RESTORATION
| Wood works ( superstructure, cabin, deck and interior )
Photograph by James Bates
With our freshly painted and finished steel hull we started by replacing the oak frames and beams like-for-like. To do so, we selected a French oak trunk with a similar curvature as the camber of the deck. All deck beams were cut from the same oak trunk. A long length of iroko was halved and used for the main deck straps and various carlins.
The original coamings were transferred onto new large mahogany boards with portholes in the exact positions. After, the forward and aft sections of the coamings were installed, the aft being fitted in one piece so the companionway hatch board was cut in place from this same board.
The deck structure was completed when the coach roof was installed and any extra supports were then installed onto the beams as original. 10mm beech faced marine plywood was glued with West System epoxy, and screwed with A4 screws to the superstructure.
Yacht grade A quarter sawn Sri Lanken teak lengths and boards were halved to a maximum size of 50x12.5mm. This size was kept over the original 45mm wide planks to minimize waste. Each pair of halved planks were laid symmetrically onto the deck with 5mm spacings. The teak was fixed using Sika 298 primer and bedding compound. The deck is almost completely screw-less with a full depth caulking gap for maximum longevity. It was finished with black Teak Decking Systems (TDS) sis-440 caulking. The teak toerails were built using TDS as a bedding compound and the fixings were installed from below.
The main hatch, the aft locker hatch and chain locker hatch were made following the same construction. The new cockpit was built with beech faced marine plywood keeping the same dimensions as the original. However, the hull is no longer connected with four oak legs but using the new steel tube cockpit drains as forward support and the new aft 20mm beech faced marine plywood bulkhead as aft support.
The mahogany cockpit coamings were fitted on top of the teak deck as the original, and new winch bases and wooden cleats were made and fitted using the originals as templates.
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The interior was constructed using as much original wood as possible and leftover wood from the superstructure build. Most of the original wood was Gaboon marine plywood. The cabin’s sole is solid teak made with the remaining wood from the deck construction.