Keels - The whole sorry saga.

Yep, everything from the start in October 2008 all the way to the end in May 2017 here it is in picture form. Don't say you weren't warned!

Google Photos Album link here.

Rudder - New ideas to old problems

Probably the first major job i tackled was removing the old rudder and assessing its condition, 10 ten minutes with a 20 & 40mm forstner bits proved the rudder was pretty fucked, the core black and disintegrating. So what to do? The original plan was to make a plug with an eye to taking a mould and making one and maybe several, this became known as the 'oil tanker' rudder. 

Having made said plugs (two halves) i stored them in my loft thinking that was the safest place only to bring them down a couple of months later to begin glossing and polishing with an eye to taking a mould from them. Problem was they got badly water-damaged in the loft so in the skip that went and a new rudder would be constructed around the old stock.

Google Photo Albums link here.

2016/17 - A cessation

There's only so much you can bare when you realise your heart and head aren't in it anymore, this was very much my last couple of years on the project up to 2017. I basically just did days here and there throughout 2016 and part way through 2017 when i finally had had enough and through the towel in.

As in life it was no one big thing but many smaller things that coalesced in me an extreme melancholia accentuated by several projects i followed on the web all chucking it in for much the same reason i was. No money, no time & therefore no chance of finishing - a complete despair if you like of being in my early forties and flat broke with this fucking boat still in my back garden. But i still got things done in between the darkness.

The last time i did anything of merit was four years ago to the day of writing this but tomorrows another day and i'm making my way back be it slowly........

Google Photos Album links here.

2015 - Revelations

In so far as i remembered how to bend ply evenly without it breaking and also my attempts to conquer the window frames finally paid dividends in the shape of some carbon/oak units that turned out nice. I also got to finally execute the drawings Eric Sponberg did for me in 2012 to mount the mast.

But once again paid work would take me away from the project for long periods of time and so progress was minimal but a result of this was my electrical work coming on leaps and bounds as i refitted the van to live in which needed insulation, power and storage so a great primer for the Centaur.

Google Photo Albums link here.

2014 - Progress, yes - but i was phoning it in.

The idea to build a shop proved fruitful as i use it today to make custom joinery and cabinets but i thought this would be the injection of enthusiasm that would get my head back in the game. It didn't and to be honest 2013 was the peak of the project in terms of committing to doing as much as i could and it turning out pretty decent. 

But - i dunno, you know when you're on autopilot and things appear to get done but you don't know how, this was 2014 compounded by my now permanent anxiety of no money, no savings and spending my days pouring everything into this project. Eventually it wears you down but i rounded out the year with engine in place and many new parts fitted.

Google Photos Album link here.

2013 - It began to look like a boat again.

In hindsight this was my most productive year, i got so much done and as usual with little to no budget, this did start to wear my down towards the end of the year what with paid work still up and down i couldn't ever get focused and with the lack of work space it drove me into the floor motivation-wise.

I took the now foolish decision to cut out the inside of the boat as most of it was rotten and didn't really work and to alleviate my ever-growing unease i built an extension to the shed.

Google Photo Albums link here.

2012 - A pause in the proceedings.

Thanks in part to a contract on the IOW, work on the boat slowed to zilch in the early part of this year but with more breaks later on in the year as work ground to a halt some progress got made. Got on sheathing the keels and hull, the keels because the weather had partially destroyed the epoxy coating due to the iron expanding underneath. 

So not for the first time it was back to the drawing board by way of chopping the dead bits of keel away super-heating them and eventually vacuum bagging three layers of cloth over each one to isolate from the elements. The real highlight towards the end of the year was bolting the keels back on.

Google Photo Albums link here.