Boatyard work. Modified oiling apparatus

We started before 8 in the morning - NSS club activity: rising boats on land before winter. We were lucky with the weather - no rain and occasionally sunshine. We managed to finish the job before big rain in the afternoon.

After that I worked on Glypto for a while - finished cleaning plank seams.

Meritaten got linseed oil re-circulated. It was running too fast and was tricky to regulate so I’ve added separate flow controls for each tube, 4 in total.
It is much easier now to separately regulate the flow so that oil is dripping rather than flowing.

Linseed oil. Fireworks.

Short night visit to the shipyard, to check on oiling status. Both jugs were almost drained and bilge filled with oil so it was about time to re-circulate liquids.

Instead of time consuming oil suction from the bilge (below engine is the lowest point) I simply drained the oil into bucket by opening dyviken. About a glass of the liquid got spilled but otherwise it worked pretty good. Based on the amount left I estimate that wood took 1 litre of the solution within 2 days.

Re-filled the jugs, adjusted flow speed and headed home.

But before that - the usual ritual of burning all paper towels which got soaked with linseed oil - to avoid spontaneous combustion.
How romantic…

Oil leaks, Glypto renovation continues

Plan for today was to continue Glypto renovation. On the way to the workshop I checked on oiling status on Meritaten. Jugs still contain oil so I leave them to fully drain before re-filling.
I noticed oil leaks in some areas on the garboard and stems. When in water there are no leaks there but linseed oil, being much thinner than water, gets into all cavities and shows where the seal is weaker. I expect these places to be fully tight after oiling is finished.

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Kaika is now standing side by side with Meritaten but Jim was not there so I went to workshop, continue working on the dinghy.

After summer season the workshop got messy a bit so the first hour went into putting it back into order.

Today I focused on reefing all old sealing compound from plank seams. The original compound, used when she was built around 90 years ago, was dry and loose. Previous owner tried patching it with silicone which, of course, did not work well and caused me problems with removal. On top of that there were places where I tried to seal the hull with Ettan.

Port side is now cleaned and ready for new bedding. I’ve made a simple tool to facilitate easier seam cleaning.

It’s an old screwdriver which I shaped to thin and sharp hook. Works very well.

After I finish cleaning seams on starboard I will stain the hull and start bedding seams and side lists. Then, after brown Sika cures, I will start oiling with Owatrol.

Hopefully the dinghy becomes usable after this treatment. If not I’ll need to build something more reliable - a Peapod maybe. Or flat-bottom rowing skiff, in wood-epoxy technique.

Rain, oil and ozone

Good to be under roof today - rain and Sun take turns every half an hour.
Jim was taking up “Kaika” today - I’m sorry for you mate!

All spare parts and materials arrived yesterday so today I could finalise engine winterising. First step was to get it up in temperature and purge sea water part of cooling system. I connected sea water intake to a bucket and started the engine - now fed with sweet water and emulgating oli 10:1 ratio. Once Yanmar drunk the bucket it was warm enough for oil and filter change.

When done I started the engine again to adjust the new oil level and get it into all cavities. Cooling system was now purged from sweet water by antifreeze solution. Easy but little messy job - it’s hard to contain all possible spills in so confined space of the bilge.

In preparation for oiling the bilge I removed bilge pump and flotation switch.

This year I decided to run ozone therapy in the cabin: even though I’ve washed the whole boat before last season - and oiled it - we still notice the scent of “old cupboard” on clothes which were stored on the boat. This must sit in the wood itself so ozone would be the best way to eradicate the scent.

Roughly calculating it turned out that this volume should get 40 minutes of ozone dose. I removed all sensitive materials from the cabin (smoking pipes, tobacco and my cell phone), sealed the cabin and started the devil.

While O3 was killing everything inside I started building “linseed oil therapy system”. Nothing fancy - transparent tubes, split-connectors and collapsible plastic jugs to store the oil-turpentine solution. The idea is that jugs will collapse as they lose the oil so I will not need vents to keep oil running.

It took me a while and in the meantime the ozone generator finished the job. I opened the cabin and all hatches and waited additional 20 minutes before going inside. That proved to be too short: once in the cabin I made a mistake - I took a breath…
I jumped out of there coughing - and continued doing so for the next 20 minutes. Yes, this thing needs few hours to deactivate!

I went home for lunch and came back 3 hours later. It was now safe to go inside so I could install the oiling system. Following Börje’s advice I use 50-50 solution of prima-sort linseed oil and turpentine. The barrel I ordered is 25 litres of oil, same amount of turpentine came in 5l jugs. Not exactly cheap therapy but hopefully will make the wood feel good.

Two 5l jugs are placed on the fore and aft of the deck. Pipes go belowdecks via vents.

Routing and holding in place the pipes belowdecks was a bit challenging but at last they got their places.

I spend a longer while adjusting the flow so that it does not go too quick. The idea is that slowly floating oil will be absorbed by the garboard joints and keel timber. Once a week I will check if jugs are empty and if so - I’ll suck out the remaining oil from the bilge. It will then go back into circulation. This will also give me a hint how much oil was absorbed. This winter Meritaten is supposed to drink at least 50 litres. If that goes quick I’ll order more oil and will continue until Christmas.

Tomorrow I plan to continue renovation of my old dinghy Glypto - sanding, sealing the joints and staining. Then oiling with Owatrol.
I need space in the workshop so Glypto needs to be finished and moved out.

Leak location, house-keeping procedures

Probably not the most welcomed activity but cleaning bilge is a must, especially before winter. Brushes and hose made the job quick but dirty. I removed cabin sole to let the boat dry - no need to sponge the bilge because we are still having +15 degrees during the day, she should dry slowly within few days.
Nice and clean. Remaining broken ribs will need to wait till spring or next winter - they are below floor timber which takes the load anyway.

I wanted to have bilge cleaning done quickly since this coming week I will start linseed oil application. I’ll do it the way Börje was doing with Kaika - take 50-50 linseed oil with turpentine, hang jugs with this solution on both sides of the boat and let it leak into the bilge slowly. Checking and re-filling once a week, until boat drinks as much as possible. Turpentine should take care of all germs in the bilge - in case they want to breed there.

It is a cheap and simple method to keep the wood in a good shape. Börje swears for it - and he knows the job - so I’ll give it a try for coming years.

Having cleaned the bilge I wanted to test if I can locate the stubborn leak on the aft part of the hull. I closed dyviken and filled the bilge with water up to the garboard plank. Then went outside, dried the hull from any spills and waited to see the leak. My bets were garboard seam or rivet plugs. To check engine-bed mounting screws would need filling the boat too high - dangerous for the hull.

After a long while I located the problem.

That’s not good news. I was really hoping it is garboard seam, repairing it would be easy. This leak comes from a joint between keel timber and aft post - they are connected with a massive knee inside the boat. It is there Meritaten takes water - slowly but persistently so that the pump starts once every 2 days.

I really need to get a copy of her construction plans. Or remove garboard plank to take a look.
Well, at least I know where the problem is. The gap between keel plank and aft timber is not normal - at least on new boat. Timber has moved during all years of service, possibly developed checks in some places - and so is the leak. Oil can improve the situation a bit but it will not make a miracle.

While there was still daylight I scraped flakes of paint on the ballast keel (where I installed lead plugs last year) and on the rudder.

Already last spring I noticed that the rudder will need work. That’s good because I wanted to have a good look onto the structure and “wooding” it now will give me best insight.

As a last thing I removed lifelines and stanchions, in preparations for valdeck gluing. I still wait for tools to start this job, might be that I will need to postpone it till spring if temperatures get low quickly. My epoxy needs at least 6 degrees to cure properly, 10 degrees would feel safer.

Time to sit down and do some proper planning. It is easy to think that we have 6 months ahead of us and that the job can be done in time. Experience tells me otherwise. Especially that some steps require proper process temperatures - and me too: working in -15 degrees can be painfully slow.