Ready, steady......

[Lesd]

Any closer to thinking up a name yet, Les ?

 

Hi mark, favorite at the moment is 'Roll On September''.....

 

Thats when its due in the water and we find ourselves saying 'roll on september' constantly so it could be kind of appropriate to name her such !

 

Les

[NB Willawaw]

Thats a lot of signwriting !!

[Lesd]

Thats a lot of signwriting !!

 

Maybe we'll shorten it to "Roll On" to save a few bob !

[Lesd]

Day 21.

Nearly finished !

Steve and the guys have added the side hatch doors;

 

And also the stern railings are in place, the gates will be completed tomorrow. They have also completed the 3 bottle gas locker / storage locker (its internally divided) that also doubles as a seat.

 

Im told the shell will move to the fitting out bay at the end of the day tomorrow ready for balasting etc...

 

Les

Edited July 16, 2007 by Lesd

[Lesd]

Day22.

Our shell was completed today and has been moved into the fitout bay. They push the hulls next door using a very large forklift and some kind of axel underneith !!! I'm really chufffed to see her to this stage after just 3 weeks.

 

You can see the completed stern deck rails and gates on this shot;

 

And the one piece side panels (above gunnels) on this shot, they should look great once painted (no weld distortion);

 

and Steve practising his fork lift driving skills !!!

 

 

Les

Edited July 17, 2007 by Lesd

[Barry]

Oh WOW!!!

 

3 weeks!!!!

 

fantastic

[blackrose]

 

I see they've given you some sort of cavitation plate on your rudder. It's meant to improve rudder performance.

[Gary Peacock]

I see they've given you some sort of cavitation plate on your rudder. It's meant to improve rudder performance.

 

Looks like it might be the means of re-boarding in the case of man overboard that the RCD dictates you must have! At least that's why we do it.

[Lesd]

Looks like it might be the means of re-boarding in the case of man overboard that the RCD dictates you must have! At least that's why we do it.

 

Hi Mike, Gary, they told me it was for climbing back on in case of an expected dip, as Gary said its an RCD thing as well as common sense, would be nice if it helps steer her too though !

 

I'll just finish off the shell build with a couple of last photo's of the locker and roof fiing detail. This one shows the gas locker on the right which will hold three bottles and a general storage locker on the left. The roof has no overhang above the lockers so these can be used a seats without breaking your neck;

 

 

this one the bow lockers;

 

 

Lastly some roof details, a fixings for the wind gen pole and cables and plates to hold the solar panel frames.

 

 

Well,thats the last of the build photo's , next post will be the start of the fit out...

 

Les

[Jason Wilson and Family]

Gorgeous boat, Les. Question for you looking at your floor plan and the finished product it looks like there were some internal changes made at some point. I notice your plan calls for a stern exit to starboard but the shell has the hatch to port. What was the reasoning there? Can't wait to see how the fit-out goes.

[Lesd]

Hi Jason, well spotted !

The final design is actually a mirror of the original plan I published above,everything is on the opposite side from that plan if you see wht I mean. I changed it after I had drawn the plans for two reasons. I wanted the chimney on the left side of the boat (away from walls in bridge holes) and also I wanted the seats/lockers on the stern deck on the right hand side away out of the steerers view.

I'll have some early fit out photo's next week, battenning and spray foamingneeds to be finished by end of next wek ready for the boat tobe painted the week after !

Rgds

Les

[Lesd]

Day 26.

A couple of pics from yesterday. The boat is now in the fitting out bay where Richard and his guys are hard at work. Work completed since the fit out began include two coats of bilge blacking on the inside of the shell (base plate and 2'' up the walls only, the rest stays bear steel for better spray foam adhesion)), all balast in place, battens in place, ply sub floor in place. Next step will be to spray foam, I think thats due later this week.

 

 

Also one coat of comastic blacking has been applied. The shell will be spray painted / oven baked in a weekor two's time and the second coat of comastic applied just before the boat is ready to ship in a couple of months (the top strake gets blacked also).

 

 

Thats it for now

Les

Edited July 23, 2007 by Lesd

[Carrie]

Blimey Les! I turn my back for 5 minutes and it's looking amazing!

[Lesd]

Blimey Les! I turn my back for 5 minutes and it's looking amazing!

 

Welcome back Carrie, I saw from your blog that you'd been pretty busy, hope the climate camp gies well again.

Yeah, Steve was pretty fast on the shell build and his quality and finish looks great tome. Now Richard is off at a good rate of knotts too, i'm going to visit them a week on Friday to see her for myself.

BTW I got the solar panels !

[bottle]

I am not jealous,I am not jealous,I am not jealous,I am not jealous,I am not jealous

 

 

If I keep saying it do you think I'll mean it

[Lesd]

Hi Keith,

It will be your turn soon enough mate, but I know how frustrating it is waiting for everything to fall into place and then waiting for your slot to come around !

 

Update for Day 28. Spray foaming was completed today. The guys at Lambon/Daddy's boats use an outside sub contrator for the task. It looks good to me, looks like at least an inch of foam, you can see the depth around the port hole as a guide.

 

 

Les

[Jason Wilson and Family]

I would have thought they would have filled in completely with the foam down by the waterline. Any reason not to that you're aware of.

[Lesd]

I would have thought they would have filled in completely with the foam down by the waterline. Any reason not to that you're aware of.

 

None that I'm aware of other than they probably dont deem it nescessary.Adding cost for no reason would probably be the answer if I asked !

I've looked at many spray foamed shells over the last couple of years (including several photo's on here) and I dont recall ever seeing one with an extra thickness at water level.

Les

[Gary Peacock]

Here's the theory:-

 

"Past the optimum thickness no real advantage is to be gained."

 

Could well be true but I think cost also figures in there a lot.

[Lesd]

Hi Gary,

Thats exactly what I would expect to hear, and it makes sense to me too if I'm honest. Its my money they're spending and enough is sufficient as they say. Im going to have a good poke around in the inaccessible areas when Im up there next to make sure the foam is everywhere it should be. I remember Mike (Blackrose) and Chris P (I think) saying they'd found some missing in certain areas on their builds, so worth a poke around !

Les

[Gary Peacock]

Hi Gary,

Thats exactly what I would expect to hear, and it makes sense to me too if I'm honest. Its my money they're spending and enough is sufficient as they say. Im going to have a good poke around in the inaccessible areas when Im up there next to make sure the foam is everywhere it should be. I remember Mike (Blackrose) and Chris P (I think) saying they'd found some missing in certain areas on their builds, so worth a poke around !

Les

 

Les

 

That looks a good job, the few companies who specialise in boats are all good at it. (Although the prices do vary a lot!) The companies to be careful with but don't necessarily discount completely are those that specialise in the building industry who might never have done or seldom do a boat, they can create a lot of work and do a poor job purely through lack of experience.

Edited July 26, 2007 by Gary Peacock

[blackrose]

I would have thought they would have filled in completely with the foam down by the waterline. Any reason not to that you're aware of.

 

I think the floors of most narrowboats & widebeams are well below the waterline - probably by at least a foot, so the sprayfoam does indeed extend that far.

 

Edited to say: I think I understand what you mean now - Why didn't they fill the empty sections on the walls below the gunwhales? It would take a lot of foam to fill all these spaces and most foamers wouldn't do it. As long as it has a decent thichness of foam down there it should be fine, although the area below the waterline is important because of increased thermal transfer to the water. After sprayfoaming some people fill these spaces with rockwool which is a bit more economical.

Edited July 26, 2007 by blackrose

[blackrose]

Hi Gary,

Thats exactly what I would expect to hear, and it makes sense to me too if I'm honest. Its my money they're spending and enough is sufficient as they say. Im going to have a good poke around in the inaccessible areas when Im up there next to make sure the foam is everywhere it should be. I remember Mike (Blackrose) and Chris P (I think) saying they'd found some missing in certain areas on their builds, so worth a poke around !

Les

 

Yes, check especially around the back or inside of any internal angle iron or 'I' beam cross members (under the bow deck for example) as these may get missed. I spoke to a guy who does fitouts on Liverpool Boats today while he was doing a warranty job for someone else. I don't know about other builders but LB use hollow square section steel tubes to strengthen the curved roof. My boat came as a lined sailaway is now 2 years old. During my first winter onboard I noticed a small amount of black residue on the lining just below the ceiling on the walls. It was a bit tough to remove these stains but once cleaned it didn't reappear again last winter. When I asked the guy from LB today he reckoned that the tubes may not have been filled with foam properly and condensation had built up inside which then ran down, so it may be worth checking this if your boat has a similar roof structure. If the LB guy was right I still can't work out why the problem hasn't recurred? - it was cold enough last winter and my big stove was blasting out heat.

Edited July 26, 2007 by blackrose

[Lesd]

Gary,

Thanks for the comment, my builder has told me this is a decent job done by outside professionals and it looks to be everything I expected from a spray foam job but its always reassuring to hear the same from someone that does this for a living !

Mike, your right, the waterline is way above the base plate, the spray foam foam goes down to 1'' above the base plate so the foam is well below the waterline.

All that said I'm still going to have a poke around in the inaccessible places next Friday lol

 

The next major job is the painting of the hull. Its due into the paint shop on Monday. The boat will be spray painted by a company that specialise in painting trucks. They happen to be next door to lambon Hull and have a 80x20' spray booth / oven which will accomodate our boat perfectly. The boat hull will be 'etch primed' and then sprayed to commercil vehicle standards. Im going on holiday tomorrow for a week but will be back next Friday, we'll go straight up and see the boat before going away for a second week (a bit of a rush but I dont want to miss this crucial stage). So I'll be able to post some pictures and comments about the boats paint job next weekend. I've seen one boat that was painted by the same people and to my eyes it looked superb so im hopeful, we'll see next weekend !

 

Rgds

Les

[Lesd]

Yes, check especially around the back or inside of any internal angle iron or 'I' beam cross members (under the bow deck for example) as these may get missed. I spoke to a guy who does fitouts on Liverpool Boats today while he was doing a warranty job for someone else. I don't know about other builders but LB use hollow square section steel tubes to strengthen the curved roof. My boat came as a lined sailaway is now 2 years old. During my first winter onboard I noticed a small amount of black residue on the lining just below the ceiling on the walls. It was a bit tough to remove these stains but once cleaned it didn't reappear again last winter. When I asked the guy from LB today he reckoned that the tubes may not have been filled with foam properly and condensation had built up inside which then ran down, so it may be worth checking this if your boat has a similar roof structure. If the LB guy was right I still can't work out why the problem hasn't recurred? - it was cold enough last winter and my big stove was blasting out heat.

 

 

Hi Mike,

Our roof supports are square section tubes too, see the photo below. I dont see how the spray foam could possibly fill these with foam as they are weled to angles at the top of the side panels. That said the whole tube is incased in foam so maybe that will stop any condensation forming, is your constructed differently ?

 

 

and then after foaming;

 

 

Les

Edited July 26, 2007 by Lesd