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| Repairs fastened and bilge keels fitted |
Attention was turned to preparing the boat for re-painting. The garboard seam was already open and sections of the existing stopping and caulking had been falling out. I made a tiny seam rake to clean out the whole of the seam right up to and including the stem post.
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| Garboard seams raked out using specially made tool |
New caulking was driven in. One side was more open than the other and took between 4 and 6 strands hardened up with a make-shift narrow caulking iron I ground up from a hacksaw blade. One day I will come across or invest in some proper tools for this job and learn to do it properly, but each time I have had a caulking job - which is not often - I have made a custom tool. Nanw's garboard seam varied between 1/8" and 3/16" wide only, opening to 1/4" or more at the stem seam.
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| Separating cotton strands from the roll/bale, between 4 and 6 were needed in each garboard seam |
Once the caulking was driven home and hardened up the seam was payed with Sikaflex. Not traditional but a) Sika remains slightly flexible and b) I had an open tube of this expensive stuff left over from a job on the Finesse and I found that it soon goes off if kept hanging around. Next job is to finish stripping the rest of the old paint.
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| Caulked seams payed with mastic sealant |
