have lit to St Brendan the Navigator, patron saint of seafarers. Use them to attach old sails to new halyards, and up they go.
When this is done, and the bilges have been Danbolined (sticks even on our sloppily-prepared surfaces) it will be time for the brightwork – orbital sander, and many coats of Epifanes Rapidclear and finishing coats of high-gloss. Then, like Joshua Slocum when he painted his dinghy, we will hardly know her from a butterfly.
It will take months. By then we may even be allowed to put her in the water.
‘A challenge is a challenge and must be met by any means possible’