3 Mar 2020

With several boats now pretty much fully stripped we could examine the state of the underlying wood. The gunwale of Shamrock is too far rotted and much of the gunwale requires replacement so we cut away the rotten material and measured up for new wood. Wood hardener was applied to small areas of Waterlily and the forward thwart was cut out to be replaced. Filling of small areas of the keel of Saga was started.

Filling small holes in Saga

Cutting away rotten gunwales on Shamrock

28 Feb 2020

There's still snow on the hill tops of Hoy but not much remaining on Mainland so not too bad getting out to the boat shed today. The rotten rubbing strake was removed from Saga leaving a clean hull which could be sanded off. Wood hardener was applied to the soft areas of the underside which didn't justify replacement.

25 Feb 2020

Spar and oar stripping day and a bit of sanding on the exterior of Saga. Much quieter in the shed today as there was no wind.

Something missing from the top of the mast?

21 Feb 2020

Another day and another gale. The Northlink ferries are taking the day off but not the hardy OHBS volunteers. With the bottom of Saga pretty much stripped we started sanding the planks to fair off any stray bits of wood lifted by the scraping. We also started stripping some spars & oars which had been put aside for a rainy day.

Sanding in progress

Stripping a spar

18 Feb 2020

Despite the best efforts of storm Dennis a few volunteers turned out to complete the exterior stripping of Saga. With the exterior varnish now fully stripped she can be turned over again and the remaining bit of the interior finished of.

14 Feb 2020

After a short break from the manual work for (i) a sub-committee meeting, (ii) a visit to see some yoles in Kirkwall and (iii) a field trip to Deerness to inspect a dinghy the work crew are back on the job. The interior of Saga is nearly fully stripped. There remains a small amount of old paintwork still to strip in the bow but this is a one person job. Rather than one person working and four standing around chatting we flipped the boat over and got five volunteers working on stripping the exterior.

Working on the interior

Working on the exterior

4 Feb 2020

After the gales of yesterday the weather today was surprisingly good for another work session in the shed (it can be very noisy in the shed if there's 50+ knots of wind coming from the wrong direction). More progress made on the inside of Saga; more bits-n-bobs removed and further stripping of the hull.