Northern Yacht Restoration | Bolero, Shields Class #9

Bolero Project | Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I began by washing and lightly sanding the first coat of filling compound on the coachroof, then cleaned up the dust. It would need another coat to completely fill the weave of the cloth, but I left that for the end of the day.

Meanwhile, I prepared, reluctantly, to remove the toerail so that I could install it again, this time permanently in a bed of sealant. Before I could remove it, though, I had to complete a minor interior rounding edge detail, one that I hadn't completed earlier because I needed the oarlock socket blocks to be located first, so that I could leave those small sections of the toerail unrounded so the oarlock blocks could smoothly integrate.

Since I'd improperly located these blocks the other day, I used the same procedure to locate them in their correct positions a bit farther aft, sanded the tops of the blocks so they were flush with the toerail tops (I'd left the blocks just slightly overtall to ensure a flush fit later after sanding), and then hand-sanded a slight roundover on the inside top edge of the toerail, beginning with 120 grit paper and then ending with 220 grit. I cleaned up any other parts of the rail that needed so as well. Finally, thinking ahead to goopy reinstallation, I applied masking tape along the edges of the rail on both hull and deck so it'd be in place when I reinstalled the rail presently.

To remove the rail, I began on the starboard side, and slowly, carefully began removing screws in more or less the reverse order of their installation--stern to bow, supporting the rail with lines as it became necessary.

During installation, I'd spun the head off one of the screws, located about amidships. I hoped (and planned) to be able to lift the rail off the remaining shank without damage, and to that end I thought it might be good if I unscrewed the rail from both ends first to relieve all curving pressure. However, as I removed the second screw from the bow, it bound up and I spun the head off. Now I had two screw shanks to deal with, but was also much wiser: from then on, I started all the screws' removal with a hand screwdriver, and paid more attention to how the rail might be springing to relieve pressure on the fastener during removal.

In the event, I got the rail off--but not without some very careful work to pare away the wood from around these two screw shanks, using a small drill bit, awl, and small screwdriver, all the while taking pains to not damage the plug counterbore or other parts of the toerail. I considered using a small plug cutter (which has a hollow center) to remove wood, but it was too large to fit into the hole. Surely there's some miracle bit or another that would have done what I needed, but I didn't have one, whatever it was. One makes due with what one has.

With the starboard side successfully removed, I repeated the process on the port side--this time much more quickly and without any screw tragedies.

One feature of the boat of which I've talked little here, though the owner and I have been well aware of and frequently talked about it since the first viewing of the boat back nearly one year ago in June 2007, is this so-called "chainplate hump" on the port side. The result of some long-ago chainplate-related deck damage--and subsequent repair by some nameless, faceless person--this hump was quite noticeable from certain angles. Much earlier, I'd determined that attempting to "undo" the repair that essentially fixed this distortion firmly into place was not worthwhile: the repair was sound, if poorly conceived, and it would have required a lot of work to redo the area for little overall gain, or at least that was my thinking at the time. Perhaps I should have done it then; but I didn't. I still think it would have been a lot of unpleasant and difficult work that lacked guaranteed results.

Located right at the chainplate location, the hump--formed when the old chainplate design apparently lifted the deck by nearly 1/4" in the center of the hump--really came into its own when I installed the toerail. It certainly wasn't the first thing one would notice, but it was undeniably noticeable the way the toerail was forced to curve over the top of this area. I wanted it to not be a problem; I avoided looking at it; I hoped little elves would show up overnight and make it go away, but sadly I came to the realization that I'd have to address a fix to allow the toerail to form a more appropriate and steady curve that approximated what the sheerline should be, rather than what it was. Fortunately, a similar area on the starboard side turned out to be minimal and didn't impact the toerail much or at all.

So, before I removed the port rail, I marked the fore and aft extents of the hump on the rail for future reference. Once the rail was on the ground, I contemplated the unsavory task before me. Once more, the demons whispered in my ear that I should leave it alone and just live with the wiggly sheerline. I so wanted to listen to them and heed their wise advice, but in the end I decided it'd be more fun to modify the toerail to allow it to hide the hump from the most important view: sheerline profile.

Much earlier, and again now, I considered somehow milling down the edge of the fiberglass deck to create a recess for the toerail as one means of correcting this problem. But with 1/4" of material to remove, I just wasn't comfortable with this, despite the fact that I knew there was plenty of deck material left, plus the repairs, plus the additional reinforcement I'd installed when I rebuilt the chainplates before. It just seemed drastic and perhaps not smart. So that meant I'd have to pare away a concave section of the bottom of the toerail assembly to allow it to pass over the hump and have the lower edge of the exterior rubrail portion fall into the proper line with the actual sheer of the boat.

From a piece of cardboard, I made a template of the chainplate hump by holding the cardboard to the hull and tracing the deck line from within. Then, I transferred this shape to the inside face of the toerail, sharpened my chisels, and prepared to mess up a beautiful piece of teak. After scoring the pencil line with a sharp knife, I carefully pared away the teak beneath (well, above, actually, since the rail was upside down on the floor) the line, starting at the edge and working inwards. I took it slowly, very slowly, and once I'd made the first indelible cut, I found it wasn't so bad after all, and went rather quickly. Still, it wasn't the most relaxing of tasks until it was done. I cleaned up the curve with some sandpaper, and hoped that it was in the right place and of the right profile.

With that out of the way, I applied a sealer coat of varnish to all sides of the rails, and left it to dry for a while. Then, I mixed up some fairing compound and applied the second thin, weave-filling coat to the coachroof. Several hours later, I returned and applied a second coat of varnish to the now-dry-enough toerails.

Total Time on This Job Today: 7.25 hours