Tortoise

[Tortoise]

Those on the London end of the Grand Union may recognise Tortoise; here's a picture before renaming:

 

 

 

 

She's a curious beast - built approx 1980, builder unknown. I intend to try to research her history at some point - I know she was called Lyndon before sold to the previous owners by Alvechurch, and that's about it...

 

V bottom, shallow at the front, slightly steeper in the back. Nicely proportioned, though, the cruiser deck and back front well were higgh priorities on the shopping list - a boat to be outside in. The sides are virtually all windows, too. Powered by a water cooled BMC 1.5. Hull overplated to well above the waterline with 5mm plate in 2000, which is a Good Thing, as otherwise she has a 5mm hull and 3mm top...

 

I bought her mid 2006 (first boat), and used her an a trip up to Braunston and back via the Thames to my home mooring at Iver. There's info (and more pictures) on this trip at:

 

http://tortoisetravels.livejournal.com/

 

The internal fit was basic & - well, bodged, and had been given a coat of white emulsion. Hmmm. Nevertheless it was a useable fitout, a single bed/bench that folded out to a double, and rear single dinette opposite toilet compartment & kitchen - Vanette cooker, and a Carabo stove for heating. Main problem has been that a leaking water tank (a Nautica flexible tank) had been slowly leaking into the front bilge, overflowing the small bulkead into the engine compartment, which therefore picked up diesel from a previous fuel leak, carrying it back along the boat and dissolving the bitumen internal bilge paint... ;-(

 

First job this year has been to strip out the fittings, front half first, scrape out the remaining bitumen, clean and paint. Rather me than you, you'd say - a very messy job. That's more or less done now, thankfully, and I'm reinstating a floor.

 

Initially she had a most flat floor on joists, bolted to angle iron welding to the boat a third in from each side, about a foot width pon each side sloping upwards. To achieve a much needed few inches more headroom, only the central third will be flat, which is fine for the new fitout I'm planning. The new floor is 18mm SRBP ply on 38mm square battens, with loft insulation underneath the side 'thirds'. The middle panels will all be removeable to allow inspection of the bottom of the 'v'.

 

That's about as far as I've got. The intended plan for the refit is below:

 

 

(port side at top, starboard below - I think!)

 

Previous layout represented by the broker's info here - image © VC Marine.

 

The side rear door gives as many possibilities as limitations - the bathroom with normally be a tiny toilet cubicle, but I'm hoping I can make it so it opens out across 2/3 of the boat, with a normally covered shower tray in the middle of the boat. I'm considering the facility to have bunks over the front bed/benches; at least one would give be a ready-made table, or desk if set at one side (which is why the benches are shown in thirds - the middle section would be removeable on at least one side to give knee space, and also to break up the seating for sociable evenings. That piece would also slot in the middle for use as a double. Normally sleeping three would be plenty on a 30' boat (17' cabin, due to that lovely cruiser deck), but occasionally... There'll be scope for a curtain to dvide up the boat for privacy, although I need to think carefully about keeping it (and bedding on the port bed) safely away from the stove.

 

Now the floor is more or less done, I think next step is to de-rust and paint the interior upper shell, and start tackling the outside paintwork, which is decidedly lumpy. I'll be losing the colour scheme - black all the way up to the gunnel, and a dark red for the sides, I think:

 

 

I'm also considering the merits of losing the middle big windows, as shown above - the stove flue will run past one, and it'll gain valuable wall space.

 

Comments/suggestions welcome; no need to tell me I'm a fool, though, I know I'm that... ;-)

Edited April 18, 2007 by Tortoise

[Tortoise]

The floor/bilge in the main body of the boat (i.e. not engine space under the back deck) has now been scraped/cleaned of residual bitumen, most of which had been dissolved by the leaked diesel... that's been painted with grey primer/undercoat, and bilge paint in the middle third, the bottom of the 'V'.

 

New flooring has gone in; simple inch-and-a-half battens, framed on each side, with long runners in the angle iron that runs longitudinally in the boat, supporting the flat centre section; here's a picture of work in progress:

 

 

(Note flue hanging down from roof; as far as I can tell it's all welded in. It'll all be cut out, as I'm moving the stove, when I get other metalwork done).

 

I've ended up using glass fibre loft insulation under the outer boards; I'd semi-deliberately put the battens at 16" spacing (3 gaps per 4' length of floor) to allow for this. At time of writing I've done the full length of the boat, bar the awkward front where it starts curving up into the prow.

 

I've started turning my attention to the outside of the boat; being moored on the outside of another, I had no towpath access to the side, so ran up the engine and took her over to the other side of the canal, and took out the windows:

 

 

This was back in my mooring, where I do at least have mains power; I could lean out of the window with the angle grinder, with a wire brush fitting...

 

After window removal and cleanup with a chisel, the sides were in this state:

 

 

Wire brushing out the loose stuff gave me clear confirmation of the horrible truth; Tortoise was once painted yellow:

 

 

(strata go from exisiting green, down to red oxide base).

 

Chiselling out raised paint to expose the rust underneath confirmed what I expected - the sides are reasonably sound, but there's some rust, some of which has gone right through under the eaves. I'm hoping to have a length of new metal welded on the inside of that, giving me something solid to fill against; what treatment/filler I need to use, I'm not sure. That might be overkill; it might be better to replace the metal in that area, or just rely on the filler, without solid metal support.

 

I've High Line's wet dock booked for mid-june at the moment; I want to get the welding, filling & prep done before then...

Edited April 28, 2007 by Tortoise

[Tortoise]

Quick update; the boat's currently awaiting the weather to allow a welder (working from a workshop boat, living on a widebeam alongside) to completely replace both sides. may seem a bit extreme, but this way I get decent metal again, and have had great fun moving windows around - I'm taking it down to 5 windows from the previous eight (eight! on a 30' boat...) - using the small ones for bathroom & kitchen on the port side, 3' one for the dinette on starboard, then a pair of big ones either side for the saloon/sleeping area at the front...

[Tortoise]

Big changes - after investigation into how rusty the sides were (they'd rusted completely through in a few places just under the junction with the roof - possibly condensation from the inside as much as poor paintwork on the outside) the recommended action was new sides. On the way to a certain well-known Middlesex boatyard for a quotation, spotted a guy who did welding from a workshop boat who also quoted for the work. The upshot being that the boatyard couldn't be arsed to get back to me for a price with the work, so I went with Mike anyway. A month later he'd fitted new sides, and cut a much reduced window layout, as planned. I had the Cowley wet dock booked anyway, so after spending last week in there, she now looks like this:

 

 

lack of prep time before getting into the dock was a pain, so the gunwales & upper hull didn't get half the sanding & filling I would have liked, just primer, undercoatx2 and then a coat of black. The cabin & roof had a better time of it - primer, two coats of undercoat and three of topcoat. The Blakes 'Bordeaux Red came out a lot brighter red than expected, but it's the darkest one they do - apparently the now discontinued Cherry Red would have been darker. Oh well - it's a lot, lot better than how it was.

 

I've finally put in the raised ledges as a temporary measure on the inside - I've had one as a bed for a while, but now they're all the way down both sides, meaning I can not only put thinsg down without them sliding, but I can really start to play with the internal layout, see hgow it'll work - and I think it will work well, actually. I've also got a draining sink again, and somewhere sensible to put the electric cooker... ;-)

 

Next jobs will be mainly on the inside - replace a roof support strut, then primer on the new metal inside, battens, insulation, and the fun bit of the fitout... ;-)

Edited June 26, 2007 by Tortoise

[Lesd]

wow what a transformation. I bet you're well pleased with that !

[Tortoise]

wow what a transformation. I bet you're well pleased with that !

 

 

Indeed - it's intresting scrolling up and down the page looking at the older photos... the new sides meant I could have the windows where I wanted them, making the internal layout better two. I do wish I'd rollered & laid off every coat of paint rather than just the top coats, but I'm learning a lot with everything I do... something I might consider in future is a red stripe along the upper part of the hull (where the yellow used to be, more or less), but that's what photoshop's for... ;-)

 

I'm (thankfully) enjoying the project, but looking forward to getting out on the cut again...

[Tortoise]

Slow progress over the summer; I needed to get Mike to put more steel struts in the roof, but once that was done things were a little more solid. Inside steelwork got nearly as much paint as outside; red primer, 2 coats of grey undercoat and then a layer of domestic gloss. I could then put some battens in - inch and a half for below the gunwhale (matching the depth of the existing strengthening strut) and inch for above, again matching the metalwork. Although I did use grab glue on these, they were all alos held mechanically, screwed in in various ways, some using small homemade L shaped brackets, one arm of which was rivert to the square section metal struts. I've put in lengths of 18mm ply directly under the gunwhales; the sides overlap the gunwhale internally, so the battens could be be screwed into that via 4mm holes in this overlap. I got through a fair few 4mmm drill bits, I must admit.

 

Again with half an eye on future condensation, I used sprayfoam insulation, a DIY kit. It suited me to do it myself, whilst saving myself some money it is was probably 50:50 whether it would have been worth getting a professional in. Anyway, the tanks were warmed up courtesy of Tony on Highlander's bath, and it went in OK, even under the floorboards in the outer thirds of the floor (some of which may need to come out for ballast in time). I wasn't sure how easy it would be to cut out the surplus, but a large panel saw did the job fine, which meant I could really go for it on the second pass.

 

It's made a huge change - the boat is now of course warmer, reatains heat for longer - and also quieter inside. It sounds like other people's boats do, rather than a tin box, which of course it was.

 

I've started on the lining itself, putting in the boards under the gunwhales first. Some of the sheets of ply have got water damaged whilst on the roof (I actually couldn't get them inside until the flimsy front wooden doors were actually taken out completely), so the worst bits have been placed whether they won't be seen when fitted out.