Bits and Pieces

With the floorboards installed, I left them sit in the boat for a week, then pulled them and varnished them.  I didn’t want the boards to be super-slick, so I only gave them four coats of varnish instead of six coats like I had on everything else.  The floorboards have a nice mellow tint to them.

 

2018 08 18 Floorboards installed.

It’s also time to install the oarlocks.  Tammie Norrie will primarily be a sailing vessel, but occasionally potato power will be used to propel the boat, for instance when the wind dies.  The oarlocks were re-purposed from Wee Lass, so they already had a nice patina.

2018 08 19 Oarlocks installed.

Like Wee Lass, Tammie Norrie has two sets of oarlocks.   Most of the time I’ll be seated on the center thwart and use the aft pair of oarlocks, but on occasion I’ll have a passenger sitting on the stern sheet.  In that situation, I”ll move to the forward thwart to better trim the boat, and use the forward set of oarlocks.

The stemhead needed a little bit of attention, in the form of touch-up paint and when this was complete, a piece of half-oval banding was applied above the bow eye.

2018 08 19 Stemhead details

A pair of mahogony cleats was screwed to the breasthook, and a towing bridle was secured between the two cleats.  Likewise, on the stern, a cleat was screwed to each of the quarter knees; these cleats will also capture the bridle for the sheet.

Hanging the rudder was next.  The pintles and gudgeons were ordered from Classic Marine in the UK; they are very nicely made but these are some serious bling.  Between the fact that they’re cast from bronze, and then taking into consideration the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the English pound, the cost of these were about the same as the plywood for the hull!

The castings were slightly narrower than the width of the rudder trunk, so I traced the outline of the casting and carefully inlet the trunk.

2018 08 06 Inletting the hinge castings.

With the lower hinge installed, I then held the rudder stock up against the transom to determine the location of the lower pintle.

2018 08 06 Mounting the lower pintle.

Finally, with the location of the lower pintle established, I could locate the upper gudgeon on the transom.

2018 08 19 Rudder hung.

The rudder is hung, but not quite complete.  Control lines for the rudder blade still need to be installed.

The rudder trunk was purposely designed to utilize the tiller from Wee Lass; I’m pleased with the tiller and not having to make a new one saves me several weekends of work.

2018 08 19 Tammie Norrie’s tiller.

The tiller is laminated from ash, has a little bit of ropework in the mid section, and a dolphin carcicature is carved at the front.  Why a dolphin?  Because I don’t have the skill to carve a mermaid.  The dolphin is not my own design, it is very similar to a similar carving shown in The Marlinspike Sailor by Hervey Garrett Smith.

Tammie Norrie will need some nice fenders. Plastic fenders won’t do; plastic fenders should be used on plastic boats.  I had some rope fenders on Wee Lass, but they were a little too small to really be effective.  I also wanted fenders that I could hang either horizontally or vertically, depending on the situation.  The solution was in Barbara Merry’s The Splicing Handbook.  I would make a slightly larger version of her bow pudding.

2018 08 06 The core of the fender.

I started with a section of 3/4″ manilla rope, short-spliced together to form a continuous loop, then worked a round seizing on either side to form the ends.  Next, pieces of 3/4″ rope were cut to serve as filler pieces, with the ends of the filler pieces stopping about 1″ short of the seizings.  These were wrapped around the core and tied off with small stuff.  Some extra hands help here.  Then a second set of filler pieces were cut, a little shorter than the first, and these were also tied around the fender.

2018 08 06 Starting the hitching.

To hold the whole thing together, 1/4″ manilla rope is needle-hitched around the circumference.  Start at the center and work your way out. You’ll need a Swedish fid to do the needle hitching.  You’ll also need a lot of 1/4″ rope, and a lot of patience.  The hitching in the photo above consumed 50′ of rope.

2018 08 19 The finished fender.

The finished fender is shown above.  To hang  the fender, I used some small stuff attached to small blocks; these blocks fit between the spacers on the inwales.

Next task is to make some more fenders.  I’d like to have four fenders total, but consider two as a minimum before Launch Day.