Foredeck

August 2009. With the entire teak decks now removed and bundled away for use as patterns later, my next plan was to focus on the for'ard deck beams and the area of hull under the deck. Although Jado is amazingly rot-free considering her age, and the fact that she was moored for many years in freshwater on Lake Tarawera, whilst sanding back the deck beams I found a few small soft spots, plus one that was split. The central plank was also damaged as a bollard had been ripped out during a storm. I decided to replace the whole set. I started wondering if I'd bitten off more than I could chew when I removed the old ones and saw the joints I would have to reproduce! As there was no way to trial fit the unfinished beams I nailed together an oversize "t" from scrap timber, laid it on it's side across the boat from sheer to sheer, then used dividers to transfer all the 3 dimensional vital statistics of the joint to the new piece. The first one had to be made twice, but once I had got used to this method the rest went well, although very slowly.....