July

Our rudder is back in place again. We cut off the wooden shaft and replaced it with a steel shaft. Mostly so that the shaft could be inspected if it ever needed to be. It doesn't affect how the rudder works and doesn't put any extra force on the steering gear.

 This is how we put this new shaft in. Through the roof! When you don't have enough space to put it in you just need to cut a hole. It all works.

 Shaft all greased up as we set it down through all of the rudder stock. Messy.....

 But Warren doesn't mind. An experienced mechanic is pretty used to grease.

 The start of the steering gear fits well

 The steel frame around the gear will make it sturdy. Reassuring while out to sea.

 We welcomed a new daughter in law on July 13. Congratulations to our son, Sheamus and his lovely bride, Jaime. We had the wedding here in our field and it was a beautiful  day with lots of family and friends.

 The deck is now all finished.

Putting in the final pieces in the bow.

Raising the cabin sides. We had to do it in parts so we routered  the pieces and put in a tenon. 

Caulked and seam sealer. So that we can put the steering gear in permanently. 

Foremast  hole.

 Steering gear with hydraulics. Yippee!

Scroll work starting on the bow.

A little look from the bow aft. It's been a busy couple of months. We are still waiting to put the top pieces on the fuel tanks. It has either been hot and dry of pouring rain. Neither are great for welding. 

We have had some visitors the last week or so. From Ontario and Newfoundland  and New Brunswick  and today a couple from Texas stopped by with their relatives who live locally. 

A great start to the building season

I don't know where you live but it's been a long cold winter here in Nova Scotia and so far the spring has been on the coolish side too. BUT.... in true maritime fashion  we will prevail. We have made a start back at Lena Blanche while finishing up a couple of last things on the 'little' 46 footer that we're building during the winter. She is called the Helen Florence for any who would like to look her up on Youtube.

So far we have fabricated the steering gear for LB. This will be run with hydraulic pistons. For the sake of saving some time we're not going to cast the mechanical steering pattern and all that goes with it at this time. That may happen in the future. The hydraulics will be great and it will work really well with the 2 steering stations that we have planned.

 The hydraulic pistons will be on either side of this apparatus in a push/pull fashion. This has been sent off to the galvanizing plant and should be back this week.

 Once we have it back it will all be put together and installed.

 Shaft from 1922 reduction gear. All taken apart and a new 3' shaft made. We are waiting on bearings to re assemble. I believe we found the last 2 bearing for this particular model in the world. Of my, thank heaven for Ebay.

 This is our rudder. Yes, it was on the vessel the last time you saw it. We decided to take some advice from a very learned friend and replace the wooden shaft with a steel one. That way, should we ever need to get it inspected, we will be able to remove the shaft from the upper side without disturbing the rudder and then reinstall. While we were making a new shaft for the rudder we also line bored the hole out with a pretty fierce cutter (seen in a pic below). Warren and I both had to hold the 1/2" drill to keep that puppy under control. We drilled a 6 5/8" hole through 6'  of the rudder port to receive a pvc sleeve. It fits perfectly with the steel shaft. Again, everything it at the galvanizing plant.

 These windows are a salvage from another yacht. The cross hatching is leaded and I think they're teak. Anyway, I thought they would add a touch of old world charm to our little schooner so I have been trying to sand off umpteen years of varnish without destroying the wood or the glass.

 These are hold downs for the planking on the 'little' 46 footer. Ours were quite a bit larger than these so we had to make new. (And they work like a charm)

 PVC pipe in the rudder port ready to be caulked and ready for the new shaft and rudder.

 6 5/8" cutter for rudder port. This cutter was custom made here in the shop for this job. It has teeth on both ends of it.

 This is the start of the new fuel tanks for LB. These will fit along the outside walls of the engine room in the vessel.They fit the shape of the hull and we are able to keep them quite low for extra stability.

 Doing a little grinding.

 I got a nifty new plasma cutter that has made making the rounded shapes so much easier

 I had to add a little bit of extra protection (from the sun mostly). I did have my blue rag all tucked in behind leathers for those who would be concerned.

 A closer look at the cutter.
So, it's been a busy couple of weeks. I feel like we've gotten more done so far this year than we did last year. I hope it keeps up.
Today someone stopped by with several hundred pounds of lead for the ballast. We're always looking for lead. So, if you know of any (cheap or free) please let us know. We will be melting and pouring it into ingots that fit in the bilge.
Thanks for continuing this journey with us.
Warren and Andrea

A little update

The summer has flown by and now we are into fall. We had a late start to the building season this year but with everything else that was going on we were able to get a few things done. The vessel has all been sanded and painted (note the red bottom paint as well). It looks good and nice to see her all prettied up. The rail is also planed, sanded and ready for the router.

We are working on making the fibreglass tanks, both grey and black water and they are coming along quite well.

Rainy Day

Well, it's a rainy Saturday here in the boatyard. We did some work this morning and decided that an afternoon rest was in order.  So, here I am catching up on a much needed blog post.
We are finally back working on Lena Blanche. It feels good to be back in the shop although the air conditioning in the other shop was pretty nice, especially since the average temperature has been about 28 degrees plus humidity.
We started off sanding the hull and fixing anything that needed a little tlc. There were some plugs that needed to be cut off, which showed up some bolt holes that needed plugs. Also any dents or big scratches in the wood that were missed before. Then we went to Halifax and picked out the colour for the hull at Sherwin Williams,  it is a lovely Ivy Green.

As you can see we have already put a coat on the stern, just to see what it looks like and we changed the colour on the half model to get an idea of the end result. 

We have set up and cut out the 1 inch trim line above the scuppers which will be painted gold and we have marked and cut in the waterline. We have been eating pine saw dust for several weeks. Ha

It hasn't all been work, though. We were invited to the 300 anniversary of Whitehead, NS last weekend and truly enjoyed our visit there. NS has some of the most beautiful coastline around.

It was a beautiful day. We also got to see Canada's sailing ambassador,  Bluenose II. She arrived a day before the festivities and the Captain and her crew took part in the fun.

We also had an opportunity to be a part of a 60th birthday and a 60th wedding anniversary celebration further up the shore. Lots of friends, good weather and good food. 

We stopped in to buy some halibut from one of the local fishermen and he had a little something extra for us. 

Thank you Jason Langley for the absolutely stunning compass. This shock proof piece of navigation equipment will be used to guide our way. It will be a great addition to the wheel house.

That's about it for now

Canada Day and other things

A belated but still celebrated Happy Canada Day. I am always amazed at the blessing of being able to live in this great country. We did not get to see the fireworks this year, however. Our town decided to change the location for setting off the fireworks from an open field (where we had a front row seat from our house) to the roof of the local library. (I'm not entirely sure how that got past the local fire chief). Anyway, we missed them and I'm pretty upset about it too.

On to happier things. This year so far we have had visits from about 175 people. It is always a pleasure to meet new folks and see old friends too. People have been great about coming on the weekends if they can and when they can't we've tried to make the time to show them around anyway. We are just cluing up the last of the first part of our clients new vessel that we're building. We will continue that in the winter when work on Lena Blanche is no longer practical because of the cold. This week we should be getting back to work on our beloved schooner in earnest.  It has been too long.
We were visited by the 4H group again from this area. About 20 kids, leaders  and moms/dad's came to see the progress in both shops. We spent 1 1/2 to 2 hours talking about tools, woodworking and interests that the kids had. A couple of the kids were pretty interested in the little skiff boat (a type of row boat) that we were building so maybe in the future they'll try that for a project . Before they left they presented us with a beautiful cutting board. It is truly a work of art.

They also gave a beeswax polish that they made. Oh my, does it smell good. Much thanks to all of you for coming and for the lovely gift.

We also received something very special. A friend of ours called us up one evening and said he had work for us the next day.  I was a little confused at first and asked what we could do for him. "I'm sending your masts tomorrow morning ". Wow. Late last fall we went on a hike with Brian Fields and his wife Sandy and we found a couple of black spruce trees that we thought would be perfect for the masts  for the boat. Brian cored them and they looked pretty good. Later in the winter he fell them but didn't like the look of one of them. A long story short he found another very tall black spruce on his father in law's  property and fell that too. On Sunday morning were saw our masts come rolling down the street atop a load of other (very small by comparison ) logs. It was a sight to see.

A big thanks to Ron Slocum of Great Village who trucked and unloaded this rather unusual load with excellence.  We have been de barking them for the last few days so that they get a chance to dry a little and to keep the bugs out of them. They look fantastic and we can't wait to see them bedecked with sails. Words can't say how thankful we are.

I guess that's about all for now. Smooth sailing.