Restoration of the classic 1930's yacht Gadfly II/Mai Star II

  This past fortnight as be busy with other projects, mainly the big boat up in Woodplumpton which needed a fair bit of work doing to it. That is to say the engines in her needed to come out and be disposed of. this meant I had to go to the boat and organise the removal of the wheelhouse roof in order to  get the engines out of the engine bay and out next to the boat.  This job took a little bit longer than I had planned for, however, it is now done and the rest of the work on the boat in Woodplumpton can be put on the back burner for now and the work on Mai Star II (Gadfly II) can restart. The first job will be to remove the cabin structure off the boat to give access to all the areas of the hull that need work doing on it. Namely the frames and ribs that need replacing especially in the port side side forward. This area is the worse affected area with the most broken and rotten top of the frames.  So as soon as I have a few hours spare this will be my nex...

 I am hoping to get on with removing the last bits of rib in the bilge area on the portside in the forepeak. There are a number of bits of old rib that was not removed when the rest of the ribs were removed earlier in the year. They will be removed by way of an angle grinder and a grinding disc to remove the nails in the centre of the roves and then punched out through the plank and removed using a pair of pliers. This process will be repeated until the short bits of ribs are removed from the bilge and then the area will cleaned of any old paint and dirt and vac out and dried out and made ready to be primed before a new steamed rib is fitted and nailed back in position.  The same will be done on the starboard side in the forepeak as there a couple of sistered ribs which need removing and the original rib needs replacing with a rib which is in one piece and not like it is presently in two parts. Another job which will be got underway will be the making of two or possibly three ...

The seams on the port side above the waterline are now done  The starboard side seams are getting there just a few more feet to go before they are done as well  A big task ahead in the cabin, especially in the forward end and amidships  There are a number of repairs needed in the bilge area especially the ribs and the inner hog which needs sorting out