Ben Wales has begun steaming in new oak timbers on his ex-Royal Lymington Yacht Club motor launch.
Ben, who is working outdoors on his restoration, says it looks as if all the timbers will have to be replaced, which will mean removing the engine beds… I trust the weather improves!
Putting in timbers is a two-man job. For steaming, Ben uses a lagged 4in x 12ft plastic pipe connected to a 2kW wallpaper stripper. It takes about 40mins to soften the timber; once that’s done, one man uses blocks to hold the steamed timber in the boat, while the other drills the holes and nails from the outside.
Ben’s researches reveal that the little launch has had an interesting history, including involvement in the Dunkirk evacuation. This is what she looked like in her heyday:
For more posts on this project, click here, here and here, and here and here.