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| original well, ugly but functional - or so I thought |
I’m hoping to get a fresh start on the boat next week. In
recent weeks I have had to abandon planned and sequenced work in favour of a
more opportunist approach, doing what I can, when I can, working round the
professionals I engaged to remodel the cockpit and engine well. For new readers
I should explain that, I bought this boat as a ‘modified’ Westerly Nomad. These
boats came with inboard and outboard options. This one however, had been
modified at some point to create an outboard well in the cockpit. At the time,
I was quite enthusiastic about the modification because it seemed to offer me
the best of all worlds, an outboard which could perform like an inboard. I
don’t like to see outboards strapped on the stern of boats, I find them ugly.
What is more, I have had cavitation problems with almost every strapped on
outboard I have encountered. They simply don’t bite deep enough and as a
result, in anything of a sea, the prop is spinning in air as much as water. The
other advantage, is that it is much easier and cheaper to maintain an outboard
than an inboard. You can take it to engineers rather than having them come to
you and out of season you can store it at home.
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| great hole in the boat - frightening! |
Well, that
was my thinking and I still stand by it but unfortunately, having bought the
boat, it soon became clear that the well had been badly constructed – in fact
it was downright dangerous. It first came to my attention that all was not well
when I discovered two sea cocks, presumably water intakes and outtakes for an
earlier inboard engine. These seacocks were still attached to rubber hoses that
seemed to go nowhere. An engineer soon discovered that their purpose had been
modified and now they were supposed to serve as cockpit drains, but the cockpit
had been cut in half by the new outboard well. We then discovered that to drain
water past the well, holes had been cut into the plywood walls. The bare
plywood was now delaminating and the strength of the box was degraded. On
further examination we discovered that the GRP sheathing on the plywood was
megre and poorly attached in places. In fact it was so bad that under the boat
large patches of it could be broken off simply by getting your finger nails
under it. The guy who modified the boat had simply tried to stick GRP mat over
old antifouling.
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| finished well - waiting for final gel coat |
I read all I could about GRP and was about to attempt a
rebuild myself when my old boss got in touch and asked me to undertake a twenty
day project for him. It was a tempting offer, the money would pay for a new
bathroom in the house, it would be a significant contribution to the renovation
of my barn, and there would be plenty left over for a weekend in Paris with
Susan. The downside of course, was that it would take me away from the boat. So
I called in the professionals to undertake the work on the boat and used a
little of the money to pay for it.
The work involved a lot of grinding cutting and glassing in
so even though my Jersey project is now completed, I have had to work around
the professionals to make sure I’m not making dust when they require a dust
free environment. Despite these problems however, I have to admit that the work
these guys have done is absolutely outstanding. They have turned a practical
but ugly modification into something that looks as if it had been part of the
original design, building a beautiful sloping half deck around the well and
creating a cockpit that drains water into the well invisibly.
There is an interesting relationship between time, money and
skill which fascinates me and I’m still exploring it. In this case if I had
done the boatwork myself, there would have been no labour costs but it would
have taken at least three times as long and the result would not have been so
aesthetically pleasing. The route I took was to undertake a different (non
boat) project that took less time and earned significantly more than needed for
the boat, and then I used some of that income to finance the boat modification.
The outcome was a better job done on the boat and less effort for me. All
things should be done in moderation however, I mean, I wouldn’t want to use
this argument as a reason for going back to working full-time for the man – oh
no I’m far too busy for that – or at least I will be when I get this boat on
the water!
Seaward
