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

  Over the years of Mai Star II / Gadfly II life there have been many changes to the way she was decked and how the deck was fixed to the deck beams and the top plank. In the third phot you can see there is what remains of a iron nail which the old deck was nailed to the top plank with, although the  heads of the nails have rusted away, the nails were a good quality as seeing as the boat is now 83 years old they have not done too bad in all that time. However, the deck beams are not so good as the ends rotted away over time and the only thing holding the deck in in place was the in the top plank and the nails in the good part of the deck beams.  So along with the ribs and frames that have to be renewed there are going to be at least three new deck beams ahead of the cabin, Starting with the deck beam attached to front of the cabin.  The first job will be to remove the old deck beam and make a camber pattern to put the correct camber back in the deck and also the two ...

Yesterday I started to remove the last part of the starboard sheer stake plank to gain access to the back of the beam shelf/ gunwale to be able to pass the new steamed oak ribs into place after the old doubled and sistered ribs are removed. As you can see from this photo I have  uncovered a can of worms in the way of other work that is going to have to be done before any other work can be done on the sheer stake or any other part of the boat in this area. There is an area of expending foam in a void space behind the forward apron of the stem, there is a lot of checking in the breasthook and a former colony of woodworm long since gone away. So I am will have to make a new laminated breasthook and also do a repair to the upper section of stem to remove any rot that as travelled down thew stem that can not be seen from just looking at the exposed part. The copper nail on the upper part of the photo is a nail that was made up from a length of copper rod with the end pinned over to make...