At sea at last, first sail for Lady Min in nearly 30 years
I was delighted to discover that Lady Min has been nominated for the Restoration of the year award by Classic Boat magazine.
You can vote for her here and see the other entries here.
I’d be most grateful if you could take a few moments to vote for her.
If you would like to have your own boat restored, repaired or built don’t hesitate to contact me, Tiernan Roe, you can call me at +353 86 1586937 or by email or use the contact page.
Things were really starting to move along on Lady Min. The photo above is from the end of February 2020. Talk had started of a Summer launch. Alas it was not to be.
I was working on getting the last of the cockpit details finished before the boat would be moved to the boatyard for the adding of the keel and final finishing. The windows in the cabin are a nod to the Herreshoff New York 30s. As for a long time the Lady Min was incorrectly touted as a Herreshoff design. The forward openings will be fitted with fielded Sapele panels.
The cockpit was increased in size to accommodate day-sailing parties and the structure was kept as comfortable and light as possible.
The piece above is the deck collar for the mast coat.
This was pretty much how I left Lady Min in March 2020. I didn’t get to check on her for a few months and wasn’t able to re-commence work for a full year. I did however get to build the mast between projects at home in the workshop which was a bit of a squeeze building a 32′ mast in a 22′ long workshop.
If you would like to have your own boat restored, repaired or built don’t hesitate to contact me, Tiernan Roe, you can call me at +353 86 1586937 or by email or use the contact page.
Here she is almost ready for final fit out and engine installation. All of the painting is complete at this stage and now all the very careful installation of final trim and deck hardware is about to begin. Any mistakes at this stage can be very annoying and time consuming to fix.
There are deep lockers either side of the engine well that are ideal for fenders and boat hooks etc. They also house the batteries. All of the raw plywood edges are yet to be capped with oak trim. This is completely sealed in epoxy and varnish before being fitted.
Here the engine is in place and once installed the top of the well sides will be cut down to their finished height.
The rigging for the engine controls is being installed here the opening below the steering wheel is closed off in the finished boat.
Final touches going on here such as the seats, catches for the boarding ladder and deck cleats. She’s ready for sea trials next.
If you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
With most of the major elements of the boat built it is now time to move on to the internal fit out of the cockpit. Unfortunately due to Covid restrictions at the time of building, the client wasn’t able to attend the workshop to have a fitting to make sure it was totally comfortable. Luckily I had anticipated this and we were able to get everything perfect after a few months of use.
Above you can see the consoles for the helm and co-pilot and below the seats for the cockpit. I made these in the form of a plywood box for light weight and high strength. There’s still quite a bit of work to be done, fitting the engine, deck hardware etc. etc. and of course many many hours of sanding and coats of paint and varnish.
If you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
Here I’m making up the cabin sides after the deck has been laid and the interior of the boat painted. As usual the workshop is over full as evidenced by the pile of stuff in the foreground.
Yhis in the cabin interior layout. There is access to all areas under the seat and the opening aft of the clamps in the picture is where the chemical toilet will. I was still waiting on delivery of the toilet at this time, (COVID delay) so had to get on with as much as possible in its absence.
Final installation of the cockpit sole and margin piece to keep things from rolling into the bilge.
If you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
Once the boat was back in the workshop the work of making and fitting the deck structure could begin, before the building spalls ( athwartship temporary crossbeams) could be removed. The deck was jointed together in the traditional manner with sliding dovetails that were backed up by epoxy glue. They took a bit of marking out but were pretty quick to cut out and produced a strong and long lasting structure. All of the deck beams etc. are western red cedar which is light, strong and very rot resistant.
The cockpit sole is removable in the middle so that every part of the hull can been seen and got at if needs be. Each winter the area under the sole can be well ventilated also. The inside of the hull has already received three coats of epoxy resin in the photos.
Above is the initial stages of making the berths for the cuddy cabin. As always once everything is made and fitting well they are coated in three coats of epoxy resin and also painted if necessary.
If you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
With the planking finished it was time to sand down the plywood in preparation for the application of epoxy and fibreglass cloth on the under water areas of the hull. I left the top edge, sheer , of the planking uncut so that I can fine tune once it’s the right side up. It’s very hard to do this standing upside down.
I’m just about to pour on the epoxy in the photo above. The easy lines of the hull make this a relatively straightforward job. The fibreglass will extend down to the top of the bottom plank. It’ll be cut off after the epoxy has cure to a “green” state which is when it is just starting to get stiff.
The entire hull has now recieved three coats of epoxy resin. This was allowed to cure and then wet sanded in preparation for painting. The waterline will be marked and the under water sections of the hull will be primed ready for the anti-fouling.
Normally the roll over is quite a social affair as I gather up a few friends and we roll the boats over. They’re not that heavy just bulky. I realised I couldn’t do it on my own so I got my neighbour to come over with his forklift to do the job.
If you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
The planking of the hull is fairly straight forward once the forefoot panel is in place. There was a lot of scarfing and screwing and glueing the plywood to the framework.
Once the bottom planking is done the edges are trimmed back and the corner between the keel and the planking was filleted with a generous radius fillet to take the fibreglass sheathing. You can also see in the photo above that I’ve lined out for the planking with the temporary battens.
I had kept the plank templates from the first boat, even though I hadn’t been totally happy with the lining out of that boat. Not that anyone else noticed, I even had to point it out to a fellow boatbuilder.
I’m halfway through the side planking in the photo above. Happily the bottom of the boat is flat enough to hold tools and other stuff. Which is very handy but does lead to a build up of clutter.
If you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
Just as the first lock-down in March 2021 was starting I received a commission to build another of John Atkin’s brilliant Ninigret 22’s. I built a Ninigret as the first Roeboat in 2009 and it has been loved by its two owners since and has given them years of trouble free boating.
Construction began in early June and started with making up the frames for the boat. I had kept the original lofting for the boat and lot of templates for the planking etc. The lofting was very useful but the templates not so much.
Once the frames were assembled and the keel timber made it was time to set them all up.
It was fairly straightforward to get this done and required a lot of levelling and plumbing to get them in line. They didn’t require much fairing as I was able to pick up the bevels for the frames, most notable in the forward ones, from the lofting. Of course having done it all before made it much easier.
This piece of planking in the forefoot of the boat is probably the most difficult part of building this boat. The designer acknowledges that it’s not quite right for planking in plywood. The plywood is required to bend in two axes and that’s very difficult to do. When I built the first boat it took three attempts and lots of of clamps etc to get the first one in position. Subsequently the second one went a lot easier when I noticed that John Atkin had made the distance that I needed to cover exactly 4′, this allowed rotating the plywood 90º, making it a lot easier to bend into shape. As there is always an odd number of veneers in plywood so it bends easier one way than the other.
I’ll continue covering the build in next few posts. In the meantime if you would like to discuss having your own boat built, restored or repaired don’t hesitate to contact me, either through the contact page, by email or by phone +353 86 1586937.
After being shutdown for 3 months earlier in the year; it’s been busier than ever here at Roeboats. I’ll have more info about ongoing and upcoming projects in the future. While confined to the house for a few months saw a lot of garden and housework completed, I did get some time to build a new work punt.
As you can see it is a skin on frame pram that I made from bits and pieces I had in the workshop. I lashed the frame work together and covered it in natural cotton. I needed a new punt for getting around on the water for work. A light boat was essential as I would be carrying it on top of the van and sometimes I would have to carry the old punt quite a ways to launch it.
After first lofting up the punt from the plans for a Herreshoff punt in John Gardners book. I made up some molds and sprang the stringers over them and fastened them to the transoms.
The frames were then steam bent and lashed to the stringers. The boat is quite flexible which is good. She’ll hopefully bend instead of breaking.
Above and below the boat is ready for skinning. It’s very light at this stage.
I used 15oz cotton for the skin and on reflection this was probably too heavy. It will hopefully be extra strong. It took a lot of stretching to get a good fit and I needed to sew a dart in the forward section to get it to fit properly.
I got a lot of help from my son with this boat, he made the floor boards and helped steaming in the frames. He was also brave enough to go in it on launch day.
If you would like to have your own boat restored, repaired or built don’t hesitate to contact me, Tiernan Roe, you can call me at +353 86 1586937 or by email or use the contact page.
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