A couple of us took the opportunity of an empty building to test all the fire call points in our area of responsibility. These all tested satisfactorily and the fire log book has been updated.
We also continued work on hanging some old banners on the walls to brighten the place up a bit and remind us of past achievements.
With a break in the snow, albeit still very cold, we moved several more of the smaller boats and a number of pallets of marine artefacts from Ness to the Old Herring Factory. Again a lorry with a crane was used as this could lift all the heavy items. We haven't yet decided on how best to arrange the boats for storage, so it is simply a case of off-loading them and leaving them in the middle of the available space for the time being.
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| Linda ready for up lifting |
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| Preping Linda for the lift |
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| Labradorite rock (ballast) being up lifted |
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| Saga ready for moving |
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| Waterlily, Linda & Saga off loaded |
A number of OHBS's smaller boats were today moved from their temporary storage location to the Old Herring Factory in Stromness. The move was performed using a HIAB lorry with a hydraulic crane. Plan A of driving the lorry into the temporary shed didn't work out because the roof was too low. Plan B loading through a side door worked out fine. Off loading was relatively easy as we could make use of an old loading/unloading bay door and simply pull the boats off the back of the lorry into the shed.
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| Plan A didn't work |
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| Plan B worked |
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| Unloaded boats in their new home |
Strong winds prevented the movement of some of the smaller boats to the Old Herring Factory so instead work concentrated on domestic improvements.
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| Cover fitted for outside lock |
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| New lock barrel fitted to store |
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| Light switches labelled |
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| Repairs to door handle |
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| Hand towel dispenser fitted |
We continued work on getting the new storage location ready to receive boats and also be ready to allow restoration activities to recommence. Old storage room locks which have not been used for years and had rusted up have been replaced so we now have secure storage for the more valuable tools. Holes in the outside wall were patched and our new hazardous materials cupboard was moved to a usable location.
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| Secure equipment store |
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| Hole patching |
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| Hazardous materials cupboard |
Work continued on preparing the new storage location. Part of the prep work involves making our part of the location fire safe, other work is to make the location more comfortable. Much work is currently focussed on removing old factory fittings which we do not require or no longer work.
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| Fire Door Signage Fitted |
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| Coat Hooks reinstalled |
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| Coffee Break |
The removal of unwanted equipment and fittings has continued at the new storage facility. While some volunteers removed or moved equipment others worked on trying to reinstate locks and other fittings that had seized up with years of inactivity. Some supplies have been moved from other storage locations but have yet to find a permanent home so are scattered around the floor at present.
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| Materials awaiting a new home |
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| Pipe work being removed |
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| Internal walls removed to open up the space |
The lease on a new storage facility in Stromness at The Old Herring Factory has finally been signed. Work could now begin on removing some of the internal walls which we needed to removed to open up additional storage space.
Today the new coaming strips received their final fettling and were screwed in place using new Silicon Bronze dome headed screws. The aft coaming strip is still being worked on and will be fitted next. The top edge of the new coaming is currently rough cut and will require planing smooth and routing off to a soft round top edge.
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| Fettling the new coaming strips |
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| New coaming strips screwed home |
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| New aft coaming strip being fitted |
With many volunteers otherwise occupied over the summer months and a delay in accessing our new storage facility restoration work has been minimal for a while. Summer is now pretty over for most people so OHBS activities are picking up once again. While we await access to our new storage facility some work has continued at Ian Richardson's yard in Stromness.
Work has resumed on Saga with the main effort now focused on fitting new coaming boards. The old coaming boards were deemed too badly worn once they had been cleaned up.
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| Old & new coaming boards |
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| Tricky joint at the front |
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| Trimming up at the back |
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| Anyone know where the vac is? |
when they get inside a shed is that they leave a mess just about everywhere. Birds have been nesting in one of the sheds in which we have some of our boats stored. Rather than evict the nesting birds we instead left them undisturbed and covered all our boats with thin plastic sheeting. The trailers and other equipment will still need washing off at some point.
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| Some of the mess |
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| Laverne recovered |
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| Laverne recovered |
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| Before |
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| After |
Instead of one group working on Saga in one shed and another group working in another shed we all got together to work in one place for a change. This allowed us to make some progress with fitting of a new thaft to Linda and some sucking of teeth about the fitting of a new thaft to Waterlily.
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| Fitting a new thaft to Linda |
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| A partly fitted new thaft on Linda |
With the arrival of the sailing season several OHBS volunteers have been occupied getting their boats ready for the season which has meant an interruption to restoration activities. However, we managed to restart work today both on Saga and cleaning & painting work at the Ness site.
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| Removing broken screws on Saga |
After cutting out a number of broken screws from the deck framing and plugging the holes we test fitted the original coaming to see how things were shaping up. Not too good. Something has changed shape (not unusual) and the original coaming boards no longer fitted snugly, we had 10mm gaps in a couple of places so onto plan B = fit new coaming boards.
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| Test fitting the original coaming boards |
Work is continuing on the ex-steam launch Nellie. A lot of time has been spent cleaning out the interior of Nellie which had suffered from years of coal dust, oil and salt water being ground into the bilge area. With the cleaning phase over, focus has shifted to painting. Much of the interior has now been painted and some of the deck level wood work has been stripped and re-varnished.
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| Nellie interior |
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| Nellie interior |
Nellie spent much of her time while on the water moored to a buoy. This meant that she rocked or rolled in any waves that hit her from the side. A previous owner fitted a wheel on an axle to a bilge pump which meant that the rolling motion had the benefit of pumping the bilge out.
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| Nellie bilge pump wheel |
Working on Saga. The new rubbing or side strakes arrrived today. These will eventually be fitted to the outside of the hull so that they are flush with the new deck. Before we get to the fitting we need to finish planing back the outside edge of the new deck and drill the strakes ready for screwing to the hull. The screw holes will then be plugged to hide the screws. In the meantime we have been working on the foredeck trim piece, this is a piece of sapele that covers the joint between the two sides of foredeck.
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| The new side strakes |
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| Marking out the foredeck trim piece |
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| Cutting out on the foredeck trim piece |
