Glypto moving to new workshop
In Glypto!
Arbetsplikt
I’m fully occupied with house renovation - we move in in few weeks - so there is not much time to spend on Meritaten these recent weeks.
Today, however, I had to be in the boatyard - to help with launching club members’ boats. Weather was beautiful so the work went smooth and by 13:00 we were done.
I had to wait for my girls to come with car to pick me up so that gave me few hours to work on my boat.
Pumped the bilge dry to measure amount of seeping water - within 3,5h it was almost nothing. That’s good.
Tightened the rig and set-up boom.
The wind got strong, gusting heavily at times so I did not put sails on. Better to do it some calm evening, to spare sails and drama.
Meritaten är tät!
Varje dag efter sjösättning är jag i hamnen, för att kolla om allt är OK och att Meritaten flyttar. Länspumpen sköter jobbet bra, solpaneler försörjer elen till batteri - allt fungerar som det ska.
Idag hade jag mer tid att ta hand om små jobb som var kvar att göra innan segling.
Först hade jag pumpat läns torr, för att begripa hur mycket vatten egentligen tar hon i dagsläget. Jag var på plats minst 2 timmar och konstaterar att hon knappast tar någon vatten nu! Det betyder att den ena källa till läckage är spricka i kölplankan vilken jag fyllde med Farm 100 innan sjösättning. Annars är hon tät!
Jag hyvlade stickkojs plywood, för att anpassa det till ceiling. Nu går det igen att lyfta underlag och nå under kojen, utan behöv att skruva bort ceiling plank.
House-keepiing procedures tar alltid lång tid så jag hann inte spänna riggen ikväll. Ska göras de kommande dagar - jag hoppas börja segla på helgen.
Sista jobb var att kolla om livsvästar behöver service. Yep - deras koldioxid flaskor har passerat bäst-före datum, samma med ventiler. Jag ska byta både två snarast.
Launching!
When I arrived quarter after eight Anders was already shifting boats standing in front of Meritaten. I took his suggestion to not look onto his hands and left him with the task of lifting the boat from winter hall. I waited at the waterfront. Weather was beautiful - chilly but sunny, no wind. Perfect weather to launch a boat.
Finally they arrived.
I forgot to tell Anders that he should not use my new winches to tie the boat to a cart.
Too late - he used exactly these winches!
Anxiety before launch - shared with all wooden boat owners, I think.
So finally - again after half year of winter pause - we go to water. This spring was very windy, wooden boats got their seams open so there could be problems with amount of water ingress on first contact.
Indeed, water started to get in, as usual, but there was a new place on port side where I had particularly rapid ingress. I don’t recall having it so strong in this area before.
While Meritaten was still secured to launching cart I stayed under deck and monitored how quickly water gets in.
After a while I decided that the pump can cope with it, no problem. I gave Anders a nod to immerse her all the way. We had just half meter water under us so in case shit hits the fan it was not long to the bottom.
The pump was starting every 10 minutes or so while I was trying to locate the place where water was coming as strongest. It happened to be under pilot berth, third plank from garboard.
Anders and Erik were surprised that it went so smooth. Apart from Kaika (of course) all other wooden boats had problems this spring, they had to keep doping them in water for few days before wood finally swelled to the extend that pumps could keep up with water level. I think that my plastic bottom-dress, sprinkling with water and soaking with linseed oil give results.
I stayed in cockpit, preparing stuff for rigging and monitoring bilge pump. From time to time I was pumping her dry with manual pump, to save the battery of automatic pump. Meanwhile Anders was lifting my mast from storage rack. It was a calm day - not many launchings planned - so I had all the time to prepare the mast for lifting.
Börje came to the slip, having some splitting job on Dyneema rope for the boatyard. We talked while I was preparing the mast and smoking pipe.
Meritaten was launched shortly before 9. I was ready with rigging for mast lift around 12 and by that time bilge pump did not have to engage so often. Boat was getting tight already.
After some delay, due to problems with mast crane, I finally could start the engine and move towards the crane. By then weather started to deteriorate - clouds came and wind was getting stronger.
I installed the mast quickly and was left alone in the slip. It was time to move to my summer harbour, before weather gets even worse.
As always - the wind was pushing us towards the pontoon so it took me some effort to rotate 3,5 ton boat, by hand, to convenient position for leaving the dock. As all Laurinkosters, Meritaten also does not like to go backwards and she refuses to listen the rudder so it’s better to rotate her by hand or rope-work.
Finally out on the water - we moved to the summer harbour, just few hundred meters away.
By that time the wind was increasing in strength, it took me a while to adjust mooring lines so that she was steady fastened in her place.
It’s a new harbour for us. Contrary to NSS boat-club here most owners have multi-million crowns worth boats. All of them are bigger than Meritaten and the harbour is scaled for them so with my small boat I had to be creative to fix mooring lines to too long booms.
Looking on Meritaten versus her neighbours reminded me conversation with Anders this morning. He also noticed how big boats have became since my boat was built. At her time she was considered a big boat. Janne, who built my boat and his own Andrina, while sitting in Andrina’s cockpit was looking from above on all other boats of these times - Neptun-kryssare, skärgårdskryssare etc. All of them were lower - but often longer - than Laurinkoster. He was sure that nobody wood need bigger boat than Laurinkoster.
Well - look how wrong he was!
After checking that all goes well with bilge pump I installed solar panel to keep batteries loaded and left my boat. I will visit her at least twice a day these coming days - to be sure she is OK while swelling. The rig is still half-loose, I will tighten it once all planks sit where they are supposed to.
Shortly after I came to my car it started to rain.
Good timing indeed!
Tidying-up before launch
Short, evening visit to check if all is tip-top before launching tomorrow.
It is.
When I arrived it has just stopped snowing and sun shined again, melting all snow sitting on roof-tops. That resulted in water-showers around the boats.
Fog started to rise, resulting in high humidity - I could not dream of better conditions before launching traditional wooden boat! The hull will get humid, hopefully resulting in planks swelling and closing seams already on land.
I talked with Anders and we agreed to launch Meritaten early morning tomorrow - so we have enough time to rise her from sea-bottom in case she takes the whole Mother-Ocean inside her hull!
On my way back through the woods I drove slowly through the fog. My dear elk-friend was alone this time - his/her friend wandering somewhere around, probably.