CVRDA

Well done for saving them from export to China. It looks as if ZEUS was refitted not so very long ago. As you may see from the "repairs" section I bought GALATEA, a sister of ZEUS, from Eyemouth, at the same auction and am currently tidying her up. Since GALATEA is sail number 478, built i...

And I am worrying about the garboard strake/hog area, not because I can see anything wrong there - I can't, at least, not yet - but just because I don't see any way of keeping the boat safe except to painstakingly dry the whole of the bilge with a sponge whenever one sails her, because there must b...

I was thinking of doing this, as we already have a Firefly. The two boats already share the excellent Sovereign combi trailer... IIRC, according to Uffa, Firefly is 90 sq ft and the 14s of his day were 125 sq ft (plus unmeasured jib overlap!). The booms are almost the same length, doe to the Forefly...

Ribbed 14 horror story from a well known boatyard in Aldeburgh; a customer of theirs having a boat in similar condition to Galatea as found took a belt sander to get the old varnish off and took off the heads of the copper turned nail fastenings. She has to be refastened throughout.

Aargh!

I love these old 14's, we have one in the roof of our club house she is Destiny no 526? built in 1947 by Souters apparently the last one built the same way as yours. She had sat outside in the open & her bottom planking was nearly rotten & badly distorted aft of the plate case. No way of fi...

Yes Oxalic usually works very well on solid mahogany. On a moulded hull the glue will have penetrated the veneer which can make it more difficult. Thanks again. This is after two applications: https://s20.postimg.org/9fppyu9fx/IMG_4200.jpg The worst bit (had been black): https://s20.postimg.org/lvm...

Last week - port side "as found", starboard side after first scraping



The state of affairs tonight... first 50% thinned coat of Epifanes.

Varnish stripped externally. The easiest way to get rid of "n" coats of copal varnish is to dry scrape as using a heat gun makes it sticky! One cracked strake, starboard side, some trolley scuffs, one rather nicely fitted graving piece and just as I was congratulating myself I found some r...

yes a few appliocations completely removed a very black area onn aan Albi - just remeber it is acid! Thanks Chris. First application has turned "black" to "grey" and incidentally I noticed that it has a cheering up effect on the colour of the surrounding intact wood. The Firefly...

Has anyone had any luck with oxalic acid to remove the dreaded black stains where the varnish failed?

Tiny brass screw questions... 1. Is it a good idea to try to remove the brass keel band, and the gudgeon and pintle on the transom, for varnishing? 2. Should one try and remove the brass hood end screws and replace with bronze? since Photobucket are playing silly beggars, the photos are all here: ht...

Bravo!

You beat me by miles!

Very, very, glad to see this.

A propos Sweeney Kincaid, we were well treated in Eyemouth and they did very well to locate and hand over Flying Cloud's lugsail which we were collecting for T_G.

A propos of nothing much, I have used a yuloh ,and they are very effective. The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club (yes, it's still called that in English, and the suggestion that the Chinese name is "The humble persons' sampan association" is a vile calumny...) used to maintain a Club fleet of Bo...

Good news about Chinese buyers, let's hope their is a market developing for classic boats in China, always more boats available than buyers. Perhaps their is a Forum in China for sailing we could twin with ? Very difficult country to access with google search etc. Google and Facebook are blocked by...

I agree with Toby's comments in the post above this one. I have just been told that the Chinese buyers are perfectly genuine, that they are setting up a museum, and that they took advice from the NMM, but that they "got a bit carried away" and bought many more boats than they should have d...